NFL
By Keith Richards
The theme was so nice, I had to do it twice. As I alluded to in part one, the first tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore was so fun that I had to make a second tier. In truth, the second tier of my Emo Mt. Rushmore might be more fun than the first. There are just so many options in this category, that there is truly no right or wrong answer.
As I stated in the first tier, the second tier my Emo Mt. Rushmore might be drastically different than yours. In truth, the second tier by my own doing is drastically different than what I originally put down. I went back and forth over several names before landing on these four. So, enough with the small talk. I present to you my Emo Mt. Rushmore – Second Tier.
Davey Havok – AFI – California
Imperfect cry, and scream in ecstasy
So what befalls the flawless?
Look what I’ve built (please don’t do this)
It shines so beautifully (why won’t you look at me)
Now watch as it destroys me
AFI (short for A Fire Inside) was formed in California all the way back in 1991. Of all the members of the second tier of my Emo Mt. Rushmore, Davey Havok takes the most interesting path. In many ways, Davey is a lot like Lazzara of Taking Back Sunday. That is to say, Havok does not have what one would call a positive view of the term emo.
In a 2017 interview, Davey was asked what he thought of the emo tag. Havok responded, “We’ve actually rarely experienced it, so it’s a strange thing. It’s also a strange thing to us because – I mean, that term has always been a negative and sort-of insulting term throughout music. It’s generally belittling…it’s always difficult for me to even hear that word and recognise that it’s now changed meaning.”
Davey Havok, concerning AFI at least, does have a valid point. As I said, Havok is a lot like Lazzara. Consequently, AFI is a lot like Taking Back Sunday. From the beginning of their discography to now, one could hardly call AFI an emo band through and through, but it’s not why Havok makes the second tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore.
From Answer That and Stay Fashionable (1995) through The Art of Drowning (2000), Davey and AFI were, without question, a punk band. With the release of the Answer That and Stay Fashionable, AFI was rightfully considered a hardcore punk band. By the time you get around to The Art of Drowning, though, you can sense the emo tones drifting heavily into their music.
Take the first track of The Art of Drowning, The Lost Souls, as an example. In the second verse of that track, Havok sings:
If you can’t stand
Upon the earth then I will see you on the other side
When you blink do you only find
The misery weighs down your eyes?
Then take my side and sleep with me
Now, that is not to say The Lost Souls is horribly dissimilar from previous AFI tracks, but you could just feel the difference starting to happen. Enter Sing the Sorrow. From the opening track of Sing the Sorrow, you can tell a shift in the band’s song and content. It’s the period of AFI, starting with Sing the Sorrow, that puts Havok and AFI on the second tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore.
The peak of AFI’s turn to a more emo sound is track four on Sing the Sorrow: Silver and Cold. In this song, Davey sings:
Cold in life’s throes, I’ll fall asleep for you
Cold in life’s throes, I only ask you turn away
Cold in life’s throes, I’ll fall asleep for you
Cold in life’s throes, I only ask you turn
As they seep…into me, oh, my beautiful one, now
It’s songs like Silver and Cold, The Missing Frame, and Darling, I Want to Destroy You that cement Davey Havok’s and AFI’s place on the second tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore. Are they an emo to the core band like Dashboard Confessional? No, but Havok and AFI will forever stand (and be known) for their “emo” moments.
Hayley Williams – Paramore – Tennessee
Pain, make your way to me, to me
And I’ll always be just so (so) inviting
If I ever start to think straight
This heart will start a riot in me
Theo Wargo/WireImage
In the space of emo, there are not many females that you can say legitimately fit. To me, it’s always been a strange thing. Hayley Willaims makes the second tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore not as a pity vote. No, that would be far from the truth. Hayley Williams makes the second tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore because she is an emo powerhouse.
Hayley Williams and Paramore burst onto the scene in 2007 with the release of their second studio album: Riot! The first single of that album was a track named Misery Business. At the time of that release, Hayley was just 19 years old. Many, including myself, assumed that Paramore and Williams would reign supreme in the space of pop-punk. That was not the case though.
Joshua Martin noticed back in 2007, around the time of the release of Riot! where Hayley and Paramore would live. After an interview with the band, Martin said, “The band isn’t just a short pop-punk girl with red hair and a spunky attitude. Their music is like them, it’s aged differently. It’s sped up, and slowed down. It’s emo without being whiney, or bratty. Almost a very literal anti-Avril Lavinge.”
To Martin’s point, the sound of Williams and Paramore has evolved over their albums. However, the underlying feeling has always been that this is an emo band. From That’s What You Get to The Only Exception to Ain’t It Fun, Hayley and Paramore’s sound has consistently evolved but they’ve always been emo to the core.
Living proof of the band’s constant evolution of sound can be found on their album After Laughter. After Laughter, and its lead single Hard Times, is this whimsical sound that clashes with melancholy lyrics that ends up being masterful. Take the lead single, Hard Times, for example.
The music video for Hard Times is colorful and vivid. The tone of the instrumental is upbeat and hopeful. The lyrics?
Walking around
With my little rain cloud
Hanging over my head
And it ain’t coming down
Where do I go?
Gimme some sort of sign
You hit me with lightning!
Maybe I’ll come alive
Often, the sound of a Paramore song does not match the lyrics. It’s what makes Paramore so unique. It’s Hayley, though, that makes the second tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore. With the voice of someone who you think would cover Whitney Houston’s songs, Hayley has cemented her legacy and spot on the second tier by being herself: Uniquely, Amazingly, Beautifully, Hayley Williams.
