Jesus. Emo. Jesus-Emo.

Are you thinking, “These are two words I have never used in the same sentence.” Maybe what’s going through your head is, “I don’t even know what emo is.” Or you could be thinking “I don’t buy into the Jesus stuff dude, this blog is going to be trash.” 

WELP. BUCKLE UP!

Easter was a few weeks ago. For many this is a holiday where we have a nice meal with our family, hide plastic eggs filled with candy for the kids to find, and give baskets full of candy and Spring themed gifts. Oh yeah, and there’s a bunny. (In my opinion, the best representation of the Easter Bunny is in the movie “Rise of the Guardians”. The Easter Bunny being Australian is SO GOOD!) From a Christian perspective, Easter (also called Resurrection Sunday) is the most important holiday. We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God, who died for the sins of the world. 

If you’re reading this and you’re a Christian/theologian and you’re going “Bro there is so much more to it than that.” God bless you, hit me up, we can talk more. If you’re reading this and you’re going “can we chill with the Jesus stuff?” God bless you too, hit me up, we can talk more! 

Let’s talk about Emo. Emo has had many eras and many dress codes. If you ask a 35-45 year old and a 15-25 year old what it is, you will get wildly different answers. Don’t even think about asking a 26-34 year old, they have the worst answers! (That’s a joke. Don’t go cry about it…unless you’re going to write a song about it. An EMO song of course!) Emo music can be whiny, but it’s meant to be emotional. Real emo makes you feel something. It demands emotion. Sometimes it’s nasally and pitchy singing, sometimes it’s screaming, sometimes it’s pitchy yelling singing. (Yes, I just said those 3 words together as if they were one. Pitchyellsing, it’s the truest form of Emo, ask anyone aged 15-45!) Someone somewhere is going to read this and go “Mi Landing doesn’t know what EMO is and that’s why he’s fake EMO.” And to that I will say…God bless you! Hit me up, we can talk more!

Let’s dive into the Jesus thing some more. 

As I’ve said before, I am a Christian. Mi Landing is not a Christian band, I’ll probably never tour with Brandon Lake, Lecrae, or Stryper. (Though, Stryper would be SO COOL to play a show with because those dudes RIP.) I am so far from perfect, and I don’t think I’m better than anyone because of what I believe, but when I’m truly living out my faith, my life is better. Christians (and people pretending to be Christians) have done some terrible things, and even though we all mess up, it’s harder to recover when you preach one thing and do another. If you aren’t a Christian and you’ve never heard anyone say this, let me be the first. Christians are people and people do stupid things. We aren’t incapable of messing up, and when we do, we should be honest about it, seek forgiveness, and make right our wrongs. Everybody, no matter what you claim to believe, makes mistakes. Forgiveness can be hard. Grace can be difficult. It’s easy to label people heretics and hypocrites. The truth is, we ALL need help. You never grow out of needing help. You will never be perfect. It’s a shame some people build platforms where they are protected from accountability, both within the religious space and outside of it (Yes, that includes politics…triggered? God bless you, hit me up, we can talk more!). My faith has helped me through so much. Next month’s blog will be about my Dad passing. Without my faith, I don’t know how I would’ve made it through losing him. The timing of me coming back to faith and him passing I truly believe was God’s timing. My faith in God gives me hope for a life beyond this one, comforts me when I am going through struggles, and gives me a beautiful perspective on the world. BUT, it’s not always easy. I’ve had many cracks in my faith, ESPECIALLY when I am going through times of sorrow and darkness. I spent years wrestling with suicidal ideation. I’ve been treated poorly by people I trusted. I’ve been lied to while the person looked me in my eyes. I’ve struggled many times (and still do) with feeling purposeless and lost. (Typical artist feelings!) These are the times my faith has been tested. These are the trials when I have leaned into my faith, and when I have leaned away from it. My experience is, when I lean into faith, at some point, it does get better. When I lean away from it, I never get anywhere. There’s so many scenarios and finer details we could go into here, spiritually, psychologically, emotionally, and to that I say… GOD BLESS YOU. HIT ME UP. WE CAN TALK MORE! But I stand by what I just said. Eventually, my faith has always helped me. Thank you God! 

Now, as pro-faith as I am, I often feel alone in my faith convictions. I meet very few Christians who get the whole “emo” thing. Here’s some things I hear…

  1. “God is good. You should be happy. Stop writing sad songs.”

  2. “There’s joy in the Lord. Stop writing sad songs.”

  3. “Jesus didn’t die so you could be sad.”

To the Christian emo kids reading this (whether you’re 15 or 45), thank you for understanding me. You already know where I’m going with this. To anyone reading this and totally lost, let me explain…

  1. God is good, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have times of sadness. People who think God wants you to be happy all the time have never been tested in their faith, or don’t believe in the same God I do. The bible is full of people who went through tough times and Jesus himself wept. Stop pretending the world won’t hit you with something sad. 

  2. There is joy in the Lord, but that doesn’t mean that joy won’t be tested. We are human, we do not have the same level of joy every minute of every day. Your joy being tested is a GOOD thing. 

