ENERGY VIDEO INTERVIEW

Energy Interview HARDTIMES.CA

Yes

Well we went home a few days earlier than we anticipated because of show cancellations, people being sick, etc. Honestly, I didn't have much fun on this tour. Something about it really wasn't good. Whatever though, it's over. I'm sure the Debaser tour will be a lot more fun. I think I just don't enjoy being out of the country. We did a video interview for HARD TIMES a few days ago, I think it should be up in a day or 2.

I feel pretty relaxed right now, which doesn't happen very often so I'm trying to enjoy it. I've been listening to The Misfits, Samhain, and Danzig a lot lately. I ended up staying awake until around 11am, I woke up at 5pm, and hung out with Julia for a while until she wanted to go to sleep. After that I went to Mike's house and did yoga and recorded some more vocals for the Children Of The Night song "I'm Gonna Kill You".

I don't have any plans for this week besides spending as much time with Julia as I possibly can before I leave for tour again on July 2nd or 3rd.

Speaking of which:




I have no idea how this show will go. We usually do alright at the ICC, but we haven't played there in a long time so who knows. I think Defeater might get added to the bill, but I'm not sure. At least I'll be able to use my Sidekick on this tour. I'm also told that the drives aren't that long either, so that's a plus. I was feeling really trapped and helpless during this recent tour of Canada. I really hope it's not like that this time. I kept a journal for the first few days of the tour, but it's mostly things that I'd like to keep to myself so I'm not going to post it here. I'm pretty hungry right now, but there's nothing to eat here. I don't really have anything else to say, so I'll just end this entry here.

Canadian Tour

Today we went to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls after having no trouble whatsoever crossing the border.  I got really depressed and aggravated for no reason at all and went back to the van while everyone else went on the boat rides. After that, we drove to the show. I fell asleep for the last hour of the van ride and woke up at the venue. I quickly put on makeup and started loading in. We had to park so far away that I didn't even bother trying to warm up in the van like I usually do because I knew that there was no way that I'd find my way back to the venue by myself. So I awkwardly warmed up in the back of the venue and had everyone looking at me funny, whatever. I thought we played alright, apparently Joe didn't though because he said that we need to sound better. We signed autographs for a kid that worked there who had never heard us prior to our performance.  After the show we stopped at a Tim Hortons for a little while to kill time because we were 2 hours away from where we were staying. We stayed with Mike, the drummer for the band Cancer Bats' house because Josh is friends with them from some tour that Four Year Strong did with them.

As usual, I am not in a very good mood right now. I normally don't care where I sleep, just as long as it's not on a hard floor. This place has a hard wood floor so my knees will be hurting all night. I also couldn't do yoga tonight because it's so cramped here. I wasn't really in the mood anyway though so I guess that works out alright. I really wish I wasn't so depressed and angry all the time, but that's how I am, and it's clearly not going away anytime soon. I can't talk to Julia because my phone doesn't get service in Canada, and I'm pretty sure we're staying at this house for a few days and they don't have wireless internet.

I get so irritated with every thing about everyone. I am particularly irritated with Joe right now because he keeps coming on tour with us, but claims to still be out of the band. I am willing to wait for him because I really want him in the band, but if this is only going to lead to him deciding that he doesn't want to rejoin, then I just want to start looking for a new guitarist as soon as possible. This is undeniably slowing down our progress as a band. We could be writing songs to show Epitaph right now. It seems like all Joe wants is to be a part of all the fun aspects of being in a band, but as soon as anything stressful comes up he says "I don't care, it's not my band". Yeah, that gets under my skin just a little bit. I just want to know right now if he's going to rejoin or not. This reminds me a lot of the first time I was trying to get him to join the band. He did all the fun stuff, but then, according to him, when we finally started looking for a guitarist to fill his position, he got very jealous and felt like someone was taking his place. I am certain that he doesn't know what he wants with anything in life, and will never be happy. If we got a great guitarist to fill his position and said, "we're not waiting anymore, if you're out, so and so is taking your place", I'm positive he would rejoin out of jealousy.  This infuriates me. I just can't understand how anyone can be uncertain about something like that. I also think that if Joe does decide to quit, then Dan would quit as well. If you are staying in a band solely because one of your friends is in the band, then you aren't staying in the band for the right reasons and should just quit anyway. I don't know if that is definitely the case, but if it is, if Dan would leave because Joe did, then for his own good, he should have left by now. I don't understand why Dan has been so miserable lately anyway. He doesn't talk at all during the drives, and rushes out of the van to call his girlfriend every single time that we stop. What Dan doesn't realize is that he's giving off the same kind of negativity that Joe apparently can't handle from me, and is only making the situation with Joe worse. I just can't stand dealing with everyone's personality flaws and all their bullshit. I just want to live inside my own head from now on. It's 4:26 am and I'm just going to be in an even worse mood tomorrow if I don't get to bed soon, so I'm going to stop now. Fuck everyone.

