The Anniversary is not an emo band; this is a fact that emo fans don’t want to accept. Ever since their debut album on the emo label Vagrant, Designing a Nervous Breakdown, the band has been breaking away from the mold that has been made by such labelmates as Dashboard Confessional and Saves the Day. With the release of Your Majesty last January, all ties with the genre seemed to be severed. Instead of the adrenalized, synth-heavy punk songs that help define emo, the album is filled with long, instrument pieces that are more esoteric than emotional.

According to vocalist/guitarist Justin Roelofs, this was not an intentional shift from their previous work.

“We just came up with different ideas, like, ‘Let’s do less synthesizers and put a big drum solo here,” and stuff like that. Most of the ideas we didn’t use, but it took us in a different direction. Basically, we used all the suggestions [drummer Chris Jankowski] said, but took out all his drum solos” Roelofs said.

This new approach created mixed reactions outside the band.

“Our label really didn’t promote it real well,” said guitarist/vocalist Josh Berwanger. “It came out much later than it should have, and no one was sure when it was going to come out until it did.”

Roelofs said the fans were also apprehensive of the new material.

“When we first went on tour, the album was supposed to come out, but never did, so we had to tour with all of this new material that no one heard. No one was real accepting of it at first; they just wanted to hear out old stuff,” Roelofs said. Berwanger said that this backlash was balanced by the excellent press the album received, including being named one of the top albums of 2002 by Magnet magazine.

The band first got together six years ago at, of all places, Long John Silver’s restaurant.

“[Bassist Jim David] and Janko used to work at Long John Silver’s, and Josh and I used to always come in there. They asked us, ‘Are you guys in a band?’ because we dressed so cool,” Roelofs said. The band began practicing together soon thereafter.

The name of the band also came from strange circumstances. According to Roelofs, he and keyboardist Adrian Pope were looking through pictures one day when they came upon a picture of her aunt and uncle behind a comical boardwalk cutout that said, “Happy Anniversary.”

“I said, ‘That is our band, that is the theme of our band!'” Pope said. Under the advice of Jankowski, the band then went from Happy Anniversary to The Anniversary.

As for the future, the band finds itself quite busy. Roelofs said there is a tour coming up very soon in Japan, and then a return home for the studio to cut songs. The band also plan to produce a remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Total Recall, starring Jankowski as Quaid. Because the band recently ended its contract with Vagrant, Roelofs said their goal is to write and record a new batch of songs this spring and then send them to prospective record labels.