  3. The fact Jesus had to die is SAD. Yes, it brought hope and salvation, but if you’ve ever been to a Good Friday service, it’s not full of happy songs and joy. We reflect on Jesus' death. We ponder how corrupt and broken the world is. We feel a sense of sadness in the sacrifice. There’s an ounce of truth in “Jesus didn’t die so you could be sad”, but I’ve never heard that said in a way that offers any help. It’s been said in a way that translates to “buck up kid, I don't want to understand what you’re going through so I’m just going to make a bold statement so I can feel better about the lack of sadness in my life, or the amount of sadness I’m dealing with that I’m not man enough to open up about.” Jesus died so we could have hope. Hope isn’t always an easy road. 

Now, let’s dive into Emo some more.

In a world where robots are making music (yes I just called out AI music. It’s fake, it sucks, it’s not art, and AI will kill us faster than we can kill each other. Hot take. Triggered? God bless you. Hit me up. We can talk more.), they will never be able to recreate true, pure, REAL human emotion. The thing that drew me to emo music (and all screaming music) was the undeniable emotion and passion in it. The first time I heard a vocalist yell or crack his voice, I was hooked. It sounded so raw, so real, so honest, and so freakin cool! We’re going to take a quick break from the philosophy and soap box type ranting, and I’m going to list some vocalists who have inspired me and to some degree fit under the Emo category. Gatekeepers, YE BE WARNED. 

  1. Adam Lazzara-Taking Back Sunday

  2. John Nolan-Straylight Run

  3. Aaron Gillespie-Underoath/The Almost

  4. Kenny Vasoli-The Starting Line

  5. Cory Brandon-Norma Jean (not emo, but amazing vocalist!)

  6. Jesse Lacey-Brand New

There’s so many more we could address, but these are ones who are influential to me. If you listen to any of these vocalists, they all can crack their voice, yell, or do this super cool thing where you let the end of the note fall down and it sounds so emo and awesome. These are all vocalists who have inspired and influenced me to be the vocalist I am today, and whose music has meant so much to me since I was 13. Emo music is emotional. You can’t help but feel something when you listen to it. Maybe that feeling is “this music sucks. Stop being so sad, you whiny human!” Or maybe, that feeling is “I feel so understood. This song relates to my life deeply. Thank you for expressing my emotions for me, oh artist of Emo!” Love it or hate it, Emo has made its mark in music. I was an angsty Emo teen, some would even say I was a “Scene Kid” (if you know, you know, if you don’t, google it, I don’t have the words right now haha). I bought all my shirts from Hot Topic or from merch tables at shows. 99% of them were band Tees. If you know me, you know I still rock the band tees, and I will never stop! Yes, over 70% are black. Emo kids love black. Black shirts, black skinny jeans, black hair, black eyeliner (before you ask, NO, i DID NOT wear guyliner!), there’s a lot of black because black is oftentimes associated with sorrow/sadness and we are legitimately wearing our emotions. We had our bangs over our eyes to try and hide the sadness. Also because we thought it looked cool. Hot Topic was our store. Going to shows were our religious gatherings. Bonding over bands, their songs, lyrics, and how we all felt alone but got to be reminded in a sweaty room with a dude in tight jeans who keeps flipping his hair and yelling into a mic, made us feel happy in our sadness. This is the beauty of EMO.

This is the part where I attempt to connect the dots. Keep reading, it’s going to be… something. There’s an Easter egg hiding in these words, you just got to find it! 

So, how do we land this emotional faith plane we’ve been flying around on? “Paul, we get it. You believe in Jesus but you’re also sad. Cool story bro. Go write a song about it.” 

Challenge accepted! (I still have to record it, but it has been written!) Here’s how we’re landing this thing…

You can be a Christian and write sad songs. 

You can be a Christian and connect with sad music. 

You can have joy in the Lord and go through a trial that will make you sad. It doesn’t change who Jesus is, it changes how you handle things moving forward. It doesn’t change who Jesus is, it changes how you connect with others who go through hard times. It doesn’t change who Jesus is, it changes what you make of the artistic gift He’s given you. 

Not everyone can write a song, but everyone can listen to one. Not everyone goes through the same things you do in the same way, but everyone can learn something from you sharing your experience. You have no idea who can be encouraged and comforted from your sad song, especially if you write it from a place of honesty and hope. The point isn’t to sell sadness, the point is to address reality, and reality can be sad. If we all try to get through life without any hope and honesty, it’s going to be significantly sadder than any emo song. 

My faith NEVER made darkness and sadness not exist, it helped me get through them. If you’ve made it this far in this blog and you’re thinking “I’m still not interested in this whole Jesus thing” I want you to know I don’t have all the answers, but I’ll tell you what I know. (And I’ll pray for you!) You can believe in Jesus and write Emo songs. Jesus-Emo is an unofficial genre of music and I think it will grow as the world decays, but as hope rises. Regardless of what you believe or don’t believe, there is much to learn in songs of sadness. If 1 person feels the slightest bit understood from an emo song, it’s worth the saddest of songs. 

Here’s what’s coming next with the Mi Landing Blog!

  • Good Grief, God, & Remembering My Father (May)

  • 2 Decades Under Much Inspiration (June)

  • What If the What Ifs Were True? (July)

  • Good Idea! Too Bad You Won’t Do it (August)

  • Not Plain White Band T’s (September)

  • 19 Years of “I Don’t Drink” and How I’m Still Messed Up (October) 

  • That One Time I Missed Thanksgiving (November)

  • Another One Down (December) 

Stay tuned. Through the ups and downs we go!

-Paul

Paul Schloss