It's now 5:12 am. I can't fall asleep because I started crying and panicking. I don't know how much longer I can do this shit without Julia. That's really it in a nutshell. I can go into as much detail as I want, but it all just boils down to that. We spend just as much time away from each other as we do with each other, and that's wrong. I won't do it, I need her to quit her job and live life on the road with me. I want to be fighting through life WITH her, not parallel to her. She is back home working to pay off her debts and possibly start a normal life, while I am living a life of traveling with no sense of stability whatsoever. I need her here, or I can't do it anymore.  I would give up all my dreams of becoming a career musician if it meant that that was the only way we could spend our lives together. I love her so much and I can't live my life without her for too much longer. I am far happier when I'm home, and I don't want it to be that way at all. I'm probably not going to get any sleep tonight, but I guess I'll just have to deal with it because I think I'm too worked up to sleep anytime soon. I just sent Julia a decently long email regarding this matter. I hope it doesn't ruin her day, I just couldn't hold it in. I'm not supposed to be even using my phone at all because of the ridiculous charges, but I had to get it off my chest. It's not so much that I miss her, but that I see that this torture has no end in sight, and I'm pretty sure that I'm close to giving up. I need her.

I woke up around 1:45 and hopped in the shower. I got out of the shower and turned on my phone. Julia had responded to the email I sent her. I signed online to talk to her for a minute and she called me as soon as I IM'ed her.  She told me that Belle went into cardiac arrest the night before and had to be euthanized. Julia had her since 1991. She sounded sad on the phone, but at the same time she seemed to be at peace with it. I can't help but feel like my emotions last night and the death of something constant in Julia's life were somehow connected because they were happening at the exact same time. I hope that Julia is affected in a way that makes her fully realize just how short life is, that we are all going to die, and to spend as much time in your life as you can with the one you love. Maybe then she'll let it all go, and join me in my journey. It doesn't matter if we're rich together, or poor together because either way, we'd be together. 

Josh and Joe went to go see AFI at Edgefest. The rest of us stayed behind because Mike from Cancer Bats couldn't get us in. We went to Utopia, a vegetarian restaurant and I got a veggie burger for under 6 dollars. We just pulled up to the venue. 

It's now 8:47, approximately 2 and a half hours since we pulled up to the venue, and we're still sitting here in the van. It's so obvious to me that we all can't stand each other. No one has said a word this whole time unless it was a question that needed to be answered. I don't feel like I'm friends with my band mates at all. All I ever read about is how all my favorite bands consider themselves a "family", and I don't think that I could possibly identify with them any less.

Yes

Well, it's 4:47 am and I'm still awake. I only say this because I have to start flipping my sleeping patter back around so that I'm no longer nocturnal because of the upcoming Canadian tour that Energy is doing. We leave Thursday and have a show in Buffalo, New York Thursday night. It's Wednesday morning, and I'm still awake...ughh. Whatever, I do this every time and it never seems to phase me too much because I'm always too nervous and stressed out about touring for exhaustion to catch up with me. I won't be able to use my sidekick while I'm in Canada because of dumb ass international charges. I won't even be able to Tweet. How the fuck will I get through this? I guess I'll just have to listen to my headphones and maybe even read some. I just recently started in on reading Henry Rollins' "A Dull Roar" again. I started reading it in November/December while I was in Europe but I never finished it. I started in on it again last night, only to break my last pair of reading glasses tonight. I hope I can get some before I leave. I can barely even read what I'm typing right now, I'm not joking. If I didn't know what I just typed, I wouldn't be able to read any of this.

