” Altier, Dean talk about what’s ahead”
Posted by Mark Bialczak January 10, 2008 3:21PM on www.syracuse.com

I talked with lead singer Joe Altier and drummer Kevin Dean this afternoon.

I’ll have a story about Altier parting ways with the other four guys in Syracuse hard rock band Brand New Sin in Friday’s Post-Standard.

Both musicians were polite about the decision, refusing to point to any sort of ugliness or incident that led to the BNS-Altier partnership ending after 6 1/2 years.

Altier said the five musicians decided there would be no one-last-goodbye show.

“The last show was the one in December,” he said. “We decided playing a farewell show was a cliche. Everybody in the band would feel awkward. And if we’re playing awkward it would come out and everybody else would feel awkward. Everybody has their memories of seeing us before. We’d rather have that than a teary goodbye.”

Altier will play solo as Brand New Joe and with members of Under the Gun and Dead Rose as Aylist for right now and is considering his future.

“I’m definitely not giving up on music,” he said. “I want to take everything in for a minute. This is not the end.”

Dean said he, guitarists Kris Wiechmann and Kenny Dunham and bassist Chuck Kahl will play on, as cover band The Undesireables and as an original music band.

“The four of us are tight,” he said. He added that they’re undecided whether or not to continue using the name Brand New Sin.