I have known Jared Souther for 17 years. We met in Mr. Bruce's 7th grade science class and quickly became good friends. We would talk on the phone for hours about music and, by our freshman year at Nauset Regional High School, we started a band together with our friend Adam Wentworth on drums that lasted into my first year of college. It would be impossible to do justice to this experience creating music with Jared, our lasting friendship, and how punk rock changed our lives, in the limitations of this space. I'll just say that all of this is completely inseparable to who I am today. Jared is one of the most talented and inspiring people I've known. He has continued to write music and play in bands all of these years, and something tells me that he won't be slowing down anytime soon.
Check out Jared's current band Revilers online at: Revilers.net
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Besides the wrinkles around my eyes, the several remaining hairs on the top of my head, and the pain in my knees every morning, I feel pretty much the same as when I was a teenager. I will be turning thirty on May twenty-third of this year and other than it being a nice even number that our culture has declared a milestone, it doesn't feel much different to me than any other birthday.
I remember at the beginning of my freshman year in high school, we were asked to write a letter to ourselves that we would get back as seniors. Waiting four years seemed like a lifetime back then. After all, four years prior I was in elementary school. Oddly enough, I still have the letter today, a whopping fifteen years later. In it I wrote about looking forward to playing my first show with my first band, Generic. I wondered if I'd still be playing shows at the old age of eighteen. Back then I owned a cheap 4-track cassette recorder that I learned to make demos on. At that point I only recorded one band, but I was very concerned that I would still be involved in recording. It was also in utter importance that I had at least one tattoo. When senior year finally rolled around, I had no problem meeting such strenuous goals. Funny that nowhere in the letter did it mention college, high school, or what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was only concerned with playing in a band, recording music and getting tattooed. Oddly enough, reading this letter again at almost thirty, I am concerned with playing in a band, recording music, and giving tattoos. Oh, how I've matured so much.
Of course there are some things that have changed. Today, I find that things like quality vacuum cleaners bring me happiness. I now embrace the quiet natural beauty of Cape Cod's off season. I even have a wife (which is still a shocker to most of my friends and family).
For me, thirty is a confusing fork in the road, representing where you're currently at in life, and where you think you're supposed to be going. Naturally, by growing up, some things change. I truly enjoy coming home to my wife and going for a walk, or having a quiet evening watching a movie, etc. But I also still like getting in a shitty, rusted van with my friends, driving to an unknown city, meeting new people and playing loud, abrasive punk rock. I see no problem living what some consider a contradictory lifestyle. In fact, it makes me extremely happy because everything feels fresh. The problem lies in the perception of others that say, "You're thirty now, it's time to get your shit together."
Whenever one of my peers outside of the punk scene finds out that I'm in a band, the first thing they ask me is how much money I make. When I tell them that we rarely break even, they then ask why I bother doing it at all. I usually follow up by asking them how much they make golfing with their buddies and what steps they're taking towards going pro. Something happens to people in their adult years causing them to lose their passions in life. I play music because I enjoy creating, being in different places, hanging out with friends and meeting new ones that share a similar outlook. The fact that I have to explain to people that those reasons are more important to me than money, is disappointing.
When you're young you think of thirty as the time when the fun is over and you've got all your ducks in a row. But after talking to many of my peers, I've realized a lot of us don't want the fun to end and we still don't know what the hell we're doing. Is that so awful?
Still, the mental fork in the road does wear me down. As a teenager and through my twenties I always wanted to do so many things with music and art but there was a lot of trial and error along the way. It seems that now, as I approach turning thirty, I finally have a clear vision of where I want to go with my creative endeavors and exactly how to make it happen. But then I hear all these outside voices......."It's never too late to go to college"..."When are you buying a house?"..."When are you having a baby?"..."Just put it on a credit card"..."Oh, you haven't gotten over the punk phase yet?"....And just as I'm about to tell the world to fuck off and leave me alone, that I'll do whatever I want, I realize that rent is due in four days and my car has a flat tire.
Overall, I don't have a clue as to what a thirty year old is supposed to be doing, nor do I care. Maybe it's time I grew a mustache? I feel that there is no master schedule. No due date on life. But for some reason we, as a culture, put these expectations on ourselves "by the time we're thirty." The only given is death. We need to live our lives our own way, in whatever order we choose, and just except the fact that humans are a bunch of screw ups and that's OK. The serious stuff will always be there whether we want it to be or not. I'm more concerned with not forgetting what makes me happy even if what makes me happy may change as I get older. Sometimes I wonder how me as a kid would view myself today about to turn thirty. I'm guessing I wouldn't suck in my own eyes. That's good enough for me.
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