Blog Feed

Young boy in the band

fuzz seymourLeave a comment

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”

Wayne Gretzky

My current band, Sunset Hollow, is usually how strangers know me. Now let’s not make this sound like I am famous or anything, but I have had some great experiences that would have never came to fruition without me having been noticed by fans or followers. However, most of my stories of crazy happenings come from a band I was in when I was much younger.

When I was 16 I found myself not in a band for the first time since 13 years old. High school was coming to an end so we had members in my current band looking in to college. That band was called Fair View. The name was derived from the cemetery where most of my paternal family are buried. When I was slightly younger than this I watched a family member die in front of me and let’s just say I was already emo enough but I had a goth mindset when it came to band names and songs at the time. Oddly enough, my father would go to a small restaurant in Atglen, PA and made friends everywhere he went. The staff would talk to him about all kinds of events or issues going on in their lives as well as family matters. Ended up being that Cheryl’s son was in a band looking for a bassist.

My dad has always liked to bring me opportunities to capitalize on. I never realized how much he looked for pathways for me until I was older. Well, actually I never saw it until I started this blog. Thanks Pops. I was 16 years old with all this experience and talent and no outlet. This was 2007 so everyone and their mom weren’t producers yet so I was kind of lost. After my dad told me about the opportunity I quickly said “no.”

They were an older band playing hard rock style music. The name of the band was Swelter for God’s sake. What kind of loser would like that band name? Pops encouraged me to just go for a day and feel it out. If I wasn’t feeling the band, then he would never bring it up again.

So I reluctantly agreed and we packed up my gear. We drove out a little further than I was expecting but finally we arrived to a rancher with two cars out front. One was a mustang with a giant spider on the side of the car. I already regretted the decision. My dad noticed my face and told me we are already here. Just go in. I carried my shit to the back of the house as instructed and heard the music coming from the basement door. I lifted the handle to what would become one of the most important experiences in my life.

Jimmy, Cheryl’s son, was the first to greet me. This was no “Hey how are you?” situation like when you walk through a retail store. This guy honestly was excited to meet me. He embraced me like a long lost brother and immediately introduced me to the rest of the band. Craig was on the drum kit. The owner of the home and obviously the oldest of the group. This is my first time meeting the once Marine and now Cop who sat before me. He had a negative and judgmental face when I first approached him. As I stumbled out the words, “Hello, I’m Fuzz” he demanded to know if I drink underage with a fatherly approach. Not sure how to answer, I just shook my head side to side and shrugged my shoulders. Then he smiled and said, “there is beer in the fridge if you change your mind.” I was overtaken by how they seemed to have planned how to divide and conquer my emotions all in one meeting. Then there was Lester. Lester is not the kind of name I would associate with kindness or passion, more like what I saw before me. A tall skinny ginger with a cigarette gently balanced on his lip as he talked. A man with long hair and a face that screamed out “sleep is for the weak.” His shirt said “Don’t piss me off because I am running out of places to bury the bodies!” He looked at me with a sad face and then all of a sudden his whole demeanor changed. He was just a normal ass dude who liked Lord of the Rings books and video games. Not only did he become my closest friend of the bunch but he was the main song writer and booked all of the shows.

On the first night I just showed them some riffs I wrote and they showed me their songs. I watched Lester’s hands as I studied his playing style and general shapes of his scale patterns. I quickly followed the basic song structures with root notes and started to add in my pop punk/ jazz influence. It just kind of worked right a way. I honestly felt like I was destined to be in this group. A band that had a Godsmack meets Led Zeppelin feel was actually kind of fun. Soon after joining, we recorded an album at Evolved Studios in West Chester PA and we were gigging as much as we could.

