Band On The Run

Stars

Sometimes I did wonder about the so called “punk rock aesthetic”.

What did it even mean?

If I headed over to Gilman Street in the Bay area, I think they’d beat the crap out of me like they did to the guy from the Dead Kennedys.

Growing up, I’d never listened to specifically punk music or tried to adopt a punk persona. Hell, I was about as far away as you could get. I mean, the way I’d grown up – from my high school activities to my Beatles albums – made me something that so far away from what punk rock purist was thought of.

My music was against it. I had always put more of an emphasis on my song writing, making sure to preserve it by always composing first on an acoustic guitar, although it usually evolved to electric. Sure, I had deep set punk rock roots. But I also had them from the blues, Motown, the pop songs I’d learnt from The Beatles, garage rock, grunge and so on. It was a lot to contend with.

Even the way I looked didn’t fit it, to be honest. I didn’t spike my hair. I didn’t scowl all the time. I didn’t wear thick eyeliner. I just didn’t look like what someone thought as a “typical punk rocker”. I was more likely to just wear comfy jeans, a concert shirt and no makeup. And even though the riot grrrl movement had helped, it was still men that dominated the punk rock scene.

Yet I’d always thought of myself as punk rock.

I just had the mindset, I guess.

Then I thought about all these people that had taught me about the so called punk rock lifestyle. And when you looked at them in their lives, in that “purist” sense, they’d all fucking sold out, by doing nothing but following where their music lead them. Even being successful kicked them out of the purist scene.

But maybe I’d just managed to grow my own mindset about all of it, taking pieces I agreed with and creating my own little version of punk rock religion.

In my version, it didn’t fucking matter if anyone agreed with it.

I just didn’t want to become a parody of myself. If I didn’t want to be where I was, I wouldn’t be. I wasn’t going to say something I didn’t want to be the musician I’d become, because that would completely devalue everything I’d ever worked for. And in some sense, I was a rock star and I couldn’t say I didn’t want to be either, because then I should just walk away from it.

My own thoughts were the only things I truly listened to anymore. I’d never been a religious person, music replaced it.

I’d grown up, matured as a musician not to mention a person through trial and error. But one thing was staying the same through it all. All that mattered was the music. And I’d follow it anywhere; it was the only thing I had faith in. I’d made my own sort of ideology.

So with that in mind, I realized something as I paced around the empty studio.

I’d never felt like such a fucking sell out in my life.

There had always been people that said I was a sellout after The Great Rock ‘N Roll Swindle, though they were only a miniscule portion of the mass voice.

Not for a moment had I even given it a consideration. I never gave a fuck what they thought, I knew I wasn’t. I wasn’t creating music to do anything besides make music, that’s all I am, music, all I’d ever been. I was just following wherever the music took me. It had just got easier to ignore.

People called me a sellout for nothing more than being a successful musician, which I didn’t exactly understand. In the opinions of the Olympia Scene with Calvin Johnson or the hard core punk scene around Berkley – in the nineties, of course – they made it seem like being a part of the underground was the only way to stay a pure musician, which at the time it made sense in order to break away from eighties arena rock. And I mean, it was easier that way because you didn’t have the slimy label sharks breathing down your back for something more mainstream, but it shouldn’t mean that you were a sell out for joining a major record label.