Says Simmons, “It’s cool to see your name on the lineup, but I want to warn, ‘yo, this might not be worth your time.'” And all of them play the Skate Stage, a notoriously under-attended sideshow compared to the Tidal and Rocky Stages, clearly bigger priorities to Roc Nation in Philadelphia.
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Any given year, the lineup will include a few selections from the upper echelon of post-hardcore: recent bookings include Basement, Touche Amore, Code Orange, Turnstile, and Into It. “We were debuting The Things We Think We’re Missing, my guitar was broken for like two songs, and we only had 30 minutes,” Simmons recalls. Rolling Stone premiered the video for “Tiny Raindrop,” and it’s one of Simmons’ proudest memories of his career.Īnother ostensible peak came when they played a frazzled but rewarding set at Jay-Z’s Made In America Festival in 2013. Released on the modest Huntington Beach-based label No Sleep, it debuted at #53 on Billboard’s Top 200 and I’ll argue that it was one of the major turning points in emo, pop-punk, and post-hardcore media coverage in the past decade. That’s how it always goes, it seems.”īalance And Composure had also reached a familiar commercial pivot for rock bands in their position - popular enough to justify continuing if they really wanted it, but the stress increasing at a faster rate than their success.Īfter a pedestrian debut with 2011’s Separation and years’ worth of unglamorous opening gigs, exponential artistic growth resulted in the justified and unexpected success of 2013’s The Things We Think We’re Missing. I like performing, I like writing, but you can’t be touring for three months straight when you have a family at home. “I saw it coming to an end the last tour, but we didn’t make a statement because we truly didn’t know until we met up a couple months ago,” says Simmons.
Throughout 2017, Balance And Composure would continue to play shows with ringers filling in on bass and guitar, and those that remained grew increasingly exhausted re-teaching the same songs to each new lineup. You get beat the hell up over the years.” “And then we hit a deer a week after the accident, real hard. “There was a really ‘on edge’ feeling any time we got in the van for a whole year after the accident,” Simmons says. “We fell 75 feet and ended up 120 or 125 feet from the side of the road.” The band miraculously suffered few physical injuries, but the financial and emotional toll steadily accrued with interest. “We flew off the side of the road and it just dropped straight down into a ravine,” drummer Bailey Van Ellis told Entertainment Weekly in 2016. About a month after the release of their 2013 breakthrough The Things We Think We’re Missing, Balance were involved in a catastrophic accident where their van skidded through a construction site in the rain and through a 10-foot rail opening. Guitarist Erik Peterson and bassist Matt Warner both got married in the time since Balance And Composure’s sleeker, more electro-leaning 2016 LP Light We Made, while guitarist Andy Slaymaker will be hitched in October.Īll of this made soldiering on an even less attractive proposition for a band already traumatized by their near-fatal touring experiences. As one might be able to guess from his new home, the depression was partly due to the weather and also the anxiety of being in a city where your social circle really starts to shrink if you haven’t settled in with a family by the age of 30. Simmons goes on: “The band broke up and I was kinda depressed in Philly. And during our phone conversation, whenever he tells me he’s about to get honest about this situation, it always sounds like he’s asking for permission - in particular, when he talks about his move to Los Angeles this past April, citing a “mental breakdown,” accompanied by a slight, disarming chuckle.
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“We didn’t know how to answer that really for a while,” Simmons admits. And yet, whether that constituted a hiatus or a final bow was unclear to their fans and even themselves. In December of 2017, Simmons let slip during a podcast that a short run of 10-year anniversary shows in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York would be their last US tour.
Likewise, Balance And Composure allowed themselves to exist in a state of self-imposed ambiguity throughout 2018, frustrating their diehard, hoodied fans. The Balance And Composure frontman carefully admits to the one criticism he’s taken to heart over the years - that his lyrics can run a bit vague compared to the stylish, slegdehammer alt-rock of his band. Jon Simmons admits he’s trying to be more direct in 2019, but it doesn’t come naturally.
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