raising hell for the hell of it all

by MARISSA RODRIGUEZ

layout JENNIFER JIMENEZ photographer ERIN DORNEY stylists MARNIE MATTHEWS & ALYSSA LIN hmua JANE LEE model BRIONNA WILLIAMS amuse-bouche

Ihad uncles in other states as a kid. I’d never met them all, but there was an astrophysicist, a truck driver, and a … punk rocker who makes Godzilla replicas (the garden variety, if you will.) Bruce, the punk rock extraordinaire of Ohio, was abundantly more fascinating than all of them (my apologies to the astrophysicist.)

He had constructed his life from his passions at a young age and never separated the two. Even as he ages, his youth screams louder than my own. In the 80s, he toured his fiery anthems with a floppy mass of hair, and a crowd that voiced through the haze. It was political, it was rambunctious, it was wildly out of the ordinary for a midwestern, middle-class teen — and it’s the same energy he thrives with today. It isn’t that he never grew up; it’s that he knew what he wanted before anyone else knew what life was supposed to be.

Bruce grew up in a small, cardboard town. The stagnant city often left creative souls like Bruce in a junction of becoming their parents. My grandma put him in guitar lessons at the YMCA as a creative outlet. He always loved to draw, and he loved music. At his core, he was an artist looking for an identity, a dream, something. Something to break the small town curse of an “ideal” life that’s never, it seemed to him, truly an honest one.

Later in his teen years, he found it. A band named DOA came through town, and the hardcore songs brought something out of him. It was nothing like he had ever heard before but everything he had known. He loved the performance, the spontaneity, the mistakes, and the fire. He came back and switched out the Fleetwood Mac records for ones he picked up at the show, scaring his poor mother. Soon, he was asking her to give him a “punk” haircut and sneaking into every show he could find.

This crucial time is the exact reason he ensured his band always played the little towns when they eventually went on tour. A new world had enveloped him. It brought out a soul fired by passion. The feelings of a teen come so intensely from nothing, but they stay forever. How exciting is it to find personality with nothing driving you but ambition.

That differentiating moment he had was so fiery, so extraordinary, so important for someone from a town of uniformity. Everyone finds this at some point. You breathe in and exhale a thought your parents have never dreamed of. It’s growing up, even if from the outside, it looks like immaturity. To be young and wild is to be intelligent. In a way, these are the most important thoughts you’ll ever have, because they’re the first ones you made on your own.

My grandma always says Bruce was a sensitive kid. He was loving and caring and rejected the turmoils of life. Perhaps that’s what brought out the anti-war mantras. He had a belief system that transitioned into a livelihood. Some like to say in-between scoffs and eye rolls that the “crazed,” “drugged,” free roamers of the 80s punk scene were kidding themselves. That they weren’t old enough or wise enough or lucid enough to be taken seriously.

But how could a kid who went against everything he grew up around be immature? How could someone who was so eternally intertwined with his ideals be confused? Sure, they were a tad wild. His band did live in a van for seven years, and there was a period where they lived off nothing but potatoes. Yes, a few shows had a fog around them from the LSD and weed — an aspect crucial to the atmosphere but perhaps detrimental to the music. And for the life of me, I still can’t get the story of why he was kicked out of Canada out of anyone.

But his music was rebellion with a cause. It punched his beliefs into the atmosphere of those who identified with it. At the end of the day, rebellion is just confidence. It’s determination. It’s independence. It’s standing up for what you believe in. Being young and wild and free is beautiful, and it’s everything your parents ever hoped you’d be.

Now, his music was definitely not for the faint of heart. I asked my grandma if she ever listened to it. She said she would have, but she couldn’t tell what they were saying. “It was too loud,” she said.

Understandable. However, if we do decipher their music, we’d discover it spoke about hating war. They hated Reagan. A lot. They rejected conformity. They rejected the government. Today, he sees some things a little differently, but for the most part, he hasn’t changed. Today, he will still outline his fiery opinions to anyone who challenges them.

He still believes in freedom. He still lives the rebellion. He doesn’t necessarily have a curfew anymore, but his tattoos, leather jackets, and foul mouth will tell you he hasn’t lost his edge. He plays in bars and clubs, and even the occasional reunion tour.

That’s the fascinating part: When I first met him, he walked in the door and looked like the living image of what I’d seen from the photos of before. In his heyday, he toured everywhere from San Francisco to Liverpool, even on TV a few times. And the magic is he’d fucking do it again.

It’s not a phase when it’s your identity. It’s not a moment when it’s the rest of your life. He was empowered in a small concert in Dayton, Ohio and never let go of that. He found independence and freedom at a young age in a way that would scare most of us.

Personally, I don’t know who I am or what I want yet. Not like he did. I don’t have the maturity it takes for rebellion yet. But I’ll get there — and if any of you have found it, don’t settle down.

Cherish life as an individual who realizes beliefs as a statement. Scream through the haze of angst until you’re 60, and you look back on today and grin at the guts you had to be so goddamn wild. Grow into the version of yourself who exhibits life the most. ■