I talked to Josh today and he said that he'll press the Children Of The Night album on "Bloodlust Records" some time this Fall/Winter. It will be on 12" Vinyl and will come with a digital download. There will be a T-Shirt/Vinyl Pre-Order deal as well. It will have 11 songs and the track list is as follows (but not in this exact order):

01. In The Graveyard
02. I Killed Your Boyfriend
03. Ghoul Like You
04. Route 44
05. The Messenger
06. I'm Gonna Kill You
07. I Play For Keeps
08. Demon In Disguise
09. I Remember You
10. Born On The Day Of The Dead
11. Weird Town

We're aiming for an Energy/Children Of The Night tour (so basically just Energy featuring Mike Rendini) at some point to promote the record. Since we're recording it ourselves, it saves everyone on recording costs, which I believe is usually the most expensive part of pressing a record. Mike didn't save any of the old recordings as .wav files, and we obviously want zero quality loss when pressing it to vinyl, so we have to re-record all of them. I don't mind too much except for "The Messenger" because all the other songs were recorded so long ago and Mike got way better at recording since then. I just wish he had "The Messenger" in .wav because that came out fine for the most part. I just came home from recording "I'm Gonna Kill You" at Mike's a little while ago. Overall a pretty productive/positive day in the world of Children Of The Night.

My goal for today is to wake up fairly early, hopefully getting between 4-6 hours of sleep, and do all my laundry, pack up for tour, etc. Julia and I are having a "beauty day" as well. We'll be getting our hair cut and our nails and eyebrows done. We're also going to Grasshopper, which is always awesome. Even though we go like once or twice a week, I still love going there, I don't care. Hopefully after all this is done, I will be tired enough to fall asleep at a decent enough hour due to my lack of sleep tonight, and be fully rested to start in on our first Canadian tour of 2009.

Tuesday was Julia and I's 7 year anniversary. I won't write an enormous paragraph or anything, but we didn't really do anything that's much different from what we usually do when we're together. We hung out, went to Grasshopper, and reminisced about the past. I think that kind of shows just how close we really are because neither of us cared that we couldn't afford to go away or anything like that. It would have been nice, but it was an amazing day anyway because it was spent with each other. We're now going on 8 years.

Purely coexist
Separate from all the rest
I am you are me

Yes

Fuck it, I'll do a blog entry.

I've been doing yoga and pilates with Mike a lot lately, every day pretty much, and we've been jogging quite a bit too. We played a show last night in Mendon, it kind of sucked. I had a fun time playing and all, but I could have done that in front of no one. I constantly feel like nobody even gives a shit. Matt was saying how hilariously ironic it was that we were at a "hardcore punk" show, and everyone is standing still all awkward and not moving around, and yawning at that. He also said that we should turn down when the PA sucks as bad as it did because you couldn't hear me at all. I didn't necessarily have a bad time, it just wasn't that good of a show, whatever. It was mainly cool to hang out with Matt at the show because he's one of only 1 or 2 people that I feel I identify with at least a little, and yes, I do realize that he's insane and that that could possibly mean that I'm insane as well. So be it I guess. He gets a shit load of money from the government for being crazy, good for him.

I'm downloading every Bob Dylan album right now. Everyone tells me that I should get into Bob Dylan, and he's regarded as one the greatest songwriters/lyricists of all time so I have to check it out. 33 albums in like 3 hours or less. Hmm that's like roughly $527.67 worth of Bob Dylan albums, isn't it nuts how I manage to come up with all this money to spend on music without having a job?

I've been listening to a lot of Dischord stuff lately, mainly Minor Threat, Embrace, Fugazi, Rites Of Spring, SOA. I'll probably listen to the Faith/Void split cd tomorrow as well.

Julia slept over tonight and she has work in a few hours. I wish she would just quit her job and we could just run away or something. I don't care how childish it sounds, I just want us to be nomadic, and free from the monotonous bullshit that is every day "normal" life. I would gladly settle for a 100 dollar a month shit hole with public bathrooms and showers, I don't care at all, I just need to be on my own. If all I had to do was come up with 100 dollars a month to be able to have the shittiest apartment possible, I'd figure out a way to make that happen. Maybe I will actually. I might look into that because I really can't live here any longer. I would seriously rather sleep under the half pipe at the skate park a lot of the time. I actually WANT to do that. I WANT to live in a terribly shitty apartment and work part time while I'm home and be self sufficient. What I DON'T want, is any long term commitment like a 1 or 2 year lease on a 1,000 dollar a month apartment, forcing me to work full time and save every penny for rent and tour. I wouldn't even be able to do that anyway because there's no way I'd land a new full time job in between each tour, and there's no way any job would just let me come and go as I please for tours. If I worked part time at say a Newbury Comics, or a Hot Topic or something, I'd be able to afford a cheap place, and I wouldn't mind saving all my money. I'm done talking about this for right now, it's getting me too pissed off.