We would play the Chameleon Club with bands like Jacobs Ladder and Twelve After. These bands later started the group today known as From Ashes to New. Lester some how would get us shows with Hurt, Adema, Halestorm, Tunnels to Holland, etc. I was so quick to brush of the best band opportunity I have still had to this day. I got to meet people that really pushed me to understand the world around me better. I was making money doing covers at bars and playing originals at clubs to grow our own fan base. I was 16 when this band really got the push it needed. We went from Craig’s basement, to Jimmy’s trailer, to Cheryl’s garage, and then later to a tattoo parlors basement that was also used to shoot pornographic photos. Don’t worry, this was after I was 18 years old. The stories and bonds I made in this band are memories that still rush to me when I am going to see a show or to perform in a show. I was 16 getting shots from venue owners because of how much they appreciated our drive, passion, music, and of course all the tickets we were selling. I played with Texas in July at the the Silo in Reading which has been closed for what seems like forever. I even got to drink with “the world’s greatest roadie.” I do not remember his name but this man was a legend. Not only touring with bands like Metallica and such but also the amount of shit in his bag… I was shown all the drugs and options of how to use it in a two small backpacks. This guy was prepared for anyone who needed help whether it was lifting or setting up gear or to get them “focused.”

After a while things happen. Kids are born, relationships fail, court dates happen, and record contracts lingering in the air are gently whisked away as our band became more stagnant. We hit a period where only Lester and I would show up to practice. All this comradery and brotherhood just fell to the wayside of broken homes and broken promises. So like any band hoping for the best, we took a hiatus. I don’t recall how long we took a break for but I keep thinking it was about 2-3 years. We still had people on our Myspace (yes, I said myspace) asking for more shows and music. We ended up getting back together and the good thing was now- I could drink legally. It never stopped me before having strong facial hair and a stocky football player build at my young age.

We were back at it. New experiences happened in between. I was in another band called Silence in Ruins which really was a great time for me. I had basically become the Lester of that band and we made mistakes, meaning I had learned a lot of what not to do. Swelter decides to come back with new music and shows in all the major places we killed before. A lot of the venues had either changed hands or closed down, but the tried and true spots were still our for the taking. My drummer from Silence in Ruins ended up recording us and I have to say, we were all impressed by how we were writing. The metal influence came through stronger with influenced from bands like Tool and Disturbed. The solos and cleans still balanced it out well but the groove was just always there. Now I will admit our drummer was not the most creative musician I have worked with. However, Craig was a solid drummer and a hell of a performer. I didn’t look back there much but I’ll take his word for the performing part.

We had old fans and new fans excited for our return. The next chapter for Swelter. I really think the name should have changed here but I lost that vote unfortunately. The band I had annoyed while talking in a horrible english accent for the whole ride to Philadelphia, the group that left our manager at a bar in bumble fuck town PA because he was too interested in a girl at the bar and had to pay over $200 in a taxi cab ride to get home, the brothers I woke up to fighting about getting stuck in someones yard with our gear trailer, the friends I had drank with and defended were back in the driver seat and moving towards great things. And then it just ended. Again, Lester and I were the only ones left at practice. The world forgot about us as quickly as we had seen so much progress and promise. This band taught me most of the things I currently know about band life. Overcoming adversity, the dedication needed by all of the member to succeed, and how much fun you can have while working with the right people. Most of them speak to me less than I would like. Those memories are reminders of a happier time for me that ended with sadness. A time where a diner would open up, after just closing, for us because they heard our band name and wanted to have “famous people” in their establishment for an hour or so. A time where I was asked for autographs at gas stations and bars was all gone and I had nothing but ticket stubs, some old pictures, and memories faded to remind me of many of the best moments in my life. I never thought I would miss the band Swelter and it was all because I listened to a man wiser than myself tell me to just give it a shot.

