High school bands are, at most, a pleasant distraction for a lot of students during their teen years. Few, if any, manage to turn it into a career that already spans a decade. That's exactly what Say Anything has managed to do. Now far from being just high school kids that they were when they started, the band has earned a reputation for a wide range of styles and an adamance to stick with their status as independent musicians.

Say Anything: Irreverent And Independent

"We like to make fun of flagrant self-promotion and still be a part of it."

High school bands are, at most, a pleasant distraction for a lot of students during their teen years. Few, if any, manage to turn it into a career that already spans a decade. That's exactly what Say Anything has managed to do. Now far from being just high school kids that they were when they started, the band has earned a reputation for a wide range of styles and an adamance to stick with their status as independent musicians.

Say Anything: The Start

As many high school bands start, this one began with a breakup. Prompted by the end of a relationship, Max Bemis wrote the song Sappy. In 2000, he then formed a band with Evan Span and Michael Levin, who attended the same West Los Angeles school; Coby Linder, whom he met at Camp Rajmah; and Josh Eichenstein, a friend.

The fledgling fivesome originally called itself Sayanything - without a space - as a nod to the 1989 Cameron Crowe romance Say Anything.... That same year, Bemis, Linder, Levin and Span released the emo-heavy self-produced EP Junior Varsity, of which less than 300 copies were made. Span left the lineup soon after, but the remaining three were able to record the full-length Baseball: An Album by Sayanything for a 2001 release.

By 2002, however, it seemed that the band would be taking a break with the departure of Levin and Bemis' enrollment at Sarah Lawrence College. While at school, though, Bemis was able to record several songs in his dorm room using a four-track recorder. The songs, which would later be labeled the Dormroom Demos, represented a whole other sound. It was also around then that they changed their name to its present form, Say Anything.

Say Anything Takes the Mainstream

Many record labels took an interest in the band's music and several made bids to add the group to its roster. The group settled on one, and signed with Doghouse Records in 2003. Although the original plan featured a rock opera narrative for the record, an emotional breakdown forced Bemis and the other members to do something simpler for ...Is a Real Boy, which came out in 2004.

To the surprise of many fans, the group signed on with J Records, which is under Sony BMG, one of the biggest labels in the industry. It was meant to help the production of the next album, but Bemis suffered another emotional breakdown in 2005 and was admitted to a rehab facility. The label instead reissued ...Is a Real Boy with a bonus CD.

In Defense of the Genre was finally released in 2007 with 27 tracks and an impressive list of guest artists. The album was well-received by most music critics. After a number of delays, the follow-up album Say Anything came out in November 2009,

Did You Know That...

• ...not all of their albums were released? Bent was supposed to be an EP released under ECA in 2003, but it never materialized.
• ...two members are enough to record a full album? Only Bemis and Levin were there to record ...Is a Real Boy.
• ...fans got to request Bemis himself to make songs for them? On a promotion called the Song Shop, people could upload snippets of text and request Bemis to turn it into a song for a mere $150.

• Unlimited Music Access
• Music File Sharing
• Country Based Radio Channels
• Easy, Fast and Safe!
• 100% Free!