Sethfire

Sethfire Andrew Brookes is a British-American singer/songwriter and psychotherapist, best known for his role in the the Brooklyn-based metalcore band Edge of Infinity. Brookes is one of the band's primary founders and the member responsible for the band's name^[1], despite the fact that he plays a more peripheral role in the group's music production.

Sethfire Andrew Brookes was born on September 9, 1989, in London, England. He was named for his paternal grandfather, though with the addition of the suffix "-fire" in reference to Prometheus’s gift of fire to mankind.^[8] His parents were erudite and decidedly wealthy, owing to their careers: His father was a talented neurosurgeon who enjoyed a relative level of fame in the field; his mother was a driven and successful woman who excelled both in her work as a foreign affairs analyst and as a travel publicist, despite pursuing both careers simultaneously. She additonally had a small modeling portfolio and some experience in buying and selling art. In 1995, the summer before the birth of Brookes' younger sister, the family moved to a six bedroom house in Great Neck Estates, NY. Brookes acknowledged his upbringing as having been "extraordinarily privileged, at least in a material or financial sense."^[17]

Despite economic and class privilege, Brookes has routinely intimated that the household lacked true emotional warmth.^[2][8][11] Though Brookes himself has never publically identified as such, he has been regularly referred to as a "legitimate genius"^{[3][4][5][9][22][25][26]} by his bandmates and sister, the latter of whom has expressed that Brookes experienced a significant amount of favouritism from their parents due to his intelligence, but detested being the "Golden Child."^[2][11] Brookes himself has been consistently delicate when addressing his childhood, although he has acknowledged that he felt "rather like an emotional island"^[8] in school; insulated from bullying by his height and percieved status, but also isolated from his peers by, according to Brookes himself, his "pretentious vocabulary" and "tendency to be either insufferably verbose, or so concise as to appear closed-off."^[ibid.][9] In recent years, Brookes has identified his younger experiences as being in line with social anxiety and dissociation,^[8][31] stating that he felt he could read other people well but struggled with knowing how to respond, as he was disconnected from his own emotions, and so retreated into the role adults in his life assigned to him as a self-sufficient scholar. Most of his relationships in school were therefore shallow and only with other "academics," with his most substantial bond being the one he had with his sister.^[8][18]

At age seventeen, Brookes suffered a mental health episode^[2] that involved slitting his wrists, in a violent attempt on his own life. Varyingly Brookes has attributed the incident to brief psychotic disorder, loneliness, academic pressure, and, most recently, unspecified trauma.^{[8][20][26][31]} Brookes was left with permanent damage to his hands and arms, forcing him to abandon his ambition of becoming a surgeon. He decided to pursue psychology and counseling instead, earning his Master of Social Work (MSW) from New York University in 2013.

At the time of the band's formation, Brookes was still deeply involved in his education, with no intentions of pursuing a musical career. He had by that point taken in then-teenagers Athena Brookes, Kato Winters, and Anarchy Keystone, and was caring for them. Brookes has identified himself as a "band member of circumstance," having been roped into participation due to his teenage charges' enthusiasm, and (allegedly) Winters catching Brookes singing pop songs one morning.^[8] Brookes has been credited with naming the band^[1][24], which pivoted from "Suburban Casualties" to "Edge of Infinity" due to Brookes' lyrical work on a track which went on to be titled "Namesake."

Edge of Infinity has gained additional members since their formation, taking on Aetos Cammell in 2016,^[7] and Cheyenne Keystone in 2018.^[10] The current members of Edge of Infinity are as follows:

• Kato Winters – lead vocals, lead guitar, songwriter (2012–present)
• Anarchy Keystone – bass, unclean vocals, rapping (2012–present)
• Athena Brookes – drums, occasional backing vocals (2012–present)
• Sethfire Brookes – occasional vocals (2012–present)
• Aetos Cammell – rhythm guitar, backing vocals, violin (2016–present), keyboard (2016-2018)
• Cheyenne Keystone (née Reykjavík) – keyboard, occasional backing vocals, synthesizer, turntables, samples, programming (2018–present)

Edge of Infinity released their debut album, We Are Not Our Scars, in July of 2013, which featured the track "Namesake," written primarily by Brookes, as well as his vocal contributions for it exclusively, as he either declined or was too busy to engage with the rest of the album's material.

The discography of Edge of Infinity consists of five full-length albums and one EP (listed below) as well as numerous demos and singles.

