On September 2003, a certain record by an aspiring quartet that’s approaching middle age from New Jersey is out with nothing short of rave reviews. Among the most notable is from a 9.5 from Pitchfork, an A from respected music critic Robert Christgau, & a perfect 5 from Tiny Little Mixtape. Many praise it for its mix of both catchy could-have-been hits & heart-rending ballads that touches on broken relationships & disillusion on all fronts. Boasting a surprisingly varied influence that contains lead vocal performances from all 4 members, there seems to be a potential for the band to not just flourish, but rise up from years’ worth of difficulties to make a run towards leaving a mark in the rock canon. Given the little fanfare that the band had, a lot can be said about the increasing attention given to the beloved record – especially in its potential impact made on the indie rock scene as a whole.
The album’s name is The Meadowlands & it’s made by the Wrens. Founded in 1989 through the partnership between guitarist Charles Bissell & the 2 brothers in Kevin & Greg Whelan followed up with Jerry MacDonald as the drummer, the four spends much of the 90s under the impression of the promise that’s yet to be found. Unfortunately, years pass by since the release & not only have the band fail to capitalise on the acclaim, but they proceed to focus on their daily lives with their family & day jobs. While later bands like Cymbals Eat Guitars would owe their charm to the Wrens, there’s little recognition that could be found around them in regards to being the greatest in independent music, let alone an occasional shoutout. How did a cult classic, for all the hype it had gained from the likes of Pitchfork, end up fading into a seldom-discussed diamond in the rough?
Delve deep into their history & you’ll find what could be best surmised as a tragedy set from the beginning. Especially now with the recent album by Kevin under the project of Aeon Station, it’s apparent that the long delays that defines the band’s brand is more detrimental than it is helpful even with the mythology surrounding them. The history of the Wrens is fraught with as much regrets, self-sabotage, & disappointments as the very songs that they’ve crafted. It’s easy to recall, for the context around the production of The Meadowlands, how the remodelling of Grass Records into into Wind-up Entertainment force the band to leave the record label to preserve their creative integrity. However, how much does it really help in the long run of their career & to what extent does that decision have in giving the band their own identity?
Let’s start from the beginning. According to a featured article by Pitchfork, it all began with Kevin’s attempt to get a boost in his aspiration by opening for the new wave band the Fixx in 1989. Enlisting his brother Greg & friend Charles Bissell, the three would find their fate unwind when the headlining band cancelled their performance, leaving them alone in front of the empty stage. With the later addition of Jerry MacDonald on the drums, the band undergo through a lot of changes in their name before settling on the Wrens by 1994 with the release of their debut Silver. When 1996 comes around with Secaucus, the band find themselves enjoying a newfound wave of attention as a bit of a darling in their native New Jersey – many note their more sophisticated take on power pop with a blend of noise pop & Midwest emo for influence.
Of course, it all comes crumbling down with a feuding war over their creative rights with Alan Meltzer when Grass Records get acquired in 1997. Following a lot of complications around signing with major labels like Interscope (which inspires ‘This Boy is Exhausted’) & a spell of writer’s block from Nebraska’s The Reader, the band found a new home in Absolutely Kosher Records to release their newest record. You all know how well The Meadowlands have done. Hype is built around the potential 4th LP from them as a result, yet life itself gets in the way of progress as all 4 members settle down into having a family & dealing with their own issues. Fast forward to now where not only is it clear that the album might never see the light of day, but the band is unlikely to ever reunite owing to creative fractions & impatience around Bissell’s lengthy songwriting process.
What strikes me about the Wrens’s collapse is on the spectre of their failures which inform their third album & how much they’ve gradually drifted from the possibility of committing fully into it. Virtually every review of the record agreed on how important the previous years of being unable to make a living off of making music is on top of relationship issues. Yet, an interview from Stereogum suggests a bit of eagerness that the next album could be the it moment for the group to depart from their mundane lives & chase their dreams of being recognised musicians. Unfortunately, it’s apparent that the untamed DIY ethics of the band is the problem as even from the very start, the band would send out mocking letters to every record labels that would cost them an opportunity to get signed with them. Even Kevin acknowledged the self-sabotaging ways when asked by the Irish Times, saying that he’s unable to make a compromise on his creativity the same way that the likes of Arcane Fire had done to succeed as artists. It seems that the one solution is that sometimes, someone has to make a personal sacrifice if they even wanted to get a shout-out over their project & with Kevin, that decision is breaking a long-time friendship.
