GBC Forever
I didn’t think I was going to take the time to write a Peep/GothboiClique post but after watching “Everybody’s Everything” this past weekend, I realized I have so much to talk about on the subject. I want to preface this post by saying that my story about Peep is actually 180 degrees the opposite direction of most people’s, which has motivated me even more to write, but also, I want to make sure that this doesn’t come off in a way that makes it seem reaching for reads or clicks, which I’ve seen sickeningly happen hundreds of thousands of times in so many mediums since his death. That’s probably why I’ve held off for so long but I think now is a good time to write and talk about my story with Peep, as I’ve enjoyed doing with artists and music since I first got my writing voice in middle school. GBC and Peep both individually and collectively have kept me going through some of the most darkest shit in my life; they really provided me what Linkin Park did, what Taking Back Sunday did when I first was developing depression as an adolescent, so because of this, I really want my words to be heard. Even if you’re not familiar with their music or movement, I encourage you to keep reading if you have the time, because I think it’ll possibly open your eyes to a new musical world where you can find comfort and solace if you are struggling to find it in other areas of your life.
Background
My story with this collective doesn’t begin with Peep. It actually began with GBC in 2013/14. I found a song on soundcloud called “Numb”, by Horsehead and a producer named Nedarb. It still to this day is my favorite song Horsehead ever made, and nothing has ever come close to it for me. Maybe it’s one of those things where when you’re starting out, you just have this natural shine before it becomes convoluted by the whole process of being an artist. I don’t know. I’ll even go as far as to say that it’s my favorite song from this whole movement. I don’t really know how to explain why it was so prolific to me. It’s a beautiful track.
It sampled a song by Real Friends song called “I’ve Given Up On You”, which is funny because I didn’t even get into Real Friends until hearing the same sample flipped on another track produced by Drew The Architect and MISOGI called “Blur” but that’s a story for another time, and honestly, it’s the only Real Friends song I really fuck with. Anyway, I had been dating this girl on and off for a couple years and it was just parasitic narcissism, so the emotional lyrics Horsehead wrote obviously touched upon that. But the numbness spoke to my earlier years, my battles with Xanax in my teenage years and early twenties, “only money stops the heartache” screamed at me because I was making like six figures working a sales job just working my ass off just to run from my problems and fill my sadness and anger with money and stuff and owning people and situations around me because I couldn’t grasp normality on my own, so I had to purchase success and the facade of being OK. And then, “My whole squad got angel wings”...it’s so weird because I have a huge set of angel wings tattooed on my back, and I had never heard any other emo or goth or pop punk bands or artists ever correlate goth or emo culture with angels. That line always hit me so hard because I think it made me feel like someone understood that my love for religious tattoos and symbolism was actually not anti-goth, or anti-emo, but was the true belief that we are good people who are just looking to earn our wings and are sometimes demonized by the hand we have been dealt and the way we handle the reality of our situations. Horsehead refers to angel wings frequently in his earlier tracks and I was immediately drawn to that, and not only drawn, but like glued to this sound and movement. I couldn’t get enough.
