Hey Guys.
The Up in Arms tour with Switchfoot is off to a great start. There’s been some great nights and we’ve had the chance to meet a lot of great folks. i had a conversation in New Orleans with a fella named Jake – he told me how much Switchfoot and TWLOHA mean to him, and how SF’s song “Dare You to Move” basically saved his life. It’s a conversation i won’t forget. I’ve told people before, that if TWLOHA could be a song, we would be that song.
We are having such a great time getting to know the guys from Athlete. They are incredible and their songs are no less. London is home for them so we’re all loving their accents and talking lots about the UK. Been remembering our time there with The Rocket Summer, and getting excited for what’s to come. On that note, did you know that we have a UK Online Store?
Yup. We like the idea of folks there being able to order TWLOHA shirts without having to pay so much and wait so long…
Check out: www.mamstore.co.uk/twloha
We’re really honored to be included in the new Innovators Issue of Alternative Press Magazine. (May issue / Panic at the Disco cover) TWLOHA is part of an 18-page special “saluting those in the scene who dare to break the music industry mold”. We’re pumped to be in the mix, as it means a lot to be recognized for doing things differently. The truth is that we’re trying to behave this way in several different circles at once – not just music. And the whole point of any and all of it is that we want people to know that hope and help are real and possible…
Anyway, we like the quote that AP used in the article, but there’s a lot more where that came from, so we wanted to share the extended version with you here…
Q= AP Magazine
A = jamie
Q: When/why did you first realize you wanted to be involved in
suicide/drug/depression awareness?
A: TWLOHA is involved in more than awareness. We receive and respond to hundreds of messages each week (between MySpace and emails), many of these from people asking for help. So we exist to be a great first step to recovery, and we also invest financially into treatment and recovery.
A couple years ago, someone very close to me began to struggle with
depression, and i watched as people either ignored it or
over-simplified the situation. And soon after that, i fell in love
with someone who had lost a brother to suicide, and i learned about
the pain and questions that her and her family were left with, and she
told me how much it hurt, the way that so many people ignored those
questions or threw easy answers at them, when the thing this family
needed most was for friends to say “i’m so sorry”, “i have no idea”
and to then to be willing to walk through it with them, to hurt with
them.
As for TWLOHA, I met Renee and simply tried to tell her story and to
invite people to help meet the needs present in her life. We didn’t
sit down and say “Let’s start a non-profit”. It was basically an
attempt to save her life, and to talk about these things that no one
talks about. The non-profit grew out of the response to the story and
the shirts. MySpace and music had a lot to do with it.
As people began to respond, I realized pretty fast that Renee’s story
represented people everywhere, people who could relate to the pain and
the places she’d been, and then it was so exciting to see many of
those people find hope and strength in her story, people realizing
they weren’t alone, people asking for help… and I realized it was
something too important to walk away from. I had a really great gig
working for Hurley at the time, handling their sales in Florida, but I
came to place where I realized I needed to walk away to pursue TWLOHA full-time. I met Renee and wrote the (TWLOHA) story end of February ’06 and I quit Hurley July ’06.
Q: What are the biggest obstacles you’ve had to overcome in achieving your success with TWLOHA?
A: With regards to the issues, these are things that people don’t talk much about. You don’t hear about it in schools, churches, our culture in general. It’s estimated that 19 million people struggle with depression in America alone, and that 2 out of 3 those walk through it alone – they don’t get help. And untreated depression is the leading cause of suicide, so you start to see the weight of the stigma. There’s so much confusion and shame associated with these issues and it’s been a privilege to say in the face of it that we believe there’s a ton of hope, that these issues are very treatable.
In terms of obstacles I faced personally, i ran into a lot of people who couldn’t see the potential, people who downplayed TWLOHA as “a local story” (most of those in Florida). There were people who
thought i was out of my mind when I left Hurley for TWLOHA. But when i saw how 100 people responded, I knew that 100,000 would respond in the same way, so I had to keep going, keep pushing and dreaming and believing. We had to get this out there. This was a conversation that needed to come out.
Q: What’s your definition of an innovator?
A: I suppose an innovator is a person who knows the gift of vision, the ability to see something before it exists, and then to go beyond the dreaming and do what it takes to bring that vision to life. An
innovator sees beyond the rules, the usual, the typical. An innovator is unpredicatable.
Q: What do you see as your biggest accomplishment?
A: Being part of something that inspires healing and hope. Hearing from people who are choosing life over suicide, hearing from people who are handing us their razor blades because they don’t want to cut anymore, hearing from people who are entering treatment or sitting down with a counselor for the first time. I can’t imagine anything more
significant. If i won the lottery, i would do exactly what I’m doing now.
Q: What’s your personal mantra?
A: A friend sent me an incredibly painful email a couple months back, something that was really hard for me to read. He closed with the words “Hope is not a myth”. There’s a lot of people who live with a lot of pain in this world and i believe we have the power to do something about that, to tell them that hope is something real, that it’s possible to change, that we as people weren’t meant to do life alone, and that God is still in the business of redemption. And that we believe it so much that we’re willing to walk with them, to show them. i just want to live a life that matters, a life that’s creative and honest and inspiring. The alternative is too predictable, and who wants to be predictable? A case could certainly be made that i’ve listened to way too much U2. : )
Q: Where do you see TWLOHA in five years?
A: That’s a hard question to answer because we’ve seen so many doors open
and we’ve experienced so much growth and it’s only been two years since all of this began… We are committed to bringing a message of hope and help and community worldwide. The goal is certainly movement, seeing lives change all over the world. We will continue to
do it in a way that’s creative, tasteful, honest and poetic. We want to see the stigmas removed. We want people to know that they’re not alone, that there’s nothing we can’t talk about. We want to do this through the internet, through clothing, and also through live events
such as Warped Tour, speaking at colleges and high schools, and our
own nights of “Stop the Bleeding”, where we’ll put songs, stories, art, film, hope and help under one roof. We will continue to challenge the Church to be a place where broken people can come to find love and hope and healing. Beyond this, we will continue to invest in treatment and recovery.
One other thing that comes to mind is that five years from now, we will be as interested and active in Washington, DC as we are in NYC and LA, which is to say that if we want to be about change, we need to be active in places where change happens. We’re backwards if we pull off “cool” but miss the boat on actually making things happen. TWLOHA represents thousands of young people, each with a story, a voice and a vote. So if a couple hundred thousand people begin to say that certain things matter to them, folks in Washington will have to listen to them. That’s pretty exciting.
Q: What advice would you give to someone who wants to do something that makes a difference, but doesn’t know where to start?
A: People always ask how to start something big. I don’t know how to
start something big. I don’t know if it works that way. I say start something small, something true, something that matters. With TWLOHA, we tried to help one person, we tried to tell one story. Everything has grown out of that simple thing. Also, throw out the rule book. Just go for it, build something beautiful. Along the way, surround yourself with people and things that inspire you, encourage you. Hang out with folks who are older and wiser. Learn from their experience and mistakes. Finally, there will be critics. Smile at them. Prove them
wrong. It is possible to change the world.
PS: MySpace is not letting me tell you what we’ve been listening to, so here it is: Athlete’s “Beyond the Neighbourhood”, Jon Foreman’s “Spring” and Counting Crows “Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings”. Our good friend Dave Barnes released his new record “Me and You and the World” today. Give it a listen. Dave is one of our favorite folks.