‘Maybe you guys should call it a night’: Bridesmaid prepares to say farewell

Bridesmaid debuted in 2010 with relatively modest aspirations, the band members initially bonding over the idea of collaborating on “a big, dumb doom project.”

“So, the fact that it lasted 15 years blows my mind,” said bass guitarist Bob Brinkman, who will join fellow bassist Scott Hyatt and dual drummers Cory Brandt and Adam Boehm for a pair of weekend farewell shows in Youngstown (Westside Bowl on Friday, Dec. 6) and Columbus (Ace of Cups on Saturday, Dec. 7). “Two drummers and two bass players making instrumental music, at what point was that going to take off? The fact that we got to meet so many folks and do all of the things we got to do is just fucking awesome. … I mean, who really thinks they’re ever going to be in a band with a Wikipedia article?”

Launched as a three piece, the group unlocked new sonic possibilities with the adoption of a second drummer – an accidental addition that took place when original drummer Barnt canceled a planned move after his replacement had been selected. “And the two-drummer thing, it’s the whole presentation of it, too, right?” Brinkman said. “We always set the drum kits up mirroring each other, and they mostly mirror each other’s movements but then trade fills. … And the stoner joke I always make is that we needed two drummers because the basses were so loud, and we needed two bass players because two drummers are really loud, so there’s this sort of feedback loop taking place there.”

Bass players Brinkman and Hyatt, meanwhile, differentiate from one another largely through their setup – both employ different amps, distortions and speaker configurations – creating contrasting tones that have in the past created confusion among some reviewers. “I think it was a review of the first seven-inch where he wrote that … after listening, what I realized is it was a bass and a super detuned guitar,” Brinkman said. “The idea that we could fill that much range with two basses to the point where someone walked away thinking there was a guitar on the track, that was a cool thing to be able to do.”

In conversation, the four Brides-mates often default to humor – “I hope you weren’t hoping for a serious interview,” Hyatt offered toward the end of our nearly hour-long video call in late November. But there were numerous instances throughout when the musicians dropped their respective guards, whether it was Brinkman unpacking his struggles with depression, which intensified amid pandemic isolation, or Hyatt relaying the various ways he’d grown up within this band over the last 15 years, evolving from a clueless 20-something to a slightly less clueless 39-year-old.

“I was a much more immature person when we started, which is not to say that I’m mature in any way, shape or form right now. I mean, I was running errands earlier and I got really excited when the Bloodhound Gang came on, so that’s the level of maturity I’ve reached,” said Hyatt, whose forthcoming move to the East Coast in the wake of a divorce spurred Bridesmaid to schedule these going away shows. “But I can literally draw a line from being in this band to having a better understanding of interpersonal relationships, learning to have more empathy, learning that people go through difficult circumstances in their lives. … Outside of writing silly riffs and making ourselves laugh, there’s a level of camaraderie that only comes from doing something like this together for so long.”

The earliest Bridesmaid practices took place in an Old North garage that previously served as a rehearsal space for any number of Columbus bands and at the time still contained various relics accumulated through the years, including half of Eric Clapton’s head confiscated from a billboard on State Route 296 and a box filled with merch left behind by New Bomb Turks. Coming in, the musicians were initially intent on creating massive, doomy soundscapes. The songs quickly shifted, however, driven in unintended directions by some combination of a tendency toward humor – the band’s album titles include Breakfast at Riffany’s and International House of Mancakes – and the musicians’ naturally contradictory natures.

“When we started playing, we kept getting booked with super heavy metal bands, and you guys can correct me if I’m wrong, but most of us don’t listen to that music,” Hyatt said. “So, every time we got booked with these super crazy metal bands, we were going to play a party set, and we were going to play super up-tempo stuff and have a good time. And I think in some ways that’s what made it appealing to come see us, because we were always going to buck whatever the rest of the show was doing. Not because we thought it was going to get us anywhere, but just for shits and giggles, and because it was going to make us laugh.”

Some of these gigs still elicit chuckles, including one early house show in Cleveland where the intense heat forced the band members to perform wearing nothing but underwear and a random sombrero found on site, which led one of their buddies to take a photo and tag it with the caption “fiesta sans pantalones.” Then there was the show they played at Dude Locker dressed in “the tiniest jeans shorts imaginable.” Or the time in Cincinnati when the group joined a smattering of noise bands in tormenting an unsuspecting elderly man tasked with tending bar at the venue. “And the PA started shorting out or something, and he calls out from behind the bar, ‘Maybe you guys should call it a night,’” Brinkman said, and laughed.

Now, all of these years later, the band is set to do just that – with a bit of a caveat. Currently, the musicians have written enough material for a new record, which they plan to record remotely at some point in the near future. And recently they also received an offer to perform at a 2025 festival in Minneapolis, which they were leaning toward accepting. 

“I mean, how many bands have you seen break up and then three or four years later they’re playing festivals?” Brinkman said. “We’re never going to be on that level, but if some festival is like, ‘Hey, do you guys want to play this year?’ and they’re covering gas and a place to stay, that’s good enough for me.”