Going through the media files on my laptop I came across an age old folder that was just packed to the gills of all the music I listened to as an angsty 15-16 year old.
Somewhere in between Death Cab For Cutie and Hurt was my former 'favorite band of all time'...Hawthorne Heights. It wasn't until I clicked on the folder and Life On Standby started to play that I remembered just how much this music effected me. Just how much I loved it, lived for it, survived by it. (15 was a pretty dramatic age, okay?)
I remembered all the night drives home from Concord, rotating the batteries in my portable cd player in order to get in just one more song before it died. (A freaky universe thing is how Mark Hoppus discribes that little battery trick.) Speeding Up The Octaves always came on just as we hit Newport, the next town over from ours. I'd listen to it twice before my batteries were dead and we were just a few minutes from home.
Just light the match and run
Run from all those times
She poured gasoline, by fires light she cried
With Hawthorne Heights I found a new appreciation for music, a different sound. There was that guttral yelling that followed along with lyrics, the almost scream, that pulled you in. Casey Calvert sang those lines as well as taking care of half of the guitar parts, He was someone I looked up to with a crazy amount of admiration.
I learned the song Decembers on my guitar, and attempted Ohio Is For Lovers and Nikki FM as best as I could (Nikki Fm, an absolute favorite, the guitars, the vocals and the tribute to the 1980's John Cusack movie Say Anything. Perfect.) Me and my sister would go up into the woods behind our house, she'd take Casey's parts while I sang the main verses...She was actually very good at it.
I know what scares you the most.
Being Alone,
Just like them,
Being Alive,
Feeling so dead.
Sitting on the couch, Casey's and J.T.'s voices in my ears, I tried to remember why I put away my cd's and moved on from my 'all time favorite band'... they have a new album out now...why haven't I bought it? Then I remembered, Casey died. November 2007. It was labeled as an overdose by some, but it was really his medications conflicting. Anti-depressants, pain killers and the anti-anxiety medication that I was taking at the time as well. He was 26.
You know you do
You kill me well
You like it too
I can tell
You never stop until
My final breath is gone.
I put up my music and haven't listened to Hawthorne Heights since. I've heard that they didn't replace Casey, that their music is a bit more mellow...I went to their MySpace today just to hear it. I only got half way through the first song before deciding that like most things, it's best left in the past. The depression that the music got me through as well as the music it's self.
That said, I hope that someone who hasn't listened to Hawthorne Heights before gives it a try and discovers the same thing I did back then.
What that was, you have to find for yourself.
As days go by the memories remain
I'll wait for you
As days go by the memories remain
I won't let go
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