Okay, I know I've kind of been... Being really fangirly to AFI lately, and it's been bugging the crap out of all of you. I'm going to try to explain. And I know this is going to sound really dumb to anyone who reads it, but I don't care, it's what I feel. Basically, I was really into them in... What, sixth grade? That's when I discovered them, anyway. This was back when I was a really awkward hippie child, and I really only had one good friend. I didn't know who I was and I was trying to figure it out, and the fact that I felt like noone else liked me didn't really help my self esteem. Neither did walking through the halls and having Jansen call me "that fat shit on the floor". So yeah, I pretty much hated life at this point. I didn't have anything to connect to, and that's when I needed it most. I kept trying to go with what everyone else was doing, but at the same time, I couldn't, I just didn't fit into it.
Then I found out about AFI. Honestly, the first time I heard them, I wasn't that impressed. But as I heard the rest of Decemberunderground... I think it was The Interview that really resonated with me. I remember that Brittany gave me the CD because she didn't want it anymore. For a few months, I listened to the two singles and skipped over the rest. But one day I decided to actually listen to it, and The Interview came on. I was just laying on my bed, and I started to feel like I was... I don't know how to describe it. This is going to sound stupid, but kinda floaty, I guess? Anyway, the lyrics struck with something. At this point, I started getting into the actual band members. They looked scary to me, because I was really sheltered and thought anyone with multiple peircings was of the Devil. (Haha.) Then I learned more about them, how they didn't drink or do drugs, they were all either vegan or vegetarian... All these things about how they respected life, but at the same time hated humanity and carved their own place in the world. I loved that, that don't just screw their lives and slowly kill themselves, but instead revel in their differences. Became their own people, and know that anyone who won't accept them because they wear makeup is someone that they didn't want to waste their time with anyway. Someone that would care about something so insignificant is a small minded idiot that I want nothing to do with.
Sorry, I kind of got off track there. Anyway, I loved the way they were, and I realized I had a love of morbidity. I think the reason I couldn't really ever find my place in what other people were doing, was that I think that most happiness is hollow and fake. The people who look like they're living perfect lives with tons of friends, are usually really unintelligent and just follow with what everyone else does. That's why they're in giant groups, they're sheep. They just follow. I didn't want to do that, and it's not like I was completely weird either. I mean, yeah I started to get into the darker look, but it's not like I went out and got a mohawk or anything. So I kind of found myself in the morbidity, and it was kind of a wake up call for me. This is really when I started to ask myself questions about life and started to read. (You'll notice that about a year after I discovered AFI, my vocabulary and grammar improved? Haha.) I started to respect my own mind, not just what others thought. Screw what other people think of me, I'm not going to shrivel up and die if no one likes me. And now that I've found myself in a sense, I have found friends that like the same things as I do.
I got off track again. Like, a lot. Okay, basically I was WAY into them a few years ago because they were what formed my personality in a way. Then as Crash Love came out, I started to become... Disappointed in them, I guess. The amazing man that had written lyrics that meant something like "In your world we may be no one, but what makes you think that you're someone?" and "Strange, we ran down desperate streets and carved our names in the flesh of the city. The sun has stagnated somewhere beyond the rim of the horizon and the darkness is a mystery of curves and lines. Still, we lay under the emptiness and drifted slowly outward, and somewhere in the middle in the wilderness we found salvation scratched into the earth like a message." had turned into some guy that wrote "FLASH FLASH CAR CRASH We're not fixures!" and "Now may be the time for a perfect crime!" you know? I was seriously disappointed in them, and that was crushing with how much they meant to me. The fire they put inside of me was dimming.
Then I went to their concert, and I felt that raw emotion that was there the first time I listened to The Art of Drowning. They even played Ever and a Day from that album, and the line "I'd retrace the steps that lead me here but nothing lives behind me" meant everything to what I was feeling towards them. I kind of realized that I was becoming a small minded idiot I wanted nothing to do with. I was thinking they had to stick to what they were doing exactly, and if they didn't, they would sell out. This is not true in any sense. Even when they release Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes and Answer That and Stay Fashionable, they listened to artists like David Bowie and such, they didn't just listen to hardcore music in any way. They're just doing all the things they love, and I had been shutting them out for doing that because it wasn't what I wanted. After I screwed that mindset, I realized I actually liked a bunch of the songs on Crash Love, and that they had never really stopped being the AFI I loved, they had just moved on to what they needed to do next. It put my fire back in full flame. That's why I've been ranting again, is I'm rediscovering AFI in all the old things that still bring me to tears, and all the new ones. I know that noone even read this, but I'm about to cry, they just honestly mean so much to me. I think I just needed to get that out there for myself, to express the eternal gratitude I hold for them.
Through our bleeding, we are one.
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