Sleep Paralysis

Featured fuzz seymourLeave a comment

Waking up in a paralyzed type state and seeing something approaching you is ultimate fear for me. Trying to scream and you just mutter a hum type sound while your partner snores their ass off while you prepare to have your soul ripped out from your body is how I imagine I will actually die. Not that the figure in the dream is real but I can see my having a heart attack during one of these events. Words honestly do not give the fear justice. It is similar to imagining what war is like from your comfy apartment in Pennsylvania. You do not know what it is like until you experience the actual event. For those interested, on the podcast I co-host and produce we discuss some of these topics and dreams I have had. I will explain some stuff here but I highly recommend that episode.

When I was younger I had a difficult childhood. After being given up by my mother I moved into an apartment above a local convenience store/grocery market with my brother, step-mother, and half sister. This store was across the street from a Quaker church that has an actual underground cavern that was used to hide slaves. There were many rumors but the historical society even acknowledged this fact. The store was connected to the church through this underground route. Many employees would dread going to the basement at all times of the day and reported strange occurrences. The attic of the apartment was once sealed off in a seance to help keep the spirits up there. My father of course needed to space… so fuck the ghosts.

So now I am living in a haunted home that has historical documentation of not only under ground railroad caverns but also it was documented as haunted. It was not unusual for me to hear footsteps or hear voices, especially in the attic. This made me accustomed to the idea that things happen out of my control. The first time I remember being “attacked” was on my bed in my mid-teen years. I was just taking a cat nap after school. My friends had just left for work, the sun was shining, and I just ate two chicken BBQ sandwiches and drank a gallon of Turkey Hill green tea from the store I lived above. I woke up abruptly to a cloud of black over me. I saw a dark I can only describe as negative light. It had motion and seemed to get closer to me. My step-mother was in the room next to me. We were only separated by a wall but I was frozen in fear. I tried to scream. I honestly thought I did scream. After the ordeal lasted about 7 seconds my eyes slammed shut and I fell off the bed. After hitting the floor I yelled at my step-mother for not assisting me after I yelled for her. She ran in to the room and said I never made a sound and there was nothing there.

Now I am being haunted directly by these fucking ghosts. Or so I thought. For years I blocked these kind of memories from my mind. Maybe my brain was trying to keep me sane. Maybe it was a dream or just something I made up. I tried to just forget as much as I could. But Even before then I always had a fear of things at my window or door at night. As a child I never felt safe at night. Years passed. Of course some things happened but nothing major. So I moved out with my now wife. We had a new place. I owned guns, put up black out curtains, and was ready for the alien invasion. But really I never did feel safe in the safest place for most people. My bed was never a form of comfort when I was alone. I always felt vulnerable in those rooms. The moment that I changed my perspective on what was happening to me was when it happened mid-day when my wife was awake. I was working 7:30PM to 7:30AM at the time. My wife woke me up to tell me that she was going out with her friend and whatever else she said. I mumbled through her voice something like “okay, love you, bye, sleep time.” She proceeded to the bathroom and heard me making odd noises. When she walked in I was borderline seizing. She shook me until I had become responsive and I just cried and said do not leave me. When she asked what happened I was still in shock and could not respond.

I had blocked out every example of this happening to me in my past. The story I told above about the black cloud was forgotten about until this moment. Every instance of these types of occurrences came back after this last attack. Over a dozen instances of me being frozen in fear and something sitting on my chest, climbing through my windows, opening the door to just watch me, hands coming from under the bed, shapeshifters, walls being walked through, out of body experiences, etc. I was hit with the proverbial “truck” that just delivered a lethal dose of realization to me. When I bought my dog Monkee I told my wife she was to sleep in the bedroom with us once potty trained. I was subconsciously hiring a 12lb yorkie-mix bodyguard to protect me in my sleep. She was in the room when this attack happened so… bad dog. Many things I did as just second nature were ritualistic to keep me from fear; sleeping with the tv or light on, having a gun close by, checking the closet door before I slept, going back downstairs to just make sure I didn’t have to get up in the night, and more. I still do many of these things to this day. Actual, all of them.

