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          “I hope the album makes people cry happy tears. I hope it makes people want to dance and have sex with each other. I hope it makes people feel less alone.”

--Willem Hartong on the band’s upcoming album as yet untitled

          Willem Hartong freely admits that his band has never tried to “outcool” anyone else, or pander to the capricious appetites of fickle fad-followers. When the heart-on-his-sleeve songwriter and guitarist started Brooklyn’s BREAKING LACES--a three-piece alternative acoustic rock trio--some six years back, he wasn’t aiming to become part of the Williamsburg Boom, and he wasn’t gunning for “indie darling” status. All he has ever been interested in is finding and perfecting the BREAKING LACES sound.

          “And we’re still figuring that out,” Hartong admits, one day before the band’s crowd-pleasing set at Austin’s SXSW Music Conference and Festival. “We definitely have a better sense of that now. If we’re an indie band, that’s simply by definition. If we’re a Brooklyn band, that’s purely a matter of geography. So, if we’re from any ‘scene,’ we’re from the road.”

          Perennial road rats who’ve wowed audiences in as many concert halls as they have in biker bars. BREAKING LACES have logged more miles than most of their contemporaries. During the band’s first two years, drummer Seth Masarsky estimates the boys played more than 500 gigs. In addition, the 2007 winners of Starbucks MusicMakers Competition have already successfully toured the United Kingdom (not once, but twice).

          “We’ve played everywhere and anywhere, making fans one by one, “said Masarsky. “We had a certain charm about us, certain fearlessness to us. We established ourselves as a solid live act, but we also showed people that we had versatility, dynamically and musically, that still, to this day, is a blessing and a curse. We’re the kind of band that can go from the most knock-your-socks-off, crazy hard song to the most relaxed, calm, beautiful, emotional song at the drop of a hat.”

          “We can go from coffee shop to metal in one note,” adds bassist Rob Chojnacki with a confident smile.

          With a sound that has stylistic debts to such artists as They Might Be Giants, Radiohead, and the Lemonheads, BREAKING LACES was born with the 2003 release of Sohcahtoa, which Hartong recorded on his own with some assistance from a producer. The reception to the material was overwhelmingly positive, garnering heavy spins on XMU, a college station on XM Satellite Radio. Rolling Stone noted that “[Breaking Laces] provide more substance than any toss-off singer-songwriter,” while Paste declared: “Exactly what Indie Rock needs now.” A few months later, Masarsky was asked to join Hartong, whom he’d met while the both of them were studying in Boston. Eventually, Chojnacki, who played with Masarsky in long-running New York rockers Darby Jones, would find his way into Breaking Laces.

          “I went to see Seth and Willem play,” recalls Chojnacki, “and I can remember seeing Willem on the floor, grinding his acoustic guitar into his distortion pedals, kicking his legs in the air, and I just had to be in this band.”

          After some extensive touring, the band released Lemonade in 2005, and followed that release up with more touring and their 2006 EP, Astronomy Is My Life But I Love You. After Astronomy, the band was once again back out there, on the road, earning fans the hard way. And from stop to stop, city to city, gig to gig, Breaking Laces would always hear the same stupefying question.

          “People always ask us, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’” says Masarsky. “It’s something we hear often, and its weird, and I don’t know what to make of it. But people are always asking us why we aren’t the biggest band going, and, our only ‘mistake,‘ I guess, was we didn’t push the records as much as we pushed the live show. The albums were always just an adjunct to the tour, something we brought with us to sell at our shows.”

          On record, Breaking Laces sounds like a temperate collection of guitar-loving rock dudes with keen pop sensibilities. Live, Laces is something entirely different--a wild, unpredictable beast that rattles the floorboards with the intensity of seasoned pros.

          “People would hear us and dig the stuff, but once they saw us live, that was the biggest thing,” says Masarsky. “You can hear us on record, and you come to the show--and after seeing how unbelievable Willem gets, people are wondering, ‘How is this band that band?’ People don’t make the connection.”

          This spring, BREAKING LACES will be taking the next step in the band’s evolution, by hitting the studio to begin work on their forthcoming LP, as yet untitled. Eyed for release in the fall of 2009, the band started pre-production in New York on April 1, with producer Ed Tuton (who has worked with artists as diverse as Carly Simon, Eagle Eye Cherry and Alana Davis to Maxwell and T-Pain) helming the effort.

          While Hartong says there are a number of inspirations behind his prose, he says BREAKING LACES’ fundamental message is “become who you are.” It’s a simple message, but an honest and heartfelt one, imparted in a humorous and engaging style.

          “When we go on stage or we go in to record, we always find a way to have a good time, and that has to be very effective,” the frontman says. “We decided a long time ago that we’d save ourselves a lot of trouble and probably do a lot of good by not trying to outcool anyone, but to just be who we are.

          “I’ve often thought of us as underdogs, in a weird way, but we’re not, really. We’re a pop band that kind of fancies itself as being a little more off-the-beaten path than we are. I think what our appeal tends to be, beyond the music, is that we’re real. I hate contrived enjoyment. It’s a little bit condescending. So, what we do is work for a place where that’s not really an option.”

          Willem adds: “Six hands, three bodies--that’s who we are.”