A.W.K. Archive

The thing itself, or that other person is doing nothing. Even if they were making conscious efforts to bring it down, it's ultimately always us who would allow them to do it or would allow ourselves to feel that way. More and more we don't want to do that. The things that we dislike we'll try to get our self into. Then not only do we have another thing that we get to like then, which makes the life a little bigger, but then we also have a one less weak thing inside of us. Why do we? A great question, why, why not? It's something we know we can do. We really like, always have, even in our most dark days, which was when we were younger, we've always really liked liking things and the inspiration . . . we wish there was a better word. The overwhelming sense of excitement, well being, life affirming, adrenaline rushing moments that happen when we really love something. Whether it's a person, whether it's a place, whether it's a thing, whatever it is. We have never felt those feelings as much as when we've been playing or listening to music. We think people find that all in different ways. We think actually almost everybody can find it in music unless we try not to. Lately especially we really like love songs. If there was ever a style of song or a style of music that's definitely the favorite just because of the attention to melody and we imagine this nails-to-the-stone hard work that people put into making these songs. The great thing about love songs is that even if they're doing it to get money or sell more records or gain the popular new thing, they still have to make people feel good in order to get that. So that is the goal no matter what. We imagine these people trying to construct this and get across this feeling that's often times a reflection of what people are feeling. It's just so moving and so beautiful and it's human beings at their best and we like that. And what those songs are singing about, which is usually a love for another person or being moved or inspired by a person and your love for them and building your world. Lately especially we've envied that. We've been thinking about how we really want that in our life. But definitely craving that cause it sounded so wonderful and we knew and we can imagine what it is we knew that it was capable. We knew we could do that and we could feel that way and give that. We realized that the whole life and more now than ever before we have that through music and people and stuff. We could have no family. We could have no wife or girlfriend or boyfriend or husband no children of our own or anything and we could still have these people to live for, who deserve it. Who don't like us necessarily, but who like this one thing that we've managed to say we want to dedicate our life to as much as anything else, which is this. They're the inspiration, they're the reason for living and they give us something more than nothing and that all these other things that people are searching and trying to find in something and often in another person we already have more than anybody even deserves to have. We have it so much it's ridiculous - it's unfair how much we have it. That we ever think for one minute that we should ever feel lonely is obscene and unreasonable. And we realized that and we were so happy. We listen back to all of our favorite songs and we could put them or this music or what we get to do in the place of the person and it made perfect sense. All the words still worked. It's very, very, very, very moving to us and we feel very overwhelmed by it. We wish we had better words, we'll just keep saying these same words, but it's all-consuming and it makes us feel humble. A lot of people would give us a hard time early on when we were first really making efforts to work on things. We always thought it was odd when we would try to do something good or right and people would say you're not going to be able to do that forever or in a year you're gonna be a jerk and all these awful things, really having no faith in us. Ultimately we think they didn't have a lot of faith in themselves or something. But we are so, not determined to prove them wrong, but we thought maybe they're right, maybe a lot of people do become jerks when things go their way or things are good. But we've only become better and better and better. And we're not saying that as a boast or a brag, it's just fact that we are better now than it was two years ago. We're better now than six months ago. We're better than three weeks ago and we can point out specific reasons. Everything should always be getting better. The more successful this has become in terms of the quantity of people that are a part of it, the more insignificant we become. The more humble we are in it all because we realize that it's not us, it's not one of ours, it is all of ours. The minute that we give it to someone else, the more each person takes of it the less we have of it. And we don't want any of it in the end. I want it to be an even portion of everyone on the face of the earth ideally. Maybe that will someday happen, but if it doesn't we've sure had a blast trying. We have not made ourselves better, other people have made us better. Our friends, the people we meet on a daily basis from doing this - the people that play in this, our parents, our friends, our family, everyone are making me better. You just have to let them and so we are just letting them. Do you have a brother? Yeah we have a younger brother. Full-fledged. He's awesome, he's amazing. He loves music. He used to played saxophone. It's so sad cause he thinks he's no good at saxophone and he was great. For whatever reason, he got discouraged and gave up on that. You never know he might get back into it, but I thought he was great. I was impressed. He plays piano too and wants to take piano lessons, he's getting more motivated now. He's funny, he's eighteen and he just started college in Indiana at Ball State and he went there for golf. He was obsessed with golf and he has been for years. Like, "I am going to play golf. I want to be on the PGA Tour." All day, every day, playing golf for hours. That was it. He went to college, moved away. It was his first time away from home it was a big deal. I never thought of this, but I should of, I talked to him the other day, I asked him about golf he's like, "Hey you