I've been thinking, maybe I AM an asshole. But, maybe "asshole" or whatever other labels like that that I might fall under aren't that bad. Because some of the reasons that I've been called these things are insane. So I guess since everyone seems to disagree with me on these matters, I am in fact an asshole. I can deal with that, because I'm not going to change. I will never watch your terrible band play, because it's terrible. "He doesn't watch any of the opening bands"...correct! Because every night of my life on tour is spent at shows full of terrible bands. A full U.S. tour is roughly 30 shows. Each show has 4 to 7 openers. We do enough touring so that we are on tour for more than half the year. 6 months of touring, 30 days a month = 180 shows. 180 shows multiplied by 5 bands a show = 900 bands. Seriously wrap your head around that for a minute. All the nights that you spend at home, or out with friends or doing whatever it is that you do, I'm in some random state playing with half a dozen random terrible bands. Believe me, I've given plenty of bands a chance, but there has yet to be one single band that Energy has ever played with that I listen to in my own spare time. That is, except for the bands that I already liked anyway like Set Your Goals, Go It Alone, and Modern Life Is War. I've never been like "OH WOW, THAT BAND WAS GREAT, I THINK I'LL GO BUY THEIR RECORD NOW", or anything like that. I just don't like modern day hardcore or pop punk bands really. I don't like modern music that much to be honest. I can probably count the bands that are still active today that I like on my fingers. If what I said before this sentence makes me an asshole, so be it. I don't care. I just know for a fact that I'm not going to like any bands that we play with.

And also, on another topic, why would I ever WANT to make a friend on tour? So I can invite more hopelessness and sadness into my life due to the fact that I will never be truly close with these people because of the distance? No thanks, I'll just continue to live inside my own head instead. I need to learn to do that more. I need to learn how to just put my headphones in, and just disappear into my own world inside my head during the long drives. I'm too dependent on everyone else's conversation and communication in general. I also need to get some mace or something so that I can go for walks by myself without worrying too much about being robbed at knife or gunpoint.

Every time I really start thinking about how I am happiest when dealing with people the least, I always think of this lyric from "Nobody But You" by Go It Alone: "This is what I've learned: Don't search for solace in another's embrace. Everyone that we hold so dear gets lost in the static of the passing years. So, learn to be alone. Find comfort in the solitude. Harden your heart and build unbreakable will. It's the only way you'll ever survive this world." I used to think that I might someday be able to overcome these feelings of hopelessness and alienation, but I've realized over time that I need to welcome it, because it's the only thing that will ever be truly loyal to me.

I think that that last paragraph would have been a good way to go out, but I just don't care. I'll just end this entry with my plans for the day. It's 7:27am and I still haven't gone to bed. Julia will be waking up in about a half an hour to go to work. I'm assuming she's only working until noon, which means that I'll have to wake up in the middle of my "night" basically, in order to spend any time with her on her day "off". I don't mind doing that at all though, as long as I'm not nodding off and dizzy, I'm willing to be tired all day just to spend some time with her. Monday marks 7 years since we first started dating. I'm going to sleep now.

Yes

I really identify with what he says from 2:58 to 3:25

Yes

Copied from http://jasontankerley.tumblr.com :

"I’m updating this because I made it yesterday and knowing that there’s nothing on it yet is driving me insane. Tonight I plan on hanging out with Jullia, doing some yoga, going for a jog, and recording. I will probably do all of that except go for a jog. I want to, but I probably won’t have time. Energy has a show tomorrow in some random town in MA at some skatepark, that should be cool I guess, seeing as we don’t play at home that much anymore.

I’m probably going to sync this up with jasontankerley.blogspot.com a lot of the time, but I will be blogging while on-the-go with this more often because of the Tumblr Bot for AIM that Tumblr offers. However many characters AIM allows you to send in one IM is how long of an update I can make from my sidekick. I can also make updates with unlimited characters with the email-update option, so I might do that sometimes as well. I know that nobody cares, I just find these things really cool and interesting, and I am obsessed with the idea of documenting my life online.

I just got out of the shower and I should probably start getting ready for my somewhat of a busy night."