Gothboiclique
As I started to delve more into Horsehead’s music, I found a treasure trove of other similar artists that were part of this collective called “Gothboiclique” or GBC as it’s commonly referred to. GBC’s line up has shifted over the years and has been raked through the coals, though that doesn't even feel harsh enough to see how much drama and social media rumor-ing has destroyed what they built and took it away from the music since Peep’s death, but we’ll get into that in a bit. GBC, which was formed by Horsehead, Coldhart and Wiccaphase Springs Eternal, began as an off-shoot of a Seattle-based collective called Thraxxhouse, and so a lot of the artists on both collectives were often featured on the same tracks and shared similar sounds and themes in their music. I was so turned onto what these guys were doing, as they each offered a unique sound and perspective individually but meshed together perfectly. It felt so organic and real to me at the time. More so than just the music, these guys were very active on social media, specifically Twitter and would always respond to my tweets and messages. Even just getting to know me from saying how much I loved the music, to talking to me about my relationship problems and how I would get through it, and how they appreciated me using the music as a source of comfort. Don’t get me wrong, I was never the type to be one of those internet groupies constantly blowing up and artist or a producer but I was so heavily involved in various scenes - DJing, partying, starting to book shows, working with artists in different ways - that my messages were always very pure. I would be just reaching out to say I liked a track, or just joking around with them on Twitter. As distant as we were, certainly not acquaintances nevermind friends, they were always there for me, and this extended much farther than the music. Wiccaphase even gave me a “for GBC members only” bomber jacket for my long-time, then-girlfriend when I reached out asking if I could have some custom merch. There were only something like 10-12 made for the original GBC members and she has one of those. I felt incredibly touched by their connectivity to their fan base, which ultimately and unfortunately opened them up to a lot of negativity later on down the road. I think this is another reason why I’m so eager to share my perspective on things, because I watched a lot of this shit unfold right in front of me, while also being a part of it.
Lil Peep
I vividly remember the day I first heard Peep. Well not the day, but I remember where I was in the car and seeing the song art for “Beamer Boy”. That bright orange pink green shit with the Hollywood sign is burned into my memory. And it probably wasn’t the first time I even heard Peep. I just remember this particular track radiating for me at that time. I’m reading back dates of when the track dropped and it says 2016 but this was definitely 2015. It’s hard to look back on things when an artist gets signed because the major label takes any info or songs on that artist and republishes it all. Who knows, and frankly I don’t care.
I think Smokesac had reposted it and that’s how I came into Peep’s world. Because all of a sudden he was thrown into my GBC bubble. So I obviously had to know every single detail about who this person was as a person as an artist. I did some online research on who he was. I couldn’t tell you what specific sites or news stories there were at the time because it was all underground still. But I know that I gathered the following picture, which was wildly distorted because of the particulars it cut into in my personal life: here was this kid from Long Island who didn’t give a fuck and had his mom do his homework for him so he could pass his homeschool GED or whatever the fuck it was and now he makes music and is famous.
Obviously, I’ve learned over time how convoluted that thought was, and how convoluted I was at the time in my own immaturity and issues. My girlfriend (the one with the bomber jacket) was basically lying to my face about seeing some loser from Long Island who would just whine and bitch that he was so depressed but lived at home and didn’t have any of my real life stressors of being on my own and wouldn’t actually get a job or pay rent or like make better mental health choices, and he would keep her in the relationship by threatening to kill himself and would scrutinize anything she did. It was just really, really, incredibly frustrating because life wasn’t fucking peaches and cupcakes for me. And regardless, I still took care of myself with my mental health issues and provided for myself and lived on my own with a 9-5 and I fucking hated her and him for that for a long time. And I think because of these two planes running parallel to one another, I projected that on my initial thoughts about Peep. And not only was that a disservice to myself and getting to know his art and music and him as a person, but also to him as a human being.
Sometimes we initially hate the things we end up loving. And that’s how it goes for me and Peep.
Post Doc
As time went on, and even more so after Peep’s passing, I got to learn a lot more about him as a person, rather than just the artist, and this is where the connection became more important to me. Because it was his goals and perceptions, as far as how he saw himself and how others viewed him, that resonated with me so loudly, thus making me break down the preconceived notions and false thoughts I initially had about him the first go around. Getting to know him as Gus actually made me love him as an artist. I don’t like referring to celebrities by their first names - it’s hella cringey in this industry and I always call people out who do it - but I think when referring to Peep, he really did have that kind of Eminem/Slim Shady/Marshall Mathers multiple personalities where it’s important to differentiate the Gucci-printed-drug -fueled-fuck-hoes-get-money version from the shy kid who wants to feel love. Because that’s me to a T. I learned to peacock at a very early age and personify the person I wanted to be, rather than keep letting life run me to the ground. And it worked, and it got me into adulthood, but I also suffered an identity crisis from it. You pick out flamboyant and eccentric characters on TV to emulate to run away from how terrible people and life have made you feel, so you have this hot pink and gold cheetah print shiny armor suit on going 120mph through life hoping no one notices that you’re missing a lot of the emotional maturity and fulfillment people around you have at your age.
