If I remember right it was a late evening in 2006. I was twelve years old who with many other kids, spent their time after school buried on MSN messenger. I’d spend the entire evening chatting to my friends about whatever had happened at school that day and I’d also be sending way too many x’s to the various girls I had crushes on.
There used to be this feature where you could link your ‘personal message’ up to Windows Media Player so it would tell your friends what you were listening to. Back then I didn’t have the ‘coolest’ music taste and my music collection only consisted of mainstream pop-rock; Busted and McFly. One day I was blaring out Busted’s cover of ‘Teenage Kicks’ without a care in the world and then some guy from my school, let’s call him L, messaged me telling me to straight-up stop.
L then proceeded to tell me; “Listen to this instead – it’s better.” He then sent me two mp3 files through MSN and awaited for my feedback. The first song was a reggae track, which was pretty shit and forgettable. However, the second song would change my life..
‘Asthenia’ by Blink 182 begins with a 50 second sample of NASA moon landing transmissions before Travis Barker plays a fill and the over-flanged, chorus soaked guitar riff leads the song. I remember struggling to hear the quiet NASA samples and turning my speakers up, only to have the band explode into my ears. I had never properly heard a guitar sound like that, but do you know what stood out to me the most? Tom DeLonge’s clear-as-day vocal shouting directly at me in that iconic pop-punk voice.
This was the first time I had sat down and properly listening to DeLonge’s voice. As an impressionable twelve year old about to begin my teenage years there was something about the vocal that just clicked with me. It summed up my frustration, my pre-teenage angst and yet the vocal delivery felt honest and genuine – something I could really relate and connect with.
(Image from wikipedia)
Over the next few weeks I’d explore the rest of Blink 182’s music and enjoy their lighthearted side as well. They quickly became my favourite band and I was obsessed with every part about them. From doing some research online I’d slowly find out about other american pop-punk and emo bands from around that time (Sum41, Fall Out Boy, Mayday Parade…) and all these bands dominated my music taste for a good five/six years. They inspired me to properly learn guitar, start a few pop-punk bands and of course write a few songs of my own.
These days I’m twenty-six and my music taste has became more poppy and I don’t listen to music as much as I used to. I don’t actually find myself going back to old-blink very often and I can’t really get into new-blink 182 with Matt Skiba. However, I was lucky enough to see them in June 2011 (with Tom) and they’ll always hold special place in my heart for being the first band I really connected and fell in love with. It was like losing your virginity, but with music; you never forget your first.
I feel like everyone has that ‘one moment’ they fell in love with their favourite band. I love moments like that – and it doesn’t have to be discovering a band for the first time. My love for music stems from the moments in life where music and ‘real life’ blend into one. The moments where you and your friends are singing like banshees to the cheesiest pop song possible. The moment when the band plays their final song of the set and the whole concert belts out the final set of lyrics as if their life depended on it. The moment when you’re crying in your bedroom to the most cliché, yet ever-so relatable love-ballad… even just listening to an entire album in the car and thinking “dang, this is good.” This is what I love about music, the emotional significance just one song, lyric or album can mean to each individual and as a musician my goal is to create more of these moments in my music.
All the songs I write are based on real events that have happened to me, yet I always write with YOU, the listener in mind. Not every song is going to click with everyone, I know that, but I like to think that everyone could relate to at least one song that I wrote.
If you’d like to experience more of these emo moments, click here to listen to my most recent EP; ‘If It Escapes You’.
Thank you for being a listener and I hope you can enjoy my music as much as I enjoy writing it.
Lewis