Nothing seems as pretty as the past though

I can’t remember anything without you.

Russia.Tsarskoye Selo

Россия.Царское село

It has been 5 years since the release of my debut album Badlands. It is difficult to describe what Badlands means to me. I often divide my life into periods of “before Badlands” and “after Badlands”, because at a certain point I was ejected from my body and woke up behind the eyes of someone else. A better version of myself, I thought. The blood that ran through my veins had evolved turquoise blue and my wrists were scratched and sore from clawing through crowds of you with hungry desperation to feel something. I made a martyr of myself. Showed you my most flawed, arrogant, disassociated self; presented her on a platter for you to devour and begged you to lick the bones clean. And you accepted. You dyed your hair, and bought new shows, and we all paraded around the earth like caricatures of each other. Bound by our secret language. Our hidden text and shared hymns. I became hardened and empowered by the knowledge that we were a community. That all the years I felt wrong inside my body were simply because I wasn’t meant to grow in my environment. So like a flower seen as a bothersome weed, I (and the others) were plucked from our gardens and wrapped in twine and place furiously into a glass vase too small to hold all of us. And we were happy there.

Not long after Badlands became my saving grace, it quickly became my deepest fear. A looming expectation lurking on every year turn. And the very concept it was built upon came to life all over again. I was worried that I could never do better. Never outgrow it. That I would eternally be held to the version of myself I broadcasted to the world at 19 years old. That I would be stuck in the badlands forever.

But as the years went on I grew, and so did you. We all changed together. I watched kids with brand new braces and drivers permits become adults with college degrees. I watched newlyweds have babies. I watched you emerge and demand the worlds attention with flags painted in your personal colors. I watched you suffer and grow and twist and turn like tree branches reaching from their trunk in feverish grasp of the sky. So why did we keep returning to the Badlands? I pondered this for a long time while making Manic. Why did all of us romanticize this indecisive, lonely, awkward, period of life? And (as you always do) you guys showed me the answer. Because reflecting on where we have been is what allows us to appreciate our growth. That tender sadness and coming of age-ness and bedroom-built dream land we all found solace in was a curious way of life. We had no idea what the future would hold and we colored our fantasies with with cinematic projections of the places we wanted to go. The road out of the Badlands. And now we get to visit. See the people we left behind and hold the hands of the ones we took with us. Stroll past the abandoned buildings in a ghost town, regarding them with a solemn fondness. We will always remember this place as home, but we are on to uncharted terrain. Some roads treacherous, some lined with honey and milk, some puzzling dead ends that take us angrily backwards to retrace our steps. I had big plans for this five year anniversary but the world had other ideas this time around. So I offer you this live album, as a feeble and humble example of the vibrant life you have filled me with. A two hour opera of appreciation and an indebted promise that we will always be the kids who grew up together. As for all the still untold secrets that Badlands has to offer? They’re locked deep in a safe, awaiting their timely arrival. I guess you’re gonna have to wait another five years…..

Love always,

“Brother 2” behind the scenes.

The Soviet Banner of Victory was the banner raised by the Red Army soldiers on the Reichstag building in Berlin on May 1, 1945, the day after Adolf Hitler committed suicide. It was raised by three Soviet soldiers: Alexei Berest, Mikhail Yegorov, and Meliton Kantaria.