Neither Could Dylan

Coming right off the heels of Values and the ideas presented in it, Better Role Models is a reflection of the type of people who were the guiding voices of my youth and how my lack of awareness then led to an idealistic view of them that perhaps never existed. 

It’s a tongue in cheek pop-punk inspired song that aims to lighten the mood while also taking an honest look at how we shape ourselves and futures.

Unlike many of my heroes, I wasn’t born into a family of musicians. I had no one really propelling me into music or writing for that matter and oftentimes these interests had me feeling a little like the odd one out. This meant that as I was developing my passion for music as a listener, musician, performer, writer and producer, I had to actively seek out what I thought were the right examples of teacher’s to follow this part of my life path. 

I mentioned in State Lines those Treble Charger message boards and that band has had arguably the greatest influence on my musical existence. I loved the story of how Sum 41 came to be with Deryck Whibley approaching Greig Nori after a gig and inviting him to see his band play and that simple act over time turning into the incredible story that saw small town Ajax-Ontario 4-piece Sum 41 burst into global stardom. 

What a fascinating way to get discovered, requiring both Deryck’s courage to approach Greig and Greigs’ ability to see so much potential in a budding young songwriter. 

That could be me, I thought.

There is no right or wrong way to approach a ‘career’ in music. There are however some better (not best) practices, but we didn’t have hoards of websites back then designed to sell you on how to run your musical empire the way we do now, so you had to learn from what was presented to you. And what was presented to you was carefully PR-orchestrated bands whose management team had curated biographies and personalities that were designed to make you fall in love with them. They were (and still are) mostly all fabricated to keep the allure alive.

In rock, a lot of the time this boiled down to something so simple, “these are just regular guys having a good time playing rock n’ roll.” They partied, they drank, they had loud charismatic personalities, they were into extreme sports showing their sense of adventure and they wrote catchy hooks. 

The dream. 

There wasn’t really much more to it from a marketing standpoint. In the early 2000’s a lot of my favourite bands were in no way trying to save or change the world the way bands in the 60’s and 70’s are known and still acknowledged for. 

But it still took some work and a willingness to reach out to professionals to help. So I tried to do what I understood bands to do then. 

I reached out to Greig Nori prematurely – I didn’t have a band yet and was still learning how to fumble my way through basic chord changes, but I was writing songs and thought I had good potential as a writer. That didn’t really go anywhere, so a short time later in high school I started a band like all budding pop-rockers do. I had to do all that leg work myself, introduce myself to people in different grades after I’d learn about them playing an instrument that I needed to fill out the sound. Eventually I was able to get 3 guys together, 1 of them I later poached off the internet when the pool in my town ran dry and this worked for us for a while. 

I got us show opportunities and did the driving. I was also working part time at any jobs I could to help pay for my gear, gas and whatever else teenagers save money for. 

On my off time, I’d go to parties, drink with friends and experiment with smoking to take the edge off. That’s just what band people do and that’s what I did. 

And in doing that I developed a lot of bad habits that never felt quite right to me but were so incredibly normalized that I didn’t know any better. 

It would turn out I had some pretty shitty role models. 

I’m not surprised when I look back and realize why it took so long for me to find a real sense of purpose with my art and music and any real sense of self or drive towards something bigger than myself. 

I didn’t realize how much I was taking on when most people my age were just responsible for getting themselves to school and staying out of any real trouble, too. I’ve always been a bit of a workhorse, so between all that and sports, I wasn’t leaving much if any time for myself to just exist and I’ve learned that’s a really critical piece of growing up and coming into your own. When I did have time to myself, I was anxious and depressed, already too used to stifling my emotions in order to make it through my busy weeks.  

It never occurred to me that other kids didn’t live that way. Sometimes I think I cheated myself out of my teen years because I was too busy trying to get ahead and ultimately it didn’t really lead me anywhere. 

But I didn’t know any better and I’ve made some peace with that. 

Somewhere in my journey to get reacquainted with myself and the things I love, I started paying better attention to the messaging I was receiving from other musicians, other adults generally speaking and my own family and friend group. It’s not until you start sitting with the words that are being repeated to you that you’re able to really decipher them and determine if there’s any merit to what’s being relayed. 

I found myself getting frustrated with a lot of it because a lot of the people I took guidance from in no way shared my lived experiences. For starters, most of my role models were men and that right there will put you as a woman at a massive disadvantage; men are from Mars and all that. 

But Better Role Models was inspired less about reflecting on the messaging from people then and more about listening to them speak now. During the pandemic and with the rise of social media over the years, we’ve gained a whole new level of insight towards what people really think, feel and do and I found myself getting annoyed from hearing from a lot of them. 

A lot of bands I really dug and admired seemed to be hellbent on throwing weird little pity parties as they reflected on their careers on podcasts and interview shows. “You don’t know how rough it was playing all those shows back then! You don’t know how awful it is to be in a tour bus with 5 other dudes! You don’t know how much we struggled! Sometimes there weren’t a lot of people at the shows! We made it out of there alive!” 

And fuck if I don’t hate it when they do that. You toured the midwest in a cushy bus with beds with a designated driver, you didn’t fight a war. Some people don’t even have beds. 

I couldn’t believe these grown adults, most of them now with families of their own, were speaking so immaturely about their lives and the world around them. Maybe there was a point I wasn’t getting, but all I could think about was how pathetic they sounded.

Especially now, with so many of our music venues regularly shuttering their windows and doors, with so many technicians who were out of work during the pandemic without sync licensing deals paying them residuals for the work they did on those bands albums… I could go on. 