Anthony Raneri – Bayside – Queens
You’re pulling out your teeth
And I’m the Novocaine you pump in your cheek.
That’s why I’m still around,
You’ve got blood running down your chin.
But you suffered peacefully
In my battle of deciding who fit on the second tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore, I played with almost a dozen names. However, there was one name that unconsciously made the top four every time: Anthony Raneri.
Unless you’re familiar with emo culture, Anthony Raneri and Bayside may not sound familiar. In terms of mainstream success, Raneri and Bayside are not in the same league as the “big boys” like Dashboard Confessional, Fallout Boy, or My Chemical Romance. However, Anthony making the second tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore just goes to show that it’s not always about commercial success.
Bayside was formed in the year 2000 in Queens, New York, and has consisted of the same members since 2006. Anthony Raneri, Jack O’Shea, and Nick Ghanbarian have all been members of the group since the release of Sirens and Condolences in 2004. Chris Guglielmo would join the band after the untimely death of John “Beatz” Holohan in 2005.
If I were to compare Anthony Raneri to anyone of the first tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore, it would be Chris Carrabba. Stylistically, Bayside and Dashboard Confessional could hardly be any different. Lyrically, though, Raneri and Carrabba are both masters of using the directness of their feelings and putting them in song form.
One of Anthony’s greatest performances as a lyricist comes from the band’s self-titled album, Bayside, and the song Don’t Call Me Peanut. Raneri sings:
And when I see her
I’ll tell her what’s been on my mind
All these sleepless nights.
She’ll recite her excuses
Put my tail between these legs of mine
Like I do all the time.
Through Bayside, Anthony Raneri makes the second tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore because he’s not afraid to put his pain directly on wax. At times, that pain can be graphic. Other times, that pain can be pure sadness. Every time, though, it’s Anthony Raneri. He may not seem like the most obvious choice, but Raneri has earned his place on the second tier of Emo Mt. Rushmore.
Buddy Nielsen – Senses Fail – New Jersey
I sent out single flares
But no one out there seems to care
Now the voice inside my head
Is the only thing that I have left
This is the part where I’ll admit
I’m getting what I deserve
Timothy Norris/Getty Images
Buddy Nielsen is the man who started this all. It was his tweet that put me on this journey of an Emo Mt. Rushmore. So, why doesn’t he make the first tier? As I said, there are no right or wrong answers. It’s something that is very subjective and has so many factors that play into it. If there was a ranking of the second tier, though, Nielsen would be number one by a country mile.
Buddy Nielsen has not just been a mainstay in emo culture since 2001, he’s also been the mainstay of Senses Fail. Senses Fail has seen many lineup changes in its twenty-plus years of existence, but one thing has remained the same: James “Buddy” Nielsen.
Through Buddy, Senses Fail has remained one of the most influential screamo bands in history. Much like Jesse Lacey of the first tier, Nielsen is a complicated individual. While Raneri’s lyrics may border on being graphic, Buddy’s earlier music was flat-out graphic. That’s not a knock against him.
Without condemning, or condoning, much of the early days of screamo and its lyrics can be today as misogynistic. I’m not trying to place Buddy in a bad light, not at all, but Senses Fail were some of the…leaders of that space. It’s something that Buddy Nielsen states makes him “cringe” now.
In a 2018 interview, regarding the scene back in the day, Nielsen stated, “It’s crazy to think that [Let it Enfold You] was not only widely accepted but applauded as a really good lyrical record. Those are things I was pulling from – ‘Okay, this is what people are writing about.’”
Buddy would continue to say, “To be honest, I think I struggled from a deep, sort of…I don’t know if it came from society or my upbringing, but I think there was a level of…that was okay. I know my mom didn’t raise me to think that that was okay, obviously. I don’t wanna say ‘different times,’ because that’s a really easy way to get out of owning any sort of responsibility to it. I don’t really know what the right way to say that is. But it was a less consciously-aware time for me and I think for a lot of other people.”
What Buddy Nielsen says, in my opinion, perfectly describes that time in the emo, and especially, the screamo scene. He took responsibility for the content he produced then and I took responsibility for the content that I loved then.
I’m not trying to make excuses for myself or Buddy Nielsen. It feels dismissive to say, but it was just something that was accepted at the time. Like Buddy, I regret that the music was acceptable at the time, but, speaking just for myself, I don’t regret the music. That is not to say that it’s music I openly listen to today.
I’m a girl dad, a father to two little girls. While I still may listen to many songs from Let it Enfold You on my headphones when they come up on the playlist and my daughters are present, I skip the songs without hesitation.
Maybe it’s a bit hypocritical. I continue to be fond of music from that era, but I would never want my little girls to hear that and I think it’s okay to speak of women in that manner. It’s a difficult thing to explain and come to terms with. All I can say is that the music was fitting for the time. A good release of those feelings instead of acting on them.
That being said, even if you take away that period of screamo, Buddy Nielsen has been an emo legend since the EP From The Depths of Dreams. On One Eight Seven, one of Buddy’s most popular and most memorable tracks, Nielsen sings:
But why did I ever let you inside my heart?
I’m such a fool
I paint my face in shades of blood and grey
And take a seat right next to me
But I should have known that you were a killer
But now I’m dead
Buddy Nielsen, despite how we may feel about that space now, is firmly entrenched in emo music. Then, now, and forever. His spot on the second tier of the Emo Mt. Rushmore is forever solid.
So, there you have it. The second tier of my Emo Mt. Rushmore. Who do you agree with? Who do you disagree with? Sound I make one final tier? Let us know!