The tragedy behind the breakup of the Wrens lie when compared to a certain latecomer band called the National. The two band, as far as what my research goes, doesn’t cross over with one another at all, but the story is similar. While all 5 members hail from Ohio, they struggle to find a balance between their artistic aspirations & their day jobs with lead vocalist/lyricist Matt Berninger being in the advertising sector for instance. They would often attempt, with a lot of bumps, to find a way to prove themselves in the scene that largely favours younger, more experimental musicians & it’s until 2005’s Alligator when they saw the potential to do away from their ordinary lifestyle. Most of the band are in their thirties, yet they still seek to make it through to near-mainstream attention with their themes of disillusion.
Sounds similar, doesn’t it? That’s when the difference starts to pour in as while the hesitations of the Wrens cost them their chance of making a living off of their work on a regular basis, the National takes a dive with considerable success. The three-punch momentum following Alligator catapults the band to near-mainstream recognition comparable to their younger contemporaries like the Strokes or Bright Eyes to the point where they’re now able to quit their former jobs to enjoy their lives as musical artists. This success is further compounded by the more systematic songwriting process where the Dessner twins in guitarists Aaron & Bryce would focus on the musical composition while Berninger dedicates himself to the lyrical cotent.
In the meantime, Jerry, Kevin, & Greg’s job has grown to a point of seniority, meaning that it’s next to impossible that they’ll find the chance to even make whatever songs they desire, let alone sell them commercially. Charles’s job as a stay-at-home guitar teacher sees a meagre amount of money earned, but his control over the band’s social media account have shifted more towards being alike to a personal blog due to both health issues & his draftings. Now, it’s been widely publicised that it’s his insistence on making sure that everything fits the way he envisioned it is the prime factor behind Kevin’s fallout with him – & presumaly with the rest of the band as well.
I was very upfront. I was saying every option is on the table. Everything. We could scratch the record and go and make a new punk rock record. We could do everything. The only thing I could no longer do was wait. I could no longer believe it was going to be finished.
Kevin Whelan, The Independent
On the other hand, Charles defend himself by saying that Kevin’s goal of releasing his songs as Aeon Station is done behind his back. He asserts that Kevin’s perspective of the drama paints him as a hot-tempered perfectionist & that it leaves him befuddled. Between the different views around wherever the Wrens will ever get back together (Kevin being hopeful while Charles consider it dead), there’s virtually no chance that we’ll hear of the Wrens’ 4th LP soon. To say that they missed their shot is quite an understatement. It’s a disaster that keeps on expanding further & further until everyone is left with debris.
[…] this has been a difficult & confusing last couple of months since all of this came to light, & that’s after a difficult last two years, for all four of us (beyond the obvious for all of us, I’m meaning more band hijinks here), &that after a preposterously difficult 10 years […] my songs have also been done for a couple years & will come out now…as a solo album, I guess. Which is just incredibly weird, and sad, to type. But not a big deal in the bigger world.
Charles Bissell, @thewrens on Twitter
Ultimately, the Wrens serves more as a bitter tale over how reluctance to fully commit to a goal can result in it slipping away from your fingertips. There’s no denying that it’s important to have a backup plan to fall back on when everything goes awry, but what about the inversion of such? What if everything is going splendidly for you to the point where it’s commercially viable to try & go towards whatever ambition you have? All 4 members of the Wrens, so attached to their day jobs & their own artistic ethics, have failed to strike the iron & have now reached a point of disjunction over their dying goals. Charles have said that he’s planning on releasing the rest of his materials from the scrapped 4th LP as his solo debut next year, but it’s hard to tell if he’ll deliver it given the endless amount of delays from him. As for Greg & Jerry’s own musical career? Still in complete darkness compared to Kevin’s.
If there’s one silver lining that could be said around the Wrens’ legacy, it’s that they’ve given a big nudge that making music as a side job & hobby isn’t all that terrible. Pitchfork once wrote on how a growing number of bands from the middle class in the U.S are producing albums independently while they’re committed to a full-time job. Thanks to the success of The Meadowlands, it’s made apparent that anyone could create a record of substantial worth even if they’re busy with their lives. It might not beat out the potential in living life as a full-time musician, but at least it’s better than watching it wither away without doing anything, right?
GutterPutter 
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