Growing up in Catholic School, my peers were all your atypical married, white, middle class families who could afford to send their kids to a good school. I’m not saying I didn’t have a good family life, because I did, but it was drastically different than everyone else. My mom and dad were never married, and my mom met my stepdad when I was 2, so I always had a co-parenting household, coupled with everyone working so I was often with my Grandma or a family friend who would babysit. It was definitely a “takes a tribe to raise a child” vibe. And that was completely normal to me. I had a really happy childhood, and it wasn’t until I was in school did I realize how different I was. My mom and dad are/were both incredibly smart people. My mom is a scientist who, upon graduating high school got accepted into Northeastern and got straight As her first semester and was so bored with it she dropped out, only to go back to school and finish her Bachelors degree when I was born (I’d go with her sometimes). She has the same role at her current job as do people with phDs just based on the amount of knowledge and work experience she has. She always taught me that experience is what differentiates you from other people. My dad had two masters or something from BU and was a very experienced lawyer until he got caught up in his own addictions and bullshit and was actually ratted on by a client to get out of a DUI, but that’s a story for another time. My dad knew so much about everything - he would recite Robert Frost poems by heart to me on car rides home, and would have in-depth conversations about time travel and wormholes and these very heavy topics with me as a 10 year old. He talked to me like an adult, but also had this amazing knack for pop culture and turned me onto so many wonderful movies and shows and music. Anyway, I’m mentioning all of this because it’s important to see that even though my family situation might have been different, my parents knew I would be intelligent based on their own intelligence and wanted me to have a good education early on. So in order to do this, I got baptized at the school’s church at the age of 4, as kind of an offering, like “hey, our kid got Baptized at your church, let her into this school”. But I remember in Kindergarten I think, we all had to bring pictures of our Baptism in, and my teacher put them on the board for a project and I saw that everyone was a baby and mine was taken less than a year earlier. I never really paid much mind to stuff like that but other kids did, so there were always questions about it. Like why my mom had a different last name then me, why my mom was never volunteering for class stuff like other stay-at-home-moms, if my mom and dad weren’t married, why weren’t they divorced because otherwise how did they have me, that kind of thing. Things kids are taught and see in middle class Catholic School situations. My home life was great but was always different from everyone else’s. We weren’t rich. I always felt more comfortable with my friends in my neighborhood rather than the kids I went to school with. Don’t get me wrong, I made friends easily, thanks to my dad’s personality traits rubbing off on me, but going to friend’s houses was like going to another dimension. Moms were always home in their big houses and kids were always running around, and they could give you rides and did all the cleaning and housework. But you grow up from Kindergarten to 8th grade with these kids so there’s a common understanding and parents are friends and it’s fine so even though you know you’re different, it’s not really affecting you harshly. I’d combine all the styles of things I liked, like hip-hop and emo music, from my two differing worlds and that was normal to me. I'd have Tripp NYC pants from Hot Topic with an Ecko sweatshirt on. I’d have 2Pac next to Taking Back Sunday pictures on my wall. I’d write raps while listening to Blink 182 and make mash-ups on my computer with Brand New and Biggie. One of my screen names in middle school was lpTLCnfg777777 for Linkin Park, TLC, and New Found Glory for cripes sake. I was weird haha.
