"...if my body was on fire, ooh, you'd watch me burn down in flames..."
-Bruno Mars, Grenade
When I was a teenager I would lock myself in my room and listen to music. I'd feel it all the way down in my soul. I felt that nobody could understand me quite like the artists I was listening to, and it was like they were singing the songs just for me. Nobody else understood me, so it was just me and the music for some time. I would sit in the dark and listen to bands like Tool, Pearl Jam, Metallica, Alice in Chains, Bush, Candlebox, and Stone Temple Pilots.
"...society, you're a crazy breed, I hope you're not lonely, without me..."
-Eddie Vedder, Society, Into the Wild Soundtrack
Sometimes I would be so overcome with emotion, that I would cry. Imagine your voice being silenced...stuffed deep into a stone box, and not being able to express yourself. But when my favorite song would come on, I could feel myself coming out of the box, breaking out, fighting all the fears, anger, and sadness I felt all the time.
I was pretty much the picture of teenage angst.
"...but you cover me, yeah, won't you give me shelter from the storm.."
-Candlebox, Cover Me
I'm sure one would say I've got not much of a singing voice, but I can tell you, that to this day, nothing makes me feel more alive than when I'm singing along with my favorite song at the top of my lungs, knowing I can't be heard, so I don't feel like a total dumb-shit.
"...think you're kind of neat, then she tells me I'm a creep...friends don't mean a thing, guess I'll leave it up to me..."
-Stone Temple Pilots, Creep
20 years later, I'm 34 years old, and still find myself sitting in my office, pulling up this music, and some current stuff, turning it all the way up, and belting out the lyrics as if it was me up on that stage. I always wanted to be a musician and remember back in the day my best friend and I would talk about starting a band, and what instrument we would play...Blue was going to play base, and I wanted to play the drums or guitar...but I really wanted to sing. My biggest inspirations for vocals were probably Tool and Pearl Jam.
Most people that know me, don't really know this story:
When I was in 8th grade, I hung out with a girl who had an older brother in a band. They were 3 grades ahead of us. I had a huge crush on one of the guys in the band, and they knew it, so we would go to the one girls house all the time so we could try and sneak peaks at them...LOL. Teen girls are so dorky! I was about the boy craziest girl too!
One day I was over hanging out with my friends and her brother, and the hot one from the band were there. They wanted to go to the studio where they practiced, and asked if we wanted to come along. So we all piled into the old school full sized van with captain chairs, and all went to Subway for lunch, then to their studio.
(seriously, I'm totally dying as I'm typing this, because I haven't thought about it in forever...)
We get to the studio, and they do what they have to do as me and my three girlfriends are just hanging out, quite frankly feeling like the coolest chicks in the world, when one of the guys asks if we want to sing a song. HOLY F'BALLS! Yes, I want to sing while you play guitar and drums, just sayin'!!!!!!
So they set up their equipment, set up my one friend and I with a microphone, and then handed us the lyrics to Pearl Jam's 'Alive' and we totally sang the first part of the song. Apparently we sucked. Because we didn't get much farther than:
"..."Son" she said, "Have I got a little story for you,
What you thought was your Daddy, was nothin' but a
While you were sittin' home alone at age thirteen
Your real Daddy was dying, sorry you didn't see him, but I'm glad we talked..."
So you can make fun of me next time you see me, but I was a freakin' rock star for that few minutes, and I've never lost that feeling.
"...why can't we not be sober, just want to start this over..."
-Tool, Sober