I’m not saying musicians didn’t or don’t work hard, but I do feel strongly that a lot of them, even the emerging ones today, are really out of touch with what hard work really looks like. 

In fairness, I also have a different perspective because of the way I was treated in the music industry when I got my start and none of these musicians I was listening to would ever be able to relate to any of that. I know they get all bent out of shape about it when we say so, but a lot of them got so lucky.

But to me, playing music is fun. Playing shows is a fucking dream whether it’s to 5 people or 50. Traveling with people to do these things is the ultimate goal for so many of us and so many artists are just handed that lifestyle because of who they are or who they know. 

I recall one afternoon during 2020 watching the morning news when a prominent Canadian musician went on about how although the pandemic was a huge struggle for his family and his work as a touring musician. I’m not saying it wasn’t, but it felt a little tone deaf. He went on to say that despite all this, it gave his kid an opportunity to work on original music, too, so that was a positive. Turns out that’s probably most of the reason this guy was on this show that day – to promote his kids music.

It would be an endearing story if this kid and this family were not already so ripe with wealth and opportunity. They cut from that interview spot to a music video showcasing his very not good song and very not good musical ability and I was reminded some things can’t be inherited from the family tree. 

There’s nothing wrong with kids of famous artists getting opportunities or getting into the same line of work as their folks, but there is something deranged about the way the industry wants you to believe that it doesn’t give them an incredible leg up on everyone else doing the same.

I turned off the TV, at this point tired of hearing from anyone of any kind of celebrity while the world was falling apart rapidly around us.  

And then sometime shortly after I wrote Better Role Models. 

And I never heard any more news about that musicians kid, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

Official Lyrics:
There are things I was taught when I was young
Like if you don’t speak up you’ll never be heard
And talent doesn’t come without hard work
By those lucky ones lined up first 

There were others not explicitly stated 
Like how life’s too short to live it inebriated 
So I fell in and out of a few bad places 
Like I was tying knots between my own two laces 

Convinced that my bad luck couldn’t be self inflicted 
Because that wasn’t the character I myself depicted 
My rock and roll preachers just like everyday teachers 
Strung sermons into song and I believed them

They’d sing about love as though it everlasting 
Cause each night they’d have it vigilantly drafted 
Audiences keen to be part of the theatrics
Even if it means background acting

To live like that must be so easy  
To live like that must be so easy
To live like that must be so easy  
To live like that must be so easy

Has no one told you what it’s like from over here
Have you ever heard the tale of the commoner
Do you see that guy licking the floor full of beer
That woman’s not his wife and she doesn’t even know about her

Now as I’m older the smoke parts from the mirrors
The alarms once quiet now tormented jeers
And I’m aghast that we are we all so easily deceived
The devil doesn’t sit on shoulders, 
but our stages and TV’s 

And they sit down for public intervention
Asked how they make time for all this attention
They say it’s hard, call in from their mansion
Their kid’s in 3rd grade and they just can’t imagine

To live like that must be so easy  
To live like that must be so easy
To live like that must be so easy  
To live like that must be so
Easy

I want to put down these force-fed bottles
I want stronger ideals and better role models
I want to see a pop star with some humility
Whose rise to fame has some sort of credibility 
And I want to see an end to ‘boys will be boys’
I want to see more convictions come out of court 
I want equal opportunity and legitimate action
And for everyone to feel safe using a bathroom

Has no one told you what it’s like from over here
Have you ever heard the tale of the commoner
Don’t you see that guy licking the floor full of beer
I saw it dripping down his leg during the opener
He can’t even afford a ride
Cause this show was overpriced
Some of us try for years
To get what you got overnight
So save your complaints
About touring through your 20’s
What an amazing way
To see so much of your country

To live like that must be so easy  
To live like that must be so easy
To live like that must be so easy  
To live like that
To live like that

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The bridge of this song is really the most important part of it all and I guess, continues my ongoing sermon presented through this record. 

It’s my Miss America pageant response to the types of changes I want to see in the world in my lifetime and boy is there a lot of work to do. 

I’m at times distraught with the lack of compassion we continue to show for one another. The way we’re so quick to dismiss people and their lives as though our own be so much more righteous or important. The fact that we’re still as a collective community struggling to understand that transgender people have and deserve human rights, that women have an deserve human rights, that religion has no basis in our legislature, that sexual assault should be condemned to the highest extent of the law and many laws should be changed to allow for stronger convictions in this area specifically, that we have no right to anothers bodily autonomy, and that basic needs such as housing, food and healthcare should be met and are the responsibility of our governments to uphold. These ideas I’m presenting are in no way new so it is startling how little progress has been made towards them. We are struggling to survive in communities that we ourselves have designed to fail. 

The people that don’t see a problem with these systemic issues are not impacted by them and to keep this as brief as I can today, we probably shouldn’t be elevating their opinions on it unless they are actively working to dismantle them. 

I feel like I don’t see enough musicians volunteering their time and energy towards some of these areas I’ve mentioned here. It’s like they’re still those 90’s pop-rock bands just “regular guys, having a time” when they should be working to create a better world for those that are coming after them and those that are already here fighting.

It’s not enough to post about it online because you just get caught in an echo chamber of other artists, you really have to take it a few steps further and start speaking to the people making these decisions directly and being more active in your communities.

And if you are doing these things, don’t be afraid to talk about them. I’ve learned about so many different things through musicians sharing their opinions on world issues and often times this has inspired me into action. Let’s do more of that.

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Keep listening and jump to track 5: Pirate (coming soon)