Tour Diary/Photo Gallery: The Color Morale's Garret Rapp on embracing your inner originality
The Color Morale are currently out with August Burns Red, Of Mice & Men and the Overseer across the U.S., Frontman Garret Rapp is giving AltPress.com an inside look at tour life with the band. For the second installment, Rapp shares his convictions about standing up for what he believes in within a gimmick-filled music scene. He also sent us another batch of photos he's collected while out on the road.
Tour is starting to wind down and I couldn't be happier with the overwhelming love and support I have experienced from our followers. It's certainly surreal and reminds me not to take it for granted. I was reading so many tweets about my words or our band being inspiring and motivating. I have been given thoughts and ideas from the dark places I've had to visit in the travels of life, and I made a decision to use them to help others no matter what the cost. Sometimes I correlate this idea with a vision of myself as an old depleting barn that God crafted ground up. He used the devil's blueprints. Inside this barn is a corner that holds a nest. My brain is that nest housing both morbid thoughts and positive energy. It's only up to me to choose what continues to grow. Every day is struggle, but it's also a reason.
Has anyone ever asked you where you would like to see yourself in 5 years? When was the last time you really analyzed and dissected that question? It's amazing that each of us has the capacity to do or be anything in this lifetime, but we are the ones that hold us back. Hurt, shortcomings, insecurities, our pasts, our struggles with the present and our uncertainty of the future are all things we experience daily. Of everything I've dealt with and the tremendous amount of self adversity I experience, I am fortunate to have found my place as a voice. I'm a voice to a generation that's afraid to speak up and be unique in. Here's the thing: Everyone is created unique. Every one of you that I have met and shared stories with is completely unique from the next. Embrace originality and shortcomings. You are more than what you look like on the outside. You are more than what your past has defined you as. We have to make mistakes. We have to fail at points–thats how we learn and grow. We all fail, but we are not all failures.
I'm very fortunate to be able to briefly share my thoughts with you all with this blog. I've been reading in constant that my writing and lyrics inspire you all to be better and go further, which humbles me and I am thankful to share my stories.
Next week I will be posting a final tour video along with the art direction for our 3rd album Know Hope which we will be going straight to the studio to start tracking. The album art concept is something we're very excited to announce and it involves the followers of The Color Morale in a unique fashion. Make sure to check the pictures I've collected from this last week and check back here next week to see us being us.
