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.

Comments (11) | Posted in Music by Chad Moses

I’d like to start off with a confession: I’ve always been pretty bad about the whole “optimism” thing. That’s not to say that I don’t believe in hope, because I do. It’s just that I think that hoping for “the best” or in redemption is different than expecting the best. I’ve never been able to turn a blind eye to reality. I do find beauty in honesty, even, and especially, when that honesty feels a bit fractured.

We live in a funny time, and we’ve spoken about that in the past, that the Internet has radically affected the way we see and interact with the world around us, and perhaps most greatly changed how we see and interact with other people. Social media profiles have become the lens through which we experience life. We pick our “hottest” pictures to represent ourselves, and we find or create the right label to express our views. We throw our hearts out there, pretending that 140 characters can accurately sum up what makes us tick. Perhaps the worst thing is that we have bought the lie that we are worth the collective thoughts of our “friends” and “followers.”  In all of this, I think that we’ve abandoned a crucial truth – that to speak into someone else’s life is, and always has been, a privilege. Not a right.

This tour has carried me to a variety of cities, but I had circled the Seattle date on my calendar long ago, and I think that that is mostly due to the anticipation I felt of getting to revisit the pieces of my heart that I have left in the care of my friends who live there. Seattle brings to mind the idea of “vulnerable love,” which is the bravest of all loves, where love is best expressed as a privilege. Vulnerable Love, enables us to open up, knowing full well that conversations will be difficult, or that confessions may be greeted with a flinch, but in the end knowing that nothing will hinder the mutual respect you share in those whom you place your trust. Vulnerable Love is one that stands in the same category as music. One that speaks not out of rebellion, but rather in seeking revolution. This love moves constantly, there is no room for the stagnant. It understands that hugs can’t make everything OK, but dammit, I am going to squeeze you harder than ever because I can’t stand the thought of you thinking you’re alone in that moment.

I felt this Vulnerable Love other night, and while leaving Seattle is always hard for me, that morning was especially difficult.  Being on tour isn’t glamorous. Don’t get me wrong, there are parts of touring that I wouldn’t trade for anything, but while I get to be in a new city every day, that also means that I have to leave that new city the next day. Conversations don’t travel on interstates very well. Heaviness sits with things left unsaid, and unresolved conflicts travel with me. 

Seattle brought a mixture of emotion. I was able to see some dear friends, but hear hard news about their lives. I spent 30 minutes with a homeless man, hearing his story and listening to his soulful, gritty songs, but a minute later his booze-induced forgetfulness fueled a new introduction to me where he made up a completely new story about his life. I was able to connect with a bar owner who, upon finding out about us for the first time (and will be celebrating 7 years sobriety in March), loved our message of hope, but then talked for nearly an hour with someone who struggles with these issues and said she had only “heard” about us, and thought we only sell shirts and prey on perceived weakness. Beneath her steadily raising voice was a deep concern that maybe this situation was indeed hopeless.

This last interaction struck me hard and continues to travel with me, and for those of you who feel like you’re in a moment, or season, or year of hopelessness, know that I am with you. Those moments when you feel like forcing a smile is the biggest lie you’ve ever told, know that we are with you. You don’t have to fear honesty, or feel wrong for not subscribing to optimism. We aren’t intimidated by your questions.  Your voice is beautiful and your breathing serves as a protest to all that is holding you down. You can scream at the darkness, make it afraid of your life, and we will be there cheering you on.

We deserve to be known. Our battle is not one of heroism, where we must pass through our valleys alone. We are here to extend Vulnerable Love. The young woman I mentioned earlier spoke to me in honesty, and what started out as uncomfortable soon became very special. There wasn’t a happy ending, or a grand resolution in this conversation, but she did tell me that she enjoyed the chance to talk plainly about these matters. I couldn’t help but smile when she continuously interrupted me saying, “Stop telling me what ‘we’ believe… Tell me what YOU think.” 

And thus, I believe that we are more than the banners we operate under, be it religion, or geography, or age, or philosophy, or our favorite non-profit. We are what we express of ourselves in honesty, and it’s worth every bit of fight necessary to find where our voice can be heard and honored. So fight. And don’t think you’re fighting alone.  Use your voice, your passions, and your friends. The true friends who you can’t wait to see again.

Hope is not always expected, but that’s what makes it so much more beautiful in the end.

Chad

PS: TWLOHA info and merch will be out on the rest of the Jarrod Gorbel tour. Check out the list of cities below to see if we're coming close to you.
San Antonio, TX
Austin, TX
Houston, TX
Dallas, TX
Fayetteville, AR
Lawrence, KS
St. Louis, MO
Newport, KY
Columbus, OH
Pittsburgh, PA

Comments (19) | Posted in General, Journal by Chad Moses