I don’t quite remember how, but I found out about this almost forgotten band about a month ago through RateYourMusic. I loved their name: “Everyone Asked About You”. There is a warmth that comes from reading it, and I would discover later that it translates very well the tenderness and the mess in the comfort of their sound.

According to this piece on them by Ken Shipley, which I highly recommend you to read about the story of the band, they got their name from a children’s book. Forming a band that combined Midwest Emo and Twee Pop, they would play in little venues across Little Rock in Arkansas, spreading the gospel of their beautiful style to an audience that was slowly falling out of love with the local scene. Right before finishing their debut record, they’d split up and each of them would try and find a road to walk on that would bring them more stable memories, with some keeping the once lovely dream of being in a band far behind.

Of course, minimal context aside, you’ll be happier reading to Ken’s article. I think he wrote about them and the scene they came from so beautifully that he should be your doorway to understanding the scenery that once was being flooded with their sound.

I am here to talk about my personal attachment with this EP. At the end of the day, they would only release officially one EP at that time, one single and one split EP with The Shyness Clinic; we’ll be talking only about their solo EP, now.

With Everyone Asked About You’s sound, you have the tender voice of Hannah Vogan telling you joyful and sad things, while Chris Sheppard shows up now and then to help the feeling come through, while they scream together in the whole beauty of the minute. You have Lee Buford and Collins Kilgore basically bringing everything together, creating this sort of energetic urgency to a sort of soft and kind pain they project. Even while Hannah and Chris yell to you “there’s an ache in my bones and I can feel it breaking through”, you can see right from the start they seem to be also trying to bring this comfort coming along with the sadness. As I like to think, listening to the songs on this EP is like spending a whole afternoon with a friend after school, each talking about what ills them, and that warm company that only a person that really understands you can provide. It’s the hugging after the crying, the hugging before any word is said. It’s the nice words coming from someone who’s also hurt, setting alight both of the cold hearts in place.

Everyone Asked About You — Me Vs. You

Just between me and you
I think I’m in love with you
All of my waking time
You’re on my mind
I don’t know what to do

You never looked so right that night
Haloed by the light at the lamplighter
Just between me and you
I think I’m in love with you

Even this moment, it feels so tender. Like a declaration of love I never received, in the room of a girl I loved after school, right before a kiss I never had, following the steps of a pillowy road I’d seek to tread on forever. Everything is so reminiscent of the simple type of love you carry with you when you’re very young, when the right words are just the ones that come out and couldn’t be kept to yourself, and the only future you ever think of is the next day when you’ll meet her again.

Would this love last forever? Yes, at that moment. Seeing them haloed by the light at the lamplighter, yes, this moment would last forever.

Everyone Asked About You — It’s Days Like This That Make Me Wish The Summer Lasted Forever

You know the words I want to hear
They need to be said to me

(Summer) I love you, I love you, I love you
(Always gets me right here) Summer…

The most adorable song is definitely the one with the longest title, where they just talk about how much they love summer and how much they love someone.

To be against something so simple and innocent is to be against the growth of your own soul, to me; because the soul must always grow to a place where it always has been, the soul must always return to the state it came from, where the trees were beautiful because they were green and the sky was beautiful because it was blue. In words increasingly more preposterous and pretentious, I dare to say: a soul that does not aim to find the comfortable place between the intelligent and the ignorant will be aiming blindly to only one direction, and whichever path it chooses will only lead to a dumber man anyway.

Let’s be kinder, let’s find the beauty in the summer. Let’s say the word “I love you” more if we feel like saying, not censoring ourselves when we overflow if the seed that grew on us wishes to touch the Sun that bathes it.

Everyone Asked About You — Everyone Asked About You

Last night you promised you’d be there
But you didn’t show
Everyone asked about you
But I had no idea
Who were you with last night?

Everyone asked about you

Everyone asked about you
Waiting to see you pull up
But you never came
Each moment passed slowly and cruelly
I haven’t talked to you in days
But it seems like it’s been months

What I was most interested on talking about, however, is this self-titled song.

You spent so much time thinking about the positiveness of their name and then this song hits in an incredibly bittersweet way. All this time, they decided to bring some of the wounds they carry to their kind and tired voice, wishing to connect with someone who just fails to be there.