It wasn’t until my mom and stepdad and younger sister and I moved to the Cape my freshman year of highschool that I realized how vastly different I was from my peers, because high school is so much different then a K-8 school. They place you in classes based on performance, so I was in honors classes in this brand new Cape Cod town with all these kids wearing Polo shirts and Burkenstocks, talking about OAR and Dispatch and gross bullshit like that and I couldn’t stand it. I really tried to attach myself to kids who seemed like me, but they were the token “underachieving troublemakers”, kids who were rebelling against their rich parents in their small beach community. No matter what, I felt like an outcast because nothing made sense anymore and alcohol became my escape. I wanted nothing more than to run away and do anything other than what I was doing because I felt so misunderstood. This only became worse when my Dad passed away the same year and I got involved in a really bad sexually and emotionally abusive relationship with someone. I really wanted to break free of all of that.
Come Over When You’re Sober Tour
The Boston date for this show was 10/27/17. At the time I was working as the talent buyer/booking agent for Wonder Bar in Allston. One of the requirements of my job was to make sure there was a sound tech and a cashier staffed for the venue, regardless of if it was my night or not. On this particular night, I wasn’t planning on coming into the bar because I wanted to go to Peep’s show. I had been looking forward to it for a while. But my friend Aaron Roy, who throws Binary, a really popular house night, was hosting the event and he called me saying that the cashier I scheduled didn’t show up. It was a Friday night in Boston around Halloween and I knew it was going to be incredibly busy so I offered to stay to be the cashier for the night, rather than go to the show. As messed up as it is, I got drugged by a patron that night while working and it fucked my whole, well everything up. I didn’t even know something happened until I went back into work the following week and it was brought up. I have no memory of that night whatsoever and had to walk up the stairs of Wonder Bar to explain to my GM that someone drugged me because I couldn’t even tell you what happened. The whole memory puts such a bad taste in my mouth for a lot of reasons. It was negatively catalytic in the sense that not only did I miss an artist I wanted to see perform because of someone not being able to work, but I got drugged and could have hurt myself, ruined the night money wise, ruined my career, whatever, and then on top of it, a month later, I realize I will never be able to see that artist again. He’s passed away.
I reflect back on that night so much. Humans love torturing themselves with mind games, imagining ourselves in scenarios that didn’t, couldn’t or wouldn’t have happened. But that night really fucks me up, because I know, had I not had to cover the cashier who didn’t show up, I would’ve gone to the show, and I would’ve ended up in the green room at Middle East crossing paths with Peep. And not in the sense of groupie nonsense. But I’ve worked on shows and with that venue as a whole so much over the years that I would just go there to hang out and if there was an artist in town I knew personally, or had worked with on a booking professional level, I’d go and chill and hang out with them in the green room. Now of course, I didn’t know Peep, but I had been intermingled with the whole GBC movement so I would’ve made it a point to pop my head in and say hey, and ask how the tour was going and if they needed anything while they were in the city. I would’ve loved to meet him as a fan, but to be honest, I always view everything from a work environment perspective as far as connecting and networking. I’m not a hanger-on; I just like to talk to people and humanize tour life because I know that shit can get isolating and lonely. So I always get stuck on the thought of, what if I had interacted with Peep? What would I have done? I would’ve talked to him and asked how he was and how the tour was. I would’ve offered him an ear to vent to and just relax because that's how I treat everybody. I would’ve asked him if I could do anything for him while he was here, but I would’ve tried to make him feel comfortable. And I can understand, now after watching the documentary, that he probably would’ve appreciated it. And, even more so, he could’ve used me as a shoulder to lean on with all of the stressors and emotions on his brain. I would’ve loved that because I’ve provided that to a lot of people over the years. And we would’ve connected. But it kills me to think about, because it’s all very probable based on what could’ve been, and I wonder how it would've changed things for him. Would it have? I don’t know. There’s not an emotion I can attach to that. But it’s deep and dark and bluish purple and it makes me uncomfortable because I wish so badly I could’ve been there for him just as someone to talk to when life became too heavy. Because I’ve carried two lives worth of hell there and back and I would’ve gladly added his to the caravan.