Tried to save myself, but myself keeps slipping away

The last update I made was the day before I left for The Wonder Years tour. It was a very good tour. That's about as much as I'd like to talk about touring.

Since tour, I've been going to Mike's and doing yoga. Last night we went for a jog for a while. Today I woke up to my Dad calling me to tell me he was going to stop by my Mom's for a minute. He found a handful of records in the trash at his work and he gave them to me. Some of them include: Cream - Wonderful, A Clockwork Orange Soundtrack, Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here, The Who - Tommy.

Last night Julia bought me these:





I feel like the Siamese Dream one is a little wobbly. Certain records are on my turntable, which leads me to believe that it's my turntable and not necessarily the records. I read this today and it reminded me that I'm not the only one to ever feel this way: "McCartney had insisted from the beginning of their marriage that his wife should be involved in his musical projects, so that they did not have to be apart when he was on tour."

Mike was showing me some Beatles stuff last night, videos, songs, etc. and I realized that they are amongst many essential bands that I have yet to really get into. Mike also brought up a good point though, he said that it might be a good thing that I waited because it's better to spread it out than to get into all this amazing music during one short time period.

Begin Depression (I'm giving you fair warning to skip this paragraph in order to keep yourself in a good mood):

I don't have many friends anymore really. Sometimes it makes me sad, sometimes it makes me happy, but most of the time I just don't care. When I go on tour only one person calls me. On this past tour no one outside my family called me. If Julia came with me on every tour, I could leave my phone behind and it wouldn't affect anyone. I feel so broken constantly. I feel so depressed all the time and I always think "how much more of this can I take before I just lose it?". Not "lose it" like go ballistic and go on a killing spree or anything, but just completely give up. But then I realize, I think I already have lost it. My own depression doesn't even dig me deeper anymore, it just repeatedly lets me know where I am, and where I've been for quite some time now. I don't make friends on tour, and I certainly don't make friends when I'm home. I don't want any more friends though. I don't feel close to anyone besides Julia. I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but it's how I feel. I know that I may share certain bonds with certain individuals, but that doesn't mean we are truly close. I would be sad if I lost the few friends that I have, but it wouldn't be like if I lost Julia. The way I am around her is as close to being "myself" as anyone's going to get. If I lost that, I would enter a state of mind that would eventually destroy me.

I'll end this section on a quote: “It is no surprise to me that hardly anyone tells the truth about how they feel. The smart ones keep themselves to themselves for good reason. Why would you want to tell anyone anything that's dear to you? Even when you like them and want nothing more than to be closer than close to them? It's so painful to be next to someone you feel strongly about and know you can't say the things you want to.”

/End Depression

Wednesday I saw Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction with Julia, Eric, and my Dad. It was awesome. I'm not nearly as into Jane's Addiction as I am Nine Inch Nails but they were really fun to watch as well. NIN didn't play a LOT of the songs that I wanted them to, but it's ok. Songs that I wanted them to play that they didn't include: Lights In The Sky, We're In This Together, Starfuckers Inc., The Wretched, Closer, Ruiner, Terrible Lie, Down In It, Only, Every Day Is Exactly The Same, Survivalism, Capital G, and a bunch more. They did however play Hurt, which is my favorite song by them, and one of my favorite songs of all time. The saddest song ever written in my opinion.

Here are some videos from Wednesday starting with HURT:

"Hurt"


"Gave Up"


"Metal"


"Burn"


"Echoplex"


"Discipline"


"Home"


"La Mer"


"Head Like A Hole"


"Somewhat Damaged"


"The Hand That Feeds"


They also played: March Of The Pigs, Piggy, The Fragile, and Wish.

Julia has been asleep for a while now, I want to fall asleep soon so that we can wake up around the same time and enjoy a nice day together. I hate being away from her even if it's just a matter of hours. It's like some emotional prison cell. I found a picture of her that she gave me when she was like 16 with a note on the back. I don't know if it's too personal of a note to post in my blog so I won't. Even then, we knew that we would always be in love with each other. We started dating on June 15th 2002, and in 9 days we will be celebrating our 7th anniversary. I think after that date I will make a sappy entry detailing how we met. A tragedy occurs every time we spend a fraction of a second away from each other. I don't care how corny any of this sounds, she is the only thing that keeps me going in life. In the words of Placebo "Without you, I'm nothing".

I'm going to end this entry now solely because this is roughly how long my entries usually are, and as of this moment, I'll stick to those guidelines.