In a way, this defines the band. The sweet and the sour; the comfort of the hug before the spikes of the rose in their hearts touch you. In their young mind, the band managed to bring a lovely feeling that thaws the distant highlands of the heart. In a simple and discreet way, they catch your heart and let you go. It’s the abandonment after the night spent on love, it’s the love before the knife to the back. But if we’re supposed to love not like a teenager but like an adult, then Everyone Asked About You’s self-titled EP is the picture on the wall of a time where you loved someone simply because you couldn’t keep yourself away from them.

The review was supposed to end here, I guess. But I kept thinking about my own personal journey, and one person comes to mind.

She’s a long story, but we fell in love with each other on school. However, it was on different times. She was my best friend, and we were too young to know the connection we had was like the stone to the sea, or the happy drowning of a fish. There was this one day where she asked me to come to her house. I was friends with her sister, and she would also invite me all the time. I refused. I didn’t know why. I regret it, now. Maybe things would’ve worked out better for the both of us if I was there with her at that night. But I left her uncovered for the snow of the youthful loneliness a guy like me can bring, even though she seemed interested on not giving up the fight.

When I finally understood that what I felt for her was love, it was too late; she got herself a boyfriend, which would be a cruel trend in my future lovers. But she never stopped caring for me.

I remember it; it was 2015, my mom was very sick, I didn’t have a lot of places to sit and rest peacefully and my chronic depression sort of started there. I felt unhappy with my very skinny body and started to only go outside with sweatshirts, hoodies and pants, anything that would hide my arms and legs. The world felt shorter and snappier, and in a way I was being left behind by a strange mood, walking in a moving carousel that dragged my friends in a happy slumber, but only brought sleep to me.

In one day, even though we hadn’t really talked in a while, she brought me to the corner at recess. She asked me, in a very serious tone, to roll up the sleeves of my sweatshirt. I didn’t understand, so I kind of refused. She asked again, and she was so serious it scared me. She was worried about something, but I didn’t understand why. I rolled up the sleeves, she started looking for something. She sighed. It was relief.

I asked her what that was about and she told me she thought I was only wearing hoodies because I was cutting myself, so I was hiding the scars. She was worried after seeing me being so depressed. I think that was probably the kindest thing anyone has ever done to me. In a year where I thought I was being abandoned and forgotten by everyone, she not only noticed me, but cared about me. The girl I loved. How lucky was I of having someone like that in my life. I didn’t know.

I really, really didn’t know. It’s a story for an other time, but a year later she would be in a very bad place; every friend would turn against her and she would be left helpless. And no, I wasn’t by her side. She was by my side at my lowest, but I didn’t show up, just like the guy from the final song of this self-titled EP (you’re in a review of a record, remember that?). It is definitely the worst thing I’ve ever did, but I guess it makes sense; I seem to have the art of hurting a lot the people I love the most.

I vowed to never do that again, to never let a friend down, one that would do everything for me.

I would do that again a couple of times later.

However, these days I discovered she broke up with her boyfriend. They were together since that time, and almost a decade later they ended the relationship. I was always worried about her boyfriend; he didn’t seem like a good person, and I think he kind of led her to become the person that our friends would eventually turn against. She used to be a very kind and quirky friend; she would just spent the whole time drinking and going out with him. So yes, I blamed him for it and thought he was a bad influence.

But I guess it was just jealousy. There was something there to last the 9 years.

To this day, I still remember her laugh. It was the best part about her, she was one of those people you’ll want to make them laugh all the time just to hear it.

I didn’t know how to react when I knew she was single. Was it right for me to think she’s better off alone? And is something still there, hiding like I hid from her when she needed me?

I guess I felt happy. I don’t know who she is now, it’s been too long. But I am happy she can find someone that can be by her side and not worry her like he did. I would love to talk to her one more time some day, explain to her what happened in those days, and especially to tell her I’m sorry.

But I think, too, I would like to see if she still has that laugh. And if she still carries her friends in her heart in a warm hug, protecting them from the boredom and the perils of growing up, caring for them with the worry of a saint.

So yeah… Uhmm… Everyone Asked About You is pretty cool.

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About the text: I think I’ll have a separate announcement post to talk about Nightporter, my music/books publication. For now, thank you for sticking around. I’ll start posting regularly in here, at least until I can find a job to help me pay my masters in film. I’ll do the announcement post on the following days. New the-thief post coming at the end of the week, I think.

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