• We Are Not Our Scars (2013)
• Broken Glass Just Tastes Like Blood (2014)
• Suburban Casualties (2016)
• Concrete As A Painkiller EP (2017)
• B⬛RN D⬛WN Y⬛⬛R SCH⬛⬛L (2019)
• With A Hope-lit Lighthouse and Honest Storms (2021)

Following the lyrical and vocal talent Brookes contributed for the initial album, he avoided the spotlight for the most part on Broken Glass Just Tastes Like Blood, only supplying lyrical input on one song, the title track, and contributing vocals only for the song "Ten of Swords." The third album, Edge of Infinity's best-selling, Suburban Casualties, featured more of Brookes' singing than its predecessors: He appeared in "Letter Home," "Lost Causes," "Bridgelight," and "Thicker Than Water." Brookes was uninvolved lyrically with the Concrete As A Painkiller EP, though he lended his vocal talent to half of the tracks therein. Brookes again sat out as a writer with Edge of Infinity's most controversial^☦ album, B⬛RN D⬛WN Y⬛⬛R SCH⬛⬛L, though he described the album as one that "direly needed to be written" in an interview.^[9] He returned to doing lyrical work in the band's 2021 album, With A Hope-Lit Lighthouse And Honest Storms, for which he contributed work on "Rough Seas, Good Sailors" and "Safe Harbour." It was additionally the album on which he had the greatest contribution as a singer, for which audience feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and the album itself went on to be Edge Of Infinity's second-best selling.

Brookes sets himself apart from the rest of the band, describing himself as more of an "oribiting presence" than a fully-fledged band member. He touts his personal musical tastes as vastly different from most of his fellow bandmates, but says that he appreciates and draws inspiration from a variety of music he hears or enjoys, taking the time to note Alesana, Blue Stahli, Galt Aureus, Unwound, and Al Stewart as artists whose work he finds compelling in lyrics, music, message, or all three.^[24] Brookes' most frequent source of lyrical inspiration is the experiences had by himself and members of his band, though he has indicated a desire to do more experimental or explorative work inspired by literature, history, or social science, and has implied future projects between himself and lead singer Kato Winters.^{[citation needed]}

Brookes moved down to Brooklyn for college in 2007, renting an apartment there with financial assistance from his parents. His college social life was somewhat shallow,^[18] but he has deep ties with his band. Brookes has been an uncontested central pillar for them, with almost every member crediting him with having had a life-changing, if not life-saving, impact on them: His sister moved in with him in 2011 so that he could support her recovery from anorexia,^[11][22] and was quickly joined by Kato Winters after he dropped out of school in an effort to escape his experiences of suicidal and homicidal ideation brought about by the environment.^[6] The band's "official" formation is often cited as being due to the rescue of Anarchy Keystone late that same year.^{[3][4][22][28]} Keystone's subsequent treatment was paid for by Brookes,^[4] for which Keystone has expressed significant gratitude. Cammell also has labeled Brookes as a rescuer,^[7] as has Brookes' long-term friend Jazz Lynn.^[29][30] Brookes has shared an apartment with each of his fellow band members for a significant period, with the exception of Cheyenne Keystone, though Keystone has spoken to them achieving a closeness nonetheless.^[19][32] Brookes is often pointed to as a brotherly figure^{[3][4][22][23][33]} to those close to him, though some have pointed out the paternal nature of his bonds, particularly the one he has with Winters.^[14][21][27]

Outside of his work with Edge of Infinity, Brookes works as a psychotherapist in downtown Brooklyn, though much of his work has moved online due to the coronavirus pandemic. Brookes got his licensure as a LMHC in 2016, but only began taking on clients in earnest in 2019. He speaks warmly of his career and the patients he meets through it, stating that each has something new to teach him.

Brookes avoided speaking publicly about his mental health for most of the band's history, disclosing only that he had experienced an "episode" at age 17, which is where his scarred arms had come from. Fans noticed that Brookes had accumulated new scars on his neck in 2017,^[23] but the only public comment the band made was a plea for privacy.^[36] In 2020, it came out that Brookes had been admitted to a rehab facility,^[23] having been struggling with alcoholism for some time.^{[15][18][19][20][25][32][35]} Post-treatment, Brookes opened up minutely to the band's audience about the depth of his struggles, admitting that he had been self-medicating an unspecified childhood trauma for many years, and that the drinking had caused intermittent relapses into self-injury^{[15][16][18][20]} which he'd made attempts to hide despite the mounting severity of them. He thanked his band for their support and advocated for struggling audience members to seek treatment. As of August 2022, Brookes has been sober for almost 2 years.