Andy Biersack - They Dont Need to Understand: Stories of Hope, Fear, Family, Life, and Never Giving In

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Rare Bird Books
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Copyright 2020 by Andy Biersack and Ryan J. Downey

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Set in Dante

epub isbn: 9781644281963

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Biersack, Andy, author. | Downey, Ryan J., author.
Title: They Dont Need to Understand: Stories of Hope, Fear, Love, Life, & Never Giving In / Andy Biersack with Ryan J. Downey.
Description: First Hardcover Edition | A Genuine Rare Bird Book | New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA: Rare Bird Books, 2020.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781644281949
Subjects: LCSH Biersack, Andy. | Rock musiciansUnited StatesBiography. | Black Veil Brides (Musical group) | (Heavy metal (Music) | Alternative metal (Music) | Rock music20112020. |
BISAC BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Music
Classification: LCC ML420 .B538 2020 | DDC 782.42166/092dc23

Contents

Introduction

Playing hard rock music in the past decade is a bit like going into an Apple store and trying to sell someone a flip phone. I know that I have been very fortunate to make rock records and tour the world in Black Veil Brides and with my solo vehicle, Andy Black.

The joke at the center of the Broadway musical Rock of Ages is the very idea of this music being a thing. Hard rock, heavy metal, and punk rock are often considered antiquated, which honestly makes it sort of more rebellious than ever to try to become a rock singer.

Like many people who end up in the creative arts somewhere, I was a bit of a loner.

I built a version of myself from all of the things I feared when I was a child and presented it to the world as an adult. Im a high school dropout and made most of my friends online.

I cofounded Black Veil Brides in my hometown and told everyone I would move to California when I turned eighteen. When the day arrived, nobody in the band came with me. It didnt matter. I moved from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Hollywood and lived in the back of my 98 Cadillac El Dorado because I wouldnt allow myself any other options. I had to make it.

Theres a certain measure of being insufferable thats necessary for a story like mine. Im an only child. Id make my parents turn on the camcorder and read interview questions Id prepared for myself. Why, yes, Mom, Id say as a precocious six-year-old. I am the biggest rock star in the world right now, thank you so much for asking me about that.

I was determined to do something that, at least in the traditional sense, is essentially a non-job, work that includes prancing around onstage in tight pants and eye makeup for a living. I wanted to tell stories with pageantry and art and to sing anthems for outcasts, idealists, and iconoclasts. It didnt matter that most people couldnt understand.

I put this book together with my good friend Ryan J. Downey, who has interviewed me via different mediums, in various settings, throughout my career. Im sober now, which certainly helped as we rummaged through my memories, on multiple occasions, over lunch, dinner, or coffee, carving out afternoons and evenings between albums and tours.

Its sometimes hard to differentiate between what you remember happening as a very young kid and what you remember simply because an adult told you about it later.

I have a vivid picture of myself, as a baby, traveling with my mom when she was a make-up artist for Elizabeth Arden. (The skills my mom developed were of great use to me when I became interested in makeup as a teenager.) I dont remember that at all. But when those stories come up, I can paint a picture of exactly what that looked and felt like to experience. The images we portray for ourselves probably inform a lot more of our decisions than we realize, particularly among creative people who are already good at painting pictures.

I knew that I wanted to create art and perform in a way that connected with people ever since I was a kid building tiny concerts in my bedroom with KISS action figures. The fact that I get to do precisely that as an adult makes me incredibly lucky. Im not here to complain about how hard I had to work or proclaim what a martyr I am for living in my car and playing in basements and art galleries to make it. Id instead celebrate playing O2 Academy, Brixton, in London, surrounded by pyrotechnics, confetti, and five thousand fans.

My hope is theres something instructive in the work ethic it took to get here.

For the better part of the last ten years, I never sat down to think about whether or not I was enjoying myself. It was more about the constant push forward to prove to all the naysayers, real or perceived, that I was going to succeed and that I was going to do something great. As Ive gained more perspective, it sometimes makes me laugh to remember how much of my adolescence and early adulthood was driven by revenge. I wanted vengeance against all of the people who didnt understand.

Im not interested in telling a bunch of rock guy stories about how hard we partied. Even the stuff I engaged in that could be considered rock n roll debauchery was less about who I was and more about falling into the role of someone I felt like I was supposed to be. Ive come full circle. Im back to my core, authentic self.

More than ever, Im the same kid now as when I started, in so many ways. There were diversions from the path along the way, and yet here I am, back how I began.

I was barely eighteen years old the first time I went on tour. I was a high school dropout who moved to Hollywood to chase my rock n roll dreams, but the truth is that at that age, I had no idea who I was as a person. I knew what I wanted to be, or at least the image I wanted to project. But I quickly found myself in a new world, a shifting reality, without the experience or wherewithal to navigate all of the challenges of life on the road.

I tried to replicate the behavior of my rock n roll heroes Id read about in an attempt to fit in with the older people around me. In 2020, as we arrived at the anniversary of our first album, We Stitch These Wounds , and the release of the reimagined version, Re-Stitch These Wounds , I found myself thinking back to those earliest days of Black Veil Brides. I would tell people I was nineteen in hopes theyd take me more seriously. Id pretend I listened to cool and important bands because I was terrified of being treated like I wasnt cool.

I remember times I was rude or inconsiderate because I thought it made me seem more interesting or badass. It takes time to find our way. It was a journey to become the person Id started out dreaming Id become. I never aspired to become a twenty-year-old jerk still shaking off the hangover from the night before, but as the influences around me grew stronger, thats where I quickly ended up. A character replaced my true self.

There are so many odds against an awkward kid from the Midwest becoming an internationally known performer. I never take it for granted that the fans are the reason I have that. Im fortunate to have the love and adoration of even one person in a world where so many, from all walks of life, struggle to feel loved by anyone at all.