Metal and Hardcore isn’t everyone’s top choice in music. I think one thing that many people don’t understand about punk and hardcore and metal is that it is more than the solely musical parts. People don’t always get why the vocalists scream or how the pit can be classified as “dancing,” but at the end of it all, people show up because it feels real. Metal/Hardcore is about the community: it’s about people “getting” you. This summer we were invited to be a part of Nocturnal Alliance tour, which featured MyChildren MyBride and Impending Doom. While we have had plenty of friends from the heavier branches of rock support us, this was our first foray into this realm.
Truth be told, there was a big part of me that didn’t want to write this blog. Don’t get me wrong—I loved being a part of the tour. The memories and the jokes and the friendships and the music will stick with me for a very long time. But I found myself struggling with the idea of sharing it. Most people reading this blog are probably far more comfortable around music with a clear melody, or less distortion, or lyrics that are sung rather than screamed. I wondered if me writing this would relate in any way to the majority of our audience. I shared these concerns with Whitney from our team. She does a lot of our editing and makes sure that I correctly use commas and differentiate between “its” and “it’s” and from time to time, she finds of way of using words to slap me. She told me that this summer, she went to her first Metal show (something that she never thought she would ever do). She drove up along with several of our interns to the Jacksonville leg of the Nocturnal Alliance Tour. She cheered when A Bullet for Pretty Boy opened with their rendition of the Harry Potter Theme, but she admitted that for most of the night, the music was hard for her to connect with. She then told me that that night was still one that carried a lot of meaning for her.
Whitney said that seeing the audience interact with the music, and seeing the artists hanging out with the fans, and the fact that she couldn’t understand a single word but that everyone else in the room could, meant something. And she was right. I saw it night after night. It was clear that many of the rooms we were in this summer felt more like home than anywhere else for some people, that the people comprising the pit may have felt more like family than anything else they have experienced. These clubs were our platforms and these screams were our melody. This conversation of pain and hope is not one that can be owned exclusively. It doesn’t belong to To Write Love, or MyChildren MyBride, or acoustic shows, or young adult literature. It is a conversation that finds its beauty in strange and foreign dialects but, somehow, always sounds familiar. It is rooted in the fact that there is more in life that holds us together than could ever keep us apart, and it’s about naming and celebrating those differences.
Canada has bumpy roads. Perhaps the most warped and scarred sections of concrete find their home in Calgary. But in that town, across the fractured tarmac, in the upstairs of a humble punk club, I had one of the most edifying interactions of my adult life. I met a couple folks who knew nothing about metal or the tour, but really only wanted to spend a few minutes there because TWLOHA was going to be part of the night. A young woman named Chelsea came well before doors opened with her friend Roger, and we just talked. The conversation moved from music to life to struggles to questions to recovery, and then to community. I have no idea how long we spent together—good conversation often times mimic time travel—but it came time for us to go our separate ways. Chelsea said, “Hugs, not drugs,” and Roger extended his hand. After shaking his hand, I felt that he had left a coin in the exchange. It read “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to tell the difference.” He simply asked me to continue to pay it forward.
A week later, through the aid of free Wi-Fi at a Canadian McDonald’s, I opened an email from Chelsea telling me the story of that coin. She told me that it was the first medallion Roger received when he began his road to recovery. I was floored. I had to wipe my eye. I now carried Roger with me. He trusted a complete stranger with one of his most precious possessions. That information suddenly drove home the theme of the summer. We made a collab shirt with MyChildren MyBride that reads “We Are The Cure.” The idea is that we can play a more positive role in each other’s lives. The hope is that we would feel less alone. And both of those things exist in all of us.
So we want to thank you for believing that with us. This summer, we were at more places than ever before in a four-month stretch. TWLOHA was able to set foot in 3 countries including 13 music festivals, another year on Warped Tour, and a second year speaking in high schools in Australia. We found ourselves in coffee shops, acoustic listening rooms, gorgeous amphitheaters, and dimly lit rock clubs, and wherever we were, we saw you. This summer could not have happened without YOU, the reader, the music fan, the listener, the student, the storyteller. The story is the same across all 7 time-zones we traveled to, but the song is always different. Share your life, and share your song. More people will “get it” than you think.
Thanks for reading and head-banging,
Chad
P.S. Thanks to everyone who made this summer possible, including but not limited to: MyChildren MyBride, Impending Doom, A Bullet for Pretty Boy (thanks for the ride!!!), The Crimson Armada, This or The Apocalypse, Wiest, Scary Brian, French, Billy, Eddy GaGa, Roger, Chelsea, Taylor and everyone at Hopeful Productions, Joel and everyone associated with Gravity, BridgeBuilders, Leah and the Crimson Team, Tim Horton, Wal-Mart (for giving us parking lots to wake up in), Aberforth Dumbledore, and the game of Washers.