The Concept of Everybody’s Everything
I noticed in the documentary that Peep would get sick before going to school. Like physically vomit. I relate to that very much. Growing up, I used to throw up on Sunday nights before school on Monday. Not from being bullied or being bad at school or anything like that, I just found there to be so much pressure on my mental capacity in a structured educational environment like that. I did well but I didn’t want to be there. It was painstaking to try and get up every week and want to be there. I wanted to be anywhere but. I wanted to be elsewhere.
It’s not that I didn’t get along with my classmates or I was worried about my grades, just for some reason, I felt this immense pressure to be Kerry everyday. It’s interesting because you see vomiting and stress-related illnesses a lot in “the greats”. I’m not saying I’m great (even though I am), but there is a certain kind of person who takes it upon themselves to be everybody’s everything. And I am one of those people. Tony Soprano dealt with panic attacks that would leave him unresponsive. Eminem would vomit his mom’s spaghetti on his sweater before an intense rap battle. Detective Sarah Linden from “The Killing” would lose herself on big cases to the point where she wouldn’t eat or sleep and would often have to be committed to the psych ward. Hunter S. Thompson maybe didn’t talk about it, but the amount of drugs he was on at any given time can surely show you how much pressure he was dealing with internally. In the documentary, as I said above, I saw that Peep would get sick before going to school. It’s not the fear of doing the thing. It’s the pressure certain people place on themselves to be the most of everything for everybody. And it’s unavoidable. Like, we use drugs to keep us from getting worked up but need drugs to keep us going to keep up with the things that need us. We can’t be any other way.
I’m not happy if someone in the room is unhappy. It automatically is on me to fix that. I can sense it instantly. It’s like a stormy rain cloud I want to take upon myself to blow away and fix. I’m never satisfied with just accepting someone else’s sadness. And because of this, I’m always going and pushing and moving.
Which brings me to my next point...there are certain people like myself, and Peep and Tony Soprano who people are naturally drawn to, “hubs” of whatever it is we choose to do. We could’ve been anything we wanted - very smart, articulate, personable - but because of this it’s almost like we want to be this undefinable entity. There are good and bad sides to everyone, but it’s very difficult to tell someone who is able to do wonderful, great things all the time, “no, don’t do that technically ‘bad’ thing”. Well why the fuck not? Is it preventing me from being great?
In the documentary, Peep seemed to struggle a lot with the thoughts of “why can’t this person come with me on this ride? Why can’t we share this glory?”. His grandfather was such a driving force in the socialist movement and I found it interesting to see the connections in how he felt about how unfair the rules of society are. I truly believe that we’re on the brink of societal collapse in America, even now more so with the coronavirus stuff. The belief that just because someone is asking for higher wages, you should microscopically pick apart their job and livelihood and them as a person, when them asking for more money has absolutely no effect on what your wage is, is absolutely absurd. People keep taking and overproducing so much, that waste has become our biggest issue. We don’t need to keep manufacturing all these products, and genetically engineering and harming animals and the environment so that food, which inevitably will get us sick, can sit and rot on the shelves because nobody can afford to purchase it anymore. Our government makes us believe that basic, everyday, healthy items, such as food that isn’t chemically mutated to fit their quota or apartments that are up to code are in fact not a basic need, but a luxury item, and in order to obtain those things you must be incredibly well-off, probably over-working at a corporate office job with very high requirements, very little leeway when it comes to sick and vacation time, and no grace period for falling out of line, for a company you really couldn’t care less about, marketing the same bullshit back to people like you around the country who keep buying into this madness.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. America unfortunately was built on the lie that we’re the best because you can do whatever you want here, but that’s not true. After George Washington faded away with his high hopes, America had a lot of tycoons who paid off other tycoons and politicians to make sure that their products were not only on store shelves, but were necessities in every home. It’s like we’ve been relying on this big, old WWII-era billboard with Uncle Sam, showing you how great we are, but behind that, as time went on, people got bought up and sold out and gobbled up by corporations, leaving very little actuality of anything. What I mean is, immigrants are told they will have a better life in America, and they see the giant, shiny Uncle Sam, with his electric blue and vibrant red stars and stripes tuxedo on, throwing out cigars and money and jobs to people, when in reality, he’s just a piece of cardboard, held up by two Bomb Pop Popsicle sticks that everyone running this country keeps pushing out in order to keep appearances up. In reality, quality food is expensive, cheap food is filled with chemicals that the government knows about and doesn’t care because someone along the way got paid. Houses are hasilty made, with cheap materials so that there can be more jobs, insurance companies make sure every doctor and hospital gets paid and every test is done so that you keep waiting for answers on your health, and you keep getting sicker from the shitty food they’re giving you, but its AOK BECAUSE WE’RE FUCKING AMERICA AND WE’RE THE BEST!
