CHECK OUT THE ROCKET SUMMER FEATURED ON THE HOMEPAGE OF COSMOGIRL!
First, Taylor Lautner and Ashley Greene, then the Neon Trees, and now, The Rocket Summer‘s Bryce Avary is spilling on his prom memories! Check out his story and pick up the band’s album, which hits stores February 23!
“I had a fairly dramatic high school experience full of good and bad. I put out my first Rocket Summer EP when I was 16, and it was something straight out of a movie. I sent it to the big local rock radio station, and shockingly enough they started playing it. The quiet indie kid was now all of a sudden someone who people knew. As you could imagine, that came with a lot of good and bad things respectively. I remained the same fairly quiet kid, but people started learning about me. It was weird. The punks didn’t like me because I wasn’t punk enough, I was “straight edge” so the kids that did drugs loathed me, the jocks didn’t like me because my girlfriend used to date one, and then there was everyone else who generally seemed to think I was an alright dude. I guess in a way it set me up for what became my life.”
“Before all of that though I started dating the girl of my dreams. She was the most beautiful girl in school who loved Jimmy Eat World and MxPx when no one knew who they were. She was voted “Most Sincere” and she was a cheerleader, yes a cheerleader. But she was the cheerleader who sometimes wore black framed “nerd rock” glasses in her cheerleader uniform at pep rallies. She was that girl, the one that literally every guy had a crush on – the jocks, the punks, the anime kids, everybody. And somehow I landed her, and I did that before any silly “high school fame” or whatever you want to call it. She was the Holy Grail of popularity and yet somehow she saw through all of that and liked something about me. Her ex was the epitome of crazy /abusive/ throw his fist through a locker during passing periods while yelling at his girlfriend jock guy and I hated the way he treated her. So naturally, when they broke up, I flew in like a wannabe hero to try and rescue her. As a result, he pretty much made it clear to a lot of people he wanted me dead and I had the pleasure of getting to deal with that concern every day. After all, he did bite a chunk out of a dude’s leg in football practice from the anger of his break up with the girl. I was prepared for it though, I knew in my 16-year-old brain that this girl would be my wife one day and I would fight to the death for her if that’s what had to happen. Luckily it never came to that (whew!).”
“When prom rolled around there were ballots where students could cast their vote for superlatives. I was a bit shocked when they called my name for “Most Talented” as it was still weird to me that anyone even knew who I was, and that award was quite a compliment. While I was walking up to get my “award” they announced the next category for the award of “Most Likely to Go to Jail” – the only award of that nature. And who got it? You guessed it, crazy “I want to kill Bryce” guy. Yep. Both of us standing there together, being recognized for two totally opposite things in front of the whole senior class. Mine was a moment of affirmation and glory and his was a moment of sheer humiliation. I can’t lie, I loved that deep down after all of the fear that the dude injected into my teenage life, he was getting some sort of payback. Looking back now on that scenario, I feel bad for the guy. People can change for the better, which I think he probably has, just like I know I have. Prom can really suck for some people and rule for others. Regardless, I say go. You never know, you might find yourself writing a crazy story for CosmoGirl ten years from now about how you married the Prom Queen. Oh, did I mention she was the Prom Queen? And did I mention I married her? BOOM!”
Find this article at: http://www.cosmogirl.com/blog/bryce-avary-prom