Anonymous asked: When did you first hear Brand New and why are you getting a sleeve dedicated to them?

I woke up for school one day and the music video for “The Quiet Things That No One Knows” was playing on MTV (when they used to play music videos late night/early morning, so a long time ago) and I had never heard anything like it before. Everyone at school liked hip hop and r&b, my parents were metal heads and my grandparents listened to country. I had never felt the way I had about music before I heard that song, and don’t get me wrong- I loved music, but never like this feeling I had just felt for Brand New that morning. I wrote down the name of the band and the name of the album and my dad and I went to the record store and bought it and I listened to it constantly.

That’s when I started finding new artists through podcasts and purevolume. When I was 14 I started going to concerts. At 16 I started booking shows and at 18 I started touring. If I had never heard that one song, who knows if I would have fallen in love with music the way I had and I wouldn’t have embarked on the life I have chosen to lead and I wouldn’t be the person I am today. So that is why I started my Brand New sleeve.

EXCITED FOR ALL OF THE THINGS!

So I got my official offer for Warped Tour yesterday, very excited to be returning to the tour in full this summer and most importantly, excited to see all of my friends at one point or another this summer, if not the majority of it :)

I scheduled my trip home to Maine, as well as my trip to California for after the tour. 

I will be in Maine/New England: Monday, August 5th, 2012 - Tuesday, August 21st, 2012.

I expect to see all of my friends in New England in that timeframe, because I miss you all terribly.

From Maine I will be flying to Long Beach, California on Tuesday, August 21st, 2012 and I will be in Southern California until I leave San Diego on Wednesday, August 29th, 2012.

I am really excited. I’ll be staying in Laguna Niguel with my birth mom for the most part since she is flying me from Maine to California to Texas. I want to see so many friends while I’m out there and check out some new things I have yet to see in SoCal yet.

I arrive back in the DFW the night of Wednesday, August 29th, 2012. I’m not sure what my plan is from there, but hey, I’ve got the next full 4 months of my life planned out and that feels pretty fucking good.

The hard part will be telling Teavana I’ll be gone for the summer.