Pennywise’s ‘Bro Hymn:’ A hymn known by heart
by Ryan McDonald Justin Thirsk heard the plan the day before. He was nervous, but it was not the sort of thing he could prepare for. “I’m trying to think if I’d ever sung that part before that night,” he said in an interview last week. He paused. “No. There’s no way. I wouldn’t have.” It was the fall of 1996, and Pennywise was recording “Full Circle,” their fourth album, at Total Access Recording in Redondo Beach. Along with 13 tracks of new material, it would include a new version of “Bro Hymn,” a song from their self-titled first album about the death of close friends. This version would be different. The song would now reflect the fact that Jason Thirsk, Justin’s brother, a cofounder of Pennywise who wrote the original lyrics to “Bro Hymn,” was gone, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The studio was crowded the night of the recording. To this day no one is quite sure how many people were there. Thirty, perhaps 40 of Thisk’s friends. Too many for the liner notes; more than enough to create the roar of a crowd. The track that resulted, recorded live with all instruments playing simultaneously, has some of the nervy edge of a club show, but feels less scattered. It has the…
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