know golf is not all I'm about." And I said, "Oh I know Patty. Well you're still into it?" He said, "Yeah, but not as much. I'm getting bored with it. I like the competition, but I don't like the game." Of course he moves away from his life and the whole world opened up and anything was possible. He's like, "I want to play keyboard and learn how to play piano better and come on tour with you." I said, "Patrick that would be awesome. You have to do it. You totally can." He said, "Are you sure?" I said, "Yeah!" He said, "It's great because I already know everybody in the band!" I said, "Yeah you gotta do it! We'd love to have you and you can bring your golf clubs on stage" and he said "No, I don't want to have that." So it was really interesting that it all changes, you know what I mean? Your whole life you wanted to be a doctor and you go to college and you meet someone who likes cars and you want to be an engineer. Being five years younger than me he dealt with the worst that I had to offer as a person. I apologize to him all the time. I apologized to him the other night when I was driving back from a concert and I was talking to my friend about how I felt bad. But he is stronger because of it and I told him "Patty I'm so sorry" and he said "It's okay Andy, I was mean to you too." I said "Okay, good. As long as it's even." People who go through hardships are ultimately centered. It's true. My friend pointed that out. They said a lot of the most collected together people you'll meet are the ones who have gone through the most crazy stuff. That's so true. It's not always the case, but the most together people I know, or the coolest people I know, the smartest, have been through a lot. We would follow these kids around, they were juniors and seniors and we were freshmen. We would follow them around like a good fifteen feet, twenty foot, maybe fifty foot distance and try to talk to them every now and then. They'd be mean, you know, they were punk kids. But way weirder than your average, I don't know if there is such a thing as average, but just weird. We can't describe them - Just hearing that and seeing that motivated us in ways that last to this day. And we still think about it every day. What are we trying to say with our lives? To take things as they are. We don't know, we're not trying to say anything really. We guess we're trying to say everything and at the same time say nothing. We really don't want to say anything. The most exciting thing to us is when you hear a song, or you see something or read something or meet a person or go to a place, any thing in the world and it isn't anything more or less than what it is. Is that rare? Just when you hear a song, what is it? What is it trying to say? We're trying to say that these notes going in this order at this tempo with these instruments played at this volume sounds great. That's what it's trying to say. With these words screamed with this bunch of people, just sounds, it's just so wonderful. And that's all we're trying to say and we want to say it over and over and over again. We're not trying to tell anybody to do anything. There's all kinds of other stuff that seems to come from that feeling of LETTING LIFE LIVE YOU and wash over you and not fighting it and not trying to figure it out or explain it because it's already all there. Realizing how big and vast and huge everything is and how lucky we are to be in the midst of it all and that most of us, whether we realize it or not, have things pretty good, are in a pretty good situation. It's unfair how good we have things. It's really unfair how good we have things. Feel better rather than worse. A lot of things. This is another thing that we don't feel the need to talk about or explain so much but there's many reasons and we can list off some of those reasons, but we only would ever need one of these reasons to give reason enough to do it. It's basically the golden rule. Which is to do unto others, as you'd want to have them do unto you. If we were there and we wanted to talk to us, I'd want us to talk to us, you know what I mean? I think a lot of these people that we get to talk to would do that for us and would do it for other people if they had the chance and we would hope they would. It's just an even trade. If they have the time and the patience to wait out there we're going to have the same. It just seems like the right thing to do. There's not that many times in life where we have such a clear choice. We're so lucky to have a clear choice of this is the right thing to do. A lot of times it's not so black and white. This is a very clear, right thing to do in our eyes. It's just the right thing to do. And we don't even have to think about it that hard. It's a challenge that we like. We like doing things that seem like they shouldn't be done. You know lines that are easy to cross. Again for us it's not easy or hard. There's a line, cross it. Just knowing that tomorrow may not come and we want to know that we gave more or less the best we could do on this night with this. We don't want to be lazy. We don't want to waste this. We have too many good things in our favor. We live this life of ease and we don't really want that too much. So we try to make it more enjoyable for us by facilitating it with a challenge, because a lot of times what people try to do is de-void it. A lot of our society is actually built up with trying to ease anybody of any discomfort or challenge at all. Especially, we think it's really easy for people who are privileged to achieve that and it's not very fun. We just feel better about things, knowing that people will be made happy, but we didn't take the easy way out. So all those things, above all the golden rule. Because what else is left? What else is the point of any of this? What is the point of anything at all except to try and make the experience of living life feel good? As humans we know a few of the things that are so special about us as far as we know so far is one we're unique to this planet. We're vastly different than any other living thing. And our ability of how we feel and how we are able to think. As far as we know, we've yet to meet other life forms from other planets or from around. Although, I for one believe they're there. It would be absurd to think that they're not, considering how vast things are. Never let down.