This was not the worst experience I had ever had but it was the most profound attack in my life. It changed me. After my wife had walked away and shut the door I had fallen back asleep. All of a sudden, I felt many presences in the room. I started to open my eyes. Light and colors were there but still blurry. As my eyes started to adjust to the room my lungs felt compressed and my eyes slammed shut. Have you ever closed your eyes and shined a flashlight or turn off the lights afterwards? You can still see and sense the difference in light. The darkness has a tint or red accents that clue you in to the environments visibility. This was present and then just vanished. Like the room I was in dropped below the crust of the earth and I fell into the abyss. The negative light was now in my whole room. Then streams of light would flicker and shoot across my closed eyelids, like directional fireworks. But while this happened the darkness would do the same thing from the opposite direction. It was like good and evil were fighting over my soul. One side was determined to consume me and the other side fought for my survival while I laid paralyzed trying to scream for help. My heart was beating more than a planet fitness can handle. I can not explain to you how it felt other than I actually thought I was being ripped into hell and this was my new reality. I tried to shake and fight. I could control my breathing and could think but was unable to do anything else. Right before my wife woke me up I had stopped fighting. I just gave up. It felt like a championship boxing match with my soul fighting a platoon of demons. I just hoped for death.

After waking up with my wife holding me while I was sobbing, all of the past experiences just smacked me. That is why I was really in shock. I was unable to grasp whether or not it was real. I actually asked myself if I was Neo. (Matrix references are needed to comfort myself.) I asked why me? I had to work in a few hours but how could I rationalize working on a printing press after remembering all the suffering I had endured over the years? I have to this day never been so scared in my life.

After that day I looked up as much as I could. I had to understand why these creatures, people, demons, or whatever were tormenting me. I stumbled across sleep paralysis. I read as much as I could about everything related to the subject. I learned about the threat simulation theory, incubus attacks, etc. What I found most conflicting was that I refused to believe it was in my mind. That something so real was just made up in my imagination. But how do so many people see the same things and experience the same dreams when they never talked about it or met before? It spanned the globe for all of history. Different cultures and tribes who never spoke had the same fearful attacks while in paralyzed states at bed time or during a nap. Common traits for the “presence” are tall shadow figures with red eyes or a man with a hat. While many of mine had nothing to do with these examples, there were a few that had similar characteristics. So as a logical person… I actually just stopped researching. I stopped talking about it and just accepted it as my own brain. Everything in me tells me I would not do this to myself. But it’s either I move on with my life or I look for the monsters that seek my destruction. And even though they still haunt me to this day. I can find comfort in ignorance because it is the only thing keeping me sane.

Getting the Point Across

Featured fuzz seymourLeave a comment

Today I already failed in doing this feat. I knowingly commented my way in to a scenario where I knew I wouldn’t be a champion of changing opinions. The poster was assumed, on my part, to being okay with the idea of attacking someone based off of the red hat they wore. Yes, the great white nationalist MAGA hat sets the stage again. However they never stated this. It was inferred as such by sharing and saying ” Ppl gotta realize wearing symbols of hate out for everyone to see doesn’t always bring the results or consequences u expect.” So the inference, though logical, was my original mistake.

I am not a Trump supporter. I think the man is a symbol of how a leader can divide a country and tear open old wounds rather then letting us heal. In many ways, I do not disagree with his policies and political views. My reason for defending the people who support him was not because I stand with them, but because I feel that violence for an assumed position should be highly frowned upon.

So why would I comment knowing I would appear as a racist Trumper? I thought I could help find a little bit of a middle ground in the conversation. Maybe I could show people the that being emotional and feeling personally attacked may lead to justifying and irrational act. So getting to the point of the article… (Did you see what I did there? Its the name of the article. Yeah!) I failed to properly make my point. I felt as though I said what I felt and explained it well, but it’s simply not that easy in a social media setting.

