Broken Hearts Are Blue

Broken Hearts Are Blue were an indie-emo band comprised of former members from Michigan bands: Charles Wood (guitar) and Ryan Gage (vocals) were both in Vine (4) (Kalamazoo). Daniel Buettner (bass), was in Ordination of Aaron (Kalamazoo). Derek Brosch (drums) was in Current (3), Ottawa, and Gregor (11) (Detroit). Charles and Ryan started with very short lived band Fire Sale in the early nineties. They didn't do much. Put out a demo tape, made a small line-up change, and changed their name to Vine (4). Vine was Kalamazoo's first "emo" band. Very highly adored locally, but also didn't do much beyond releasing a demo tape and 7". Meanwhile, Ordination of Aaron was about to call it quits, so Dan hooked up with Chuck, who was already writing songs with some drummer. The three of them played a few times before the drummer decided he wasn't into it, so Chuck and Dan began searching for a replacement drummer. They tried playing with nearly every local drummer they knew, but nobody was quite the right fit. Dan finally talked Derek Brosch into playing drums for them. He was in a band called Current (3), which played with Ordination of Aaron quite a bit. He lived in Detroit, which was about 3 hours away, so he was unsure about traveling every weekend to Kalamazoo for practice. The three of them auditioned a number of singers, none of which really wanted to do it, and none were what they were looking for anyway. Chuck and Ryan happened to be living together at that time. Ryan was in his final days of college, intern teaching at a local high school, so his main focus was on that, and not music. Chuck talked him into checking them out, and he agreed to be in the band for the time being, as he was thinking of moving out of state (to Denver) after school was over. The name derived from a photo of James Dean that Ryan had scribbled "Broken Hearts Are Blue" on it and hung on his bedroom door. They had thought about several names, mostly with the word "Blue" in it, and finally just went with BHAB. Every weekend Derek would drive 3 hours to Kalamazoo for practice. He'd show up Friday night, they'd play all day Saturday, and for about 3-4 hours every Sunday before he went back to Detroit. The band did this every weekend for about a year. It should be noted that during the band Chuck moved to Columbus, Ohio to attend graduate school, and would drive to Detroit two weekends a month for practice. Thus, BHAB was formed in the fall of 1995, played a handful of shows in the Midwest throughout 1996, with Wallside, Franklin (2), Constantine Sankathi, Spirit Assembly, The Locust, Braid, Julia (17), Guyver-One, Boy Sets Fire, and many others. As far as the music writing goes, Chuck wrote most of the music, but the band arranged it collectively. Ryan wrote all his own lyrics. Record session was in Western Sound Studios at Western Michigan University in 1996. The full-length album, titled The Truth About Love, was released in early 1997 on Caulfield Records of Lincoln, Nebraska. Song "525 To Heart" was recorded during the The Truth About Love session, but never made onto the LP. Bryan Charles is a musician and close friend of the band, and happened to be in the studio with the band the day they were recording. His participation on the record was a spur of the moment kind of thing. He sang backup vocals on "Last Night's Tattoo." Later 4 or 5 songs had been dialed in but the band broke up before they could get into another studio. They played their final performance in March of 1997 at the Michigan Festival. Ryan only decided to move to Denver about a month prior to band final show in March. It was a quick decision to relocate but Chuck was living in Columbus, Ohio and Derek was in Detroit so it would have been difficult at the very least to continue as a band even if Ryan had not moved to Denver. Ryan and Chuck haven't been in any other bands or music projects since BHAB. Ryan moved back to Kalamazoo after living in Denver for a few years, and is now a librarian. Chuck has a Ph.D in special education, and currently lives in Charlotte, NC and teaches at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Derek is systems engineer and now lives in Los Angeles. Daniel is art teacher. Derek Brosch played in Fastpass. Daniel Buettner played in The Hidden Chord.