Peep’s Death
One of the saddest things I’ve seen unfold in the music scene, was watching how Peep’s death brought out such ugly, negative things from everyone. I suppose that’s death in a nutshell. Grief is one of the most untalked about evil entities that consumes us as human beings. I watched once-close friends finger point and blame one another, I saw family attack the artists and management say one thing and do another. I feel like everyday I woke up and would see something go down on Twitter or Instagram with who gave Peep Xanax, who stole his clothing, who’s a fake friend, who didn’t check on him, who was there for him the longest, who means the most, who was just trying make money off his name by selling merch or using his name in a song title. I saw Peep’s mom struggle with wanting to release his music in the fullest of capacities and having the best intentions and then hearing “Come Over When You’re Sober Pt.2”, which as good as the music itself is, the project is a muddy, corporate press of an album. You can’t hear all the things that we loved out of Peep - the DIY recordings and beats from producers grinding, just getting their feet wet, the blood, sweat, and tears - in that album, because Colombia packaged it as a product. It’s one, uniform track to me. But a whole bunch of people heard it and found their way to Peep’s legacy.
I think that’s what hurt me the most. Sometimes we have the best intentions, and only have the knowledge and experiences we have up until that point, and are trying to navigate uncharted waters in our lives. Like Peep had all this music, and the fans wanted to hear it, so she made the best decision she could’ve at the time. She wanted the world to hear her son’s art that he died for. And sometimes that’s how life is with give and take. The world did hear Peep, but maybe the project wasn’t what we were used to, or how things would’ve gone had he been alive. But we need to accept that and not get angry for it being that way. Some fans and family members were so mad at GBC, and specifically Mackned. You have to remember that you’re talking about KIDS here, literal kids, some fresh out of high school, that are living in this alternate reality where they can do anything they want and there are no rules, just drugs, shows, money, and music. It’s easy to get mad when we lose something, or in this case someone, but I don’t think any artist on tour was in the right mindset to be blamed. Would I have checked on him? Yeah I would’ve. But I’ve been partying a long time and have paid my dues so I know how to handle myself. None of these kids really did.
But I do think that management is to blame here. Management teams and labels and booking agencies keep pushing their artists, turning a blind eye to their mental health and addiction issues because “hey their tour is selling out”. I think management companies need to take more of a stake in their artists. Because they’re playing the same scam slumlords have been playing for years - just keep bringing tenants in and forcing ‘em out and keeping the security deposit. Only in this case, it’s not tenants, they’re artists, and forcing them out means pushing them so hard that they end up dead. His manager can keep right on truckin’ finding the next big artist to pop. But Peep’s not here. Aviici’s not here for the same reason. It’s sad. And we need to hold these people who cradle artists like a newborn baby to the same standards we hold newborn parents to. Artists are delicate people who swallow the world in a different way then regular people. They typically suffer from mental health issues, addiction, and just plain societal differences. They’re targets for being so beautiful. And creating the art that they do. And we need to be more careful.