So I decided to message some people involved in the conversation. Even though some readers felt they were “not logical”, I found that in our private chats they had many good points. So how did I get my point to a position where we finally came to an understanding? Where did we settle on our differences and feel like we had a real conversation that lead to us being “social media friends” and starting to see the other’s perspective? It was when we asked questions that had no social impact. No judgement. No pressure. Just two people holding a conversation.

So the basic jist of conversation before the private messages, it was me comparing the idea that the hat is a symbol of hate due to a connection to the man but it does not need to be that way. That a supporter of a racist is not a racist. That not all people who are assumed to be a thing are that thing. We saw this after 9/11. Middle eastern people were harshly treated after theses attacks. Their appearance was labeled fearful and a threat. I understood why ignorant people felt this way, but I disagreed with it. I still do. I understand that racist people do support Trump. This connection does not mean that all people who support the man are in fact carrying the same views on race. To have that thought process is beyond my thinking. So as they explained to me why they felt this way I understood their perspective more. But I never got my side understood.

So in the direct message to the original poster I decided we should take turns asking questions. I would ask question until we cam to my point and they would answer realistically. Following that interaction we would switch places. This individual and I have had many interactions and debates but this was the easiest way for us to find our similar views on the topic. By asking questions I was able to lead the person down my thought process. When we reached the end of the first half of the exercise I found that I felt understood. My guard could drop. That’s when I realized I was closed minded in the previous social media engagement. I was so focused on my point that I forgot theirs. So when I started answering their questions I found myself aligning with them a lot. If you take out the “but what about”s you tend to find a clear path for conversation. I used the unjust reasoning of hate for middle eastern people to show how one act or some violence can impact a whole group without due cause. I got through to the fact that not everyone can be brushed with a broad stroke. But more importantly, I was reminded that situational and environmental variables change the scope of reaction. That you can wear a black lives matter to a KKK rally but it may not bring the best outcome. That wearing red or blue in certain cities could show as a friendly or an enemy to some people. This is all accurate and it directly relates to the original post in question.

The point of this article is not to defend or attack a group of people, but to understand how to come to a civilized perspective on an issue that you may disagree with. That the path of the thought process can have you align with individuals that you assumed to not be in agreement with. At the end of the conversation I learned more than I taught. Being right is not the road to progress and open minded people can easily fall into traps of defensive wall building. Do not be afraid to converse with people you may not understand, because you might just learn something for once.

From Anonymous to Proud

Featured fuzz seymourLeave a comment

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

— Oscar Wilde.

This is something I have felt strongly about since the first time I put anything up on YouTube or saw a rant on Facebook from a fake account. People belittling each other for fun as it would seem, but many really have strong beliefs in the hate they spew. I find myself noticing some people have donned the mask with their full identities available. Remember the times when racism, homophobia, and hate speech were behind closed doors and life was better? Was it really better? Is doxxing making it better or worse? Did behind closed doors really make it any better? Did knowing the name give you justice?

I once spoke with a co worker about these feelings in 2013. For those of you who did not notice, I am a white male. The epitome of “privilege” from a broke ass family who is told I have the world by the balls every day for having external sexual reproductive organs and fair skin. All I know is that my balls itch and I burn easy. Fair trade I guess for the grand idea that I am a walking demigod. My co worker was a black man from Philly (Philadelphia for the uninitiated) and he was very much a people watcher. Some would write “Fred” off as non-confrontational and mild mannered. A family man who did his job, coached his kids, and loved his car. But I knew “Fred” for a long time. I knew the stories he only mentioned off the clock.

