Schoolyard Heroes Bleed to the Brink of Stardom

There's blood dripping from the mouth of Schoolyard Heroes frontwoman Ryann Donnelly. She's wearing her signature tattered prom dress and seems frightened and invincible at the same time, a riveting conflation that's borderline erotic, but more unsettling and strangely beautiful than anything so basely perverse.

Thankfully, I'm not actually looking at a bloody-mouthed Donnelly in person. She's in the booth across from me at Al's Tavern in Wallingford, surrounded by an early-evening crowd of blue-collared old-timers, sipping on pints of Rainier while a Mariners game plays on the dusty TVs. This image of her is on a MacBook screen belonging to bassist/co-vocalist Jonah Bergman. He's showing me a rough cut of the video for "Plastic Surgery Hall of Fame," the first single from the band's third record and major-label debut, Abominations. It's the vision of fraternal directing team Brian and Brad Palmer that has left Donnelly with a bloody cupid's bow, coal-rimmed eyes, and a demeanor that's both fierce and feral, panic-stricken and passion-channeling.

After eight years, two full-length releases, and a staggering amount of blood, sweat, and torn taffeta, Schoolyard Heroes are standing on the precipice that young bands dream of, even if they're too self-consciously cool to admit it. Former SPIN writer and all-around New York it-grrl Sarah Lewitinn signed them earlier this year to her new label, Stolen Transmission, an imprint with the powerful backing of Island/Def Jam records. Their forthcoming record, Abominations, drops on Sept. 18, and their feverishly loyal fan base is so eager to hear it that the band's message board is overflowing with theories about track listings, heated critiques of album artwork, and anxious concerns about the band "getting too big." After Bergman (a bespectacled, verbose character with a mop of ringlets dwarfed only by guitarist Steve Bonnell's massive Afro) shuts down his computer and we pay our tab, he, Donnelly, Bonnell, and drummer Brian Turner have to hurry back home to finish packing for their tour with Warped Tour headliners Sum 41.

Three days prior to our meeting, SYH performed for a crowd of thousands on Bumbershoot's mainstage at Memorial Stadium, acting as welcome replacements for the band +44, who canceled at the last minute. Inducing mosh pits while scaling scaffolding seemed like second nature to them. And while Bergman admits it was "probably the largest crowd we've ever played for," the band was utterly in its element. "Really, it was just a lot of fun," says Donnelly.

Looking back on Schoolyard Heroes' history, and watching them interact with one another offstage, it seems they've been poised for this pinnacle from the start. Young bands that have stuck it out for more than a few years often exude a strong sense of camaraderie, but SYH tend to one another like devoted family members. They admit to the occasional intraband passive-aggressive moments, and cross-talk during the interview with animated enthusiasm, but their affection and respect for one another is obviously rooted in the reality that they literally grew up together. Donnelly and Bergman met when she was just 14 and he was 17.

"I feel like this started with Jonah," says Donnelly, gesturing to him across the table at Kabul Afghan Cuisine, where we're eating dinner before heading over to Al's. "We were both on student council together. One day we were the two earliest people [at a council meeting], and we started talking about music. I was completely enamored with Jonah, honestly, because he knew such a vast amount about music that I didn't know about. So we started trading records."

That record trading led to a friendship built upon a shared affection for the Vandals and the Misfits, the latter of which provided them with the cover song that got them yanked offstage early in their career during a battle-of-the-bands show at Tacoma's Club Impact, a now-defunct all-ages venue run by conservative Christians. "We were supposed to cover 'Last Caress,' and we got cut off because of the lyrics, explains Jonah, referring to the song's campy refrain about raping and pillaging. At that point, guitarist Bonnell was handling vocals, but Donnelly was soon added as the band's singer, after a misguided attempt at playing guitar.

"I was obsessed with the idea of starting a band, and it seemed like Jonah was going to do the same thing," she admits. "But I was a terrible guitar player, and it was kind of ridiculous that I was even trying because I had been singing since I was 8." Indeed, not only had she been starring in school musicals, but she had studied opera and was already honing her calling-card siren, a disarming fusion of classical technique and scalding punk delivery. Sonically, however, Bergman and Bonnell had yet to find their footing, and were playing what Bergman and Donnelly both shamelessly describe as "poppier, mall-punk stuff."