Breakup to Makeup

For a while, it seemed like Divorce were primed to be the next big thing around Knoxville. They packed the house at Pilot Light, had a sizable following among music fans and their peers in other local bands, landed a coveted slot at Barley's popular New Year's Eve show, and were consistently one of the best live acts in town. The band went on tour, recorded a live CD-EP in the spring of 2004, followed by a full-length CD in early 2006.

Then they broke up.

It's difficult to think of another local band in the past few years that called it quits when they were arguably at the peak of their popularity having yet to grow stale or redundant.

The members of Divorce claim to care less about any of the attention, and you have to take them at their word: Despite their recent reunion after more than a year apart, there's not much in the way of enthusiastic self-promotion about them, and responses include a lot of “I don't knows” and other curt answers to questions posed. They're not even sure when the show after next is, or even if they have one.

“Sorry we're so boring,” guitarist George Miller says at the end of our meeting.

Divorce is anything but boring on stage — the entire band is dynamic, offering a hyper, animated performance while evincing an anxiety through their music that never lets up. And if they have a lackadaisical approach to the band's future, it isn't present in their performance; they're one of the most visceral bands in town, and they never give the audience, or themselves a break.

Their reunion show, a set that culminated the Whisk-Hutzel compilation party at Pilot Light on Dec. 19, was a perfect example of the energy the band summons among themselves and the crowd: Vocalist Maggie Brannon bent into the frenzied fans pressed against the stage as bystanders grabbed the microphone to slur lyrics along with her. The monitors were pushed across the stage as the crowd swayed, pushing audience members onto the stage to crash into the band, and more than two or three people, including Brannon, complained the next day of potentially shattered knee caps, whiplash and other bodily injuries sustained in the excitement at their return.

Brannon, original drummer Jesse Courtney, bassist Mitchell Garza and Miller got together in 2002 to form Divorce. Tyler Mucklow, back from a temporary move to Reno, Nev., would soon replace the departing Courtney behind the drums.

You can track Divorce's influences through any number of punk and post-punk bands, but they've developed a unique sound, and there's not really another band in Knoxville that sounds quite like them. Miller's guitar playing has a tart, brittle sound, his arpeggiate runs punctuated with quick, jerky stabs. Garza provides pained backup wails in addition to his revved-up, heavy bass lines. Mucklow, a guitarist by inclination, proved to be a manic, intuitive drummer when taking up the sticks to join the group.

“Tyler's always ready to rock,” says Brannon of the member absent from the interview. “He's excitable. He seems like the kind of person who would throw everything else away to rock. That's a great trait for someone to have, if you play music with them.”

And though the guys lay a wallop of a foundation, producing a sound you don't want to find yourself dropped into unprepared, Brannon's voice is an undeniable draw for the band. It occupies a comfortable space between high and low, unmistakably feminine but flirting with the guttural, with more than a hint of bludgeoning sexuality. Her anxious, hectic delivery often ends a line with a yelp or an “uh!,” producing a sound akin to a love child of Poly Styrene and Mark E. Smith.

“I get pretty nervous in front of people, which makes me want to yell at them,” Brannon says of her stage presence. “And I don't like seeing bands that just stand there. So I wanted to be in the band that I would want to go see.”

She also packs a lot of words into the songs, which typically run a compact but busy three minutes or less. They include playful lyrics about serious subjects, sounding something like fine-tuned edits of caffeinated notebook spiel, and it's a bit of a surprise to learn that Divorce is Brannon's first real band experience.