Division Day: Surviving Beartrap Island

By Andres Jauregui

Photo by Sterling Andrews and Jared Seltzer

It's hard to look cool with a plastic Viking helmet on your head, but Division Day guitarist Ryan Wilson makes it looks so easy, you'd think it's a hot new trend. While it might not be the first photo most indie rockers would use to present themselves to the world - even the idiosyncratic world of the CMJ Music Marathon in New York - but Wilson's helmet photo graced the front page of the New York Times arts section in the fall of 2006. L.A.'s Division Day, with only an EP and still unreleased debut album to their name, were the new poster boys of CMJ.

"We flew out to CMJ with no booking agent, had some shows set up in New York with bloggers and some bands that we knew. Then one day, all of a sudden, we start getting these text messages: "Don't let it go to your heads!" Stuff like that," Wilson says. "None of us were expecting [to be in the Times] but it didn't really change much for us personally. It wasn't like the sky opened up. But I do think we got a better reception in New York than what we were expecting and that was really nice."

But shortly after its triumphant return from the East Coast, the band was dealt its biggest challenge yet. Division Day's label Mercy Records folded in early 2007, leaving the band with a complete but unreleased debut album, Beartrap Island. After playing the L.A. scene for a few years, Division Day wasn't about to let this new pitfall get them down. With an artistic flair and casual, fun-loving charm that speaks volumes of their maturity and commitment to their music, Division Day burst straight through their toughest obstacle yet and lived to tell the tale. On their own terms.

From their inception, Division Day has negotiated challenges of distance, separation and isolation. Vocalist/guitarist Rohner Stegnitz, bassist Seb Bailey and drummer Kevin Lenhart began playing together in high school, but went their separate ways for college. Lenhart met Wilson at UCLA and in the summer of 2001 the quartet convened in Santa Cruz with the idea of playing shows and recording an album - only to part ways when classes resumed in the fall. The band's shimmering, hook-heavy, post-punk inflected sound took shape over several similarly spent summers and a post-college move to L.A. provided the impetus for Division Day's first EP, The Mean Way, in 2004.

"We were finally all together in the same place," says Wilson. "There was a lot of good music coming out of the Eastside of L.A., and we ended up getting a practice space [there] and becoming friends with Earlimart. It was awesome."

Division Day's rise to prominence over two years was aided in large part by their signing to Mercy Records, who paid for a Brian Gardner (Dr. Dre, Eminem) remaster of Beartrap Island, which the band had originally recorded on their own dime. Their time with Mercy served them well and through last year's CMJ festival, everything looked great. The reviews were positive and their exposure was good. Then the label fell apart.

"It was kind of funny - I mean, I guess it wasn't really funny at the time. But we got on a phone call with [Mercy] and right off the bat they told us that the label folded and the record wasn't coming out. And we were like, 'Ah-ha. Funny joke,' and they were like, 'No. We're not joking.' ... And our hearts just dropped," Wilson says, "Because things had looked totally solid until that point."

Despite its demise, Mercy Records did not ask Division Day to pay back its advance and even returned the remastered tapes of Beartrap Island. With an excellent master to shop around and a wealth of positive press from CMJ, Division Day hustled through the winter and early spring of 2007. Acting as veritable free agents, the band booked a West Coast tour, landed a gig at SXSW, expanded their fan base, and drummed up plenty of anticipation for their debut.

"We attracted definite interest after the Mercy thing fell through. Having that brief stint with them enabled us to raise our profile in a way that made people recognize the band. We didn't get a deluge of people knocking down the door, but it was much easier than the first time around to find a place that we really liked," says Wilson.

Finally, they found their sanctuary in Eenie Meenie Records. Home to bands like Irving and Great Northern, Eenie Meenie had an immediate grass roots appeal that Mercy lacked.

"We like having a personal relationship with our label. Eenie Meenie was people working on a local level to build something from the ground up. You walk in and people are listening to music, people are having fun. There are posters all over the walls. People talking about music. We didn't necessarily get that vibe from Mercy," Wilson says.

Under these circumstances, Beartrap Island underwent an artistic redefinition. First asked by Eenie Meenie to record "bonus tracks" to be released with their album, Division Day instead opted to integrate their new songs into the older recording.

"We felt like the idea of bonus tracks was kind of lame, so we tried to figure out how to fit them into the record," says Wilson. "We'd been living with the album for a few years now and the new tracks we added fit really well. So it's technically like a new record.

Although Wilson admits that Beartrap Island was not originally envisioned as having a grand concept, in the wake of the demise of Mercy Records it took on more of a concept album feel. The first and last tracks serve as thematic bookends to an epic allegory of the band's struggle to find its place in L.A. There is a clear sense throughout of being lost, yet persevering and learning to survive in a foreboding if not hostile environment. As Stegnitz sings on "Ricky," a dizzying, early album barnstormer: "Ricky knew the river was a dangerous place /... Sarah knew the water / It would kill her if it could." Like the protagonists in the song, Division Day soldiers on.

"There's a sense of isolation and learning how to swim in a place that's new to you," Wilson says. "I think it's about standing up in front of something that you're both afraid of and in awe of ... [like Los Angeles], you have to learn where your place is, find your niche, and make your community smaller."

Division Day has taken plenty of steps toward that goal, employing creative gimmicks like a map of Beartrap Island drawn by Stegnitz in order to market its album artistically. Like the dark topography of Stegnitz's map, there is no clearly marked road to success, but as cryptic as the guideposts may be, the compass that guides Division Day is hard work, a little luck and above all, fun.

"We're huge fans of Pavement and bands like that: bands with that 'whatever goes' attitude," Wilson says. "If you're not having fun being in a band, then why do it?"

Viking helmet or not, he's got a good point.

www.divisionday.com