One day we got to have a real conversation about race. So there I am working with “Fred”, a Liberian born black man who is close to me in age , and someone in the immediate area says the “N-word.” I never even once got assumed to be the person to say it. It happened immediately behind me and they were both on the other side of the machine and had no visual of anyone else. When I looked at “Fred” he immediately said “Couldn’t have been Fuzz” and just went back to work. I appreciated his lack of assumption and obvious lack of rationality but it led me to ask him “why not me?” It’s not like I have never said the word in any capacity. So I asked him…

“Fred” told me a story about when he worked in a factory in Philly. He worked with a man that would call any black man he saw doing something he didn’t agree with racial slurs. Usually saving the “N-word” for more extreme cases, but that man never once posed a threat to “Fred” or any other person at work. Confused and interested, I asked “How was he not a threat?” In which he replied “It’s not the ones that call you a N-word to your face, it’s the ones that say it behind your back you need to watch out for.”

I never thought of me openly talking about my own prejudices and questioning everything as me letting my guard down and telling others I was safe. I thought it was normal. My whole life I got in trouble for saying the truth until I learned about when, and most importantly, WHO you can trust. I always had this thought in the back of my head until I ran across the quote above. I thought of all the fake profiles on social media that would stir up hate and ruin peoples day for no reason. It wasn’t like Skankhunt42 level comedy or anything. So what was the point? I saw that none of them were really giving you a way to know who they were. They were the ones we needed to watch out for.

So what if they came to light? Would they be ostracized or mauled in the street? Admittedly, I was late to a lot of things in life. Reddit was never really something I utilized or the dreaded Twitter. When doxxing started happening I felt it could be a cure to draw out people of hate and have them atone for their actions in some way. Maybe this would help them see the error in their ways and help bring conversation to the topics? Quickly we saw the social media justice machine just go off the deep end and it became judge, jury, and executioner on so many levels since then. So it didn’t really make a big impact. Now people just say “fuck it” and own their own brand. Telling people to “Unfollow me or block me if you don’t (insert any bs here).”

So where does that leave us now in 2019? When people are openly assaulting one another over red hats and chanting “Send her back” at political events? When people feel rewarded for being banned from social media as if it shows you’re against the “Liberal Agenda.” When you can make unsubstantiated claims of whatever you want to make up and people have to prove they never said or did it to begin with? We have a generation of people that are so closed minded they shut out every thought process or conversations that doesn’t align with the opinion they have temporarily made. Are we in a time where the mask and the person are one and the same?

I talk to my co host twice a week about racism and prejudice. We can have a civil conversation and know where we stand, but if I look at the social media engagement he gets from aggressive white people wanting to knock down his opinion or stance with no willingness to converse, or the hate cards being dropped with no one being allowed to question it… well I find myself appalled with how logic, reasoning, discussion, and tolerance have disappeared from the mindset of those around us.

I started this blog to show that behind every mask is not bad intent. Sometimes it’s just sad truths, from my perspective. Maybe it’s a story from an unlikely hero. Maybe we get to know a little more about goals and dreams we never thought about. I hope to give insight and stir deliberation amongst people like we should be used to but with the walls taken down. There is nothing wrong with being wrong and there is nothing great about being right. In the end it should all be about understanding and growth as a culture. Read more than a headline. Act like a civilized human being. Crave understanding. Learn tolerance. Be disciplined.

Hello Friends

fuzz seymourLeave a comment

Why did I do this blog?

  • I am a content creator. I know that sounds stupid, but I find my interaction with people to be the most rewarding part of making content. Without you there is no happiness for me. This will build on that relationship I care so much about.
  • I have been writing/gigging music for over half my life and podcasting since early 2019. I thought why not bring all of my journeys and conversations to another form of content.

Mini Bio

I am currently 31 Years old, married to the same girl I started dating in 2007, and have 2 dogs named Monkee and Nipsee. I grew up in a different environment than most. Motorcycles, drugs, and weapons were around me since the time I left the womb. I had to grow up faster than most and failed a lot along the way. I still fail everyday. I do not believe I can do anything you can’t. I am not special. I just stopped talking about it and punched in.

What will you talk about?

  • My perspectives and how they have been changed and influenced.
  • Band and podcast life.
  • Supporting others through honest content analysis.

My Intent

  • Influence
  • Communal growth
  • Understanding