As many of you know, I started Black Veil Brides when I was pretty young. I was at a point in my life where, like a lot of teenagers, I felt a certain sense of longing. I just knew that I wanted to do something more than what my life, my school, or even my town, at that time, could offer me. I wanted to be a rock star. I didn’t have a clue, at that time, what the title or the job, itself, truly required. I did know, however, that I wanted it more than anything I had ever wanted in my life. I also knew that, aside from comic book heroes, the only real life heroes I had were musicians.
I spent countless hours at home, alone in my room, listening to my Dad’s classic punk albums from bands like The Damned, Dead Boys, and Generation X. I covered my walls with posters of all kinds of bands whose image I loved ranging from Motley Crue to the Misfits and began to try to re-create their stage makeup. I’d take plastic WWF wrestling rings and turn them into elaborate rock band stage designs. I even started to make my own stage “costumes.” I’d ask my Dad to record me singing along with my favorite Social Distortion or Tiger Army songs so I could watch and listen the tapes and learn how to be a front man like my heroes. In my mind there was only one thing that I KNEW, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was born to do. PERFORM.
When I got the chance, I wanted to create a band that could be a calling card for every kid who who felt like I did. A band for the outcasts who dreamt of escaping the sadness or loneliness that they felt in their life. I wanted to rebel against all the hatred and anger that I felt from those who judged me for how I looked, instead of who I was. I wanted to create a community, via my music, that would provide those kids with the sense of belonging that I lacked.
At the time I formed BVB, I felt that to properly provide an escape from life’s day to day drudgeries and create something that kids could look to as a source of strength, I would need to create a character. I felt it needed to be something that could not only inspire but also something that as a young kid, myself, I could hide behind…like an iron shield to deflect the outside world and all the horrible things people would say and do. Something that would stand out and be larger than life.
For me that character was “Andy Six”
Andy Six could be all of the things that I wanted so badly to be as a teen. He was tough and confident. He stood up for those who needed help. He was the person I knew I wanted to become. I hoped that, over time, I would learn to be as confident in Andy Biersack as I was in Andy Six.
Move ahead to 2011, and here I am sitting in my tour bus on the road, 20 years old and the lead singer of Black Veil Brides. I am touring the world and meeting so many amazing friends and fans along the way. Our band has an entire army of people who believe in the same things that we do and who have all found strength in themselves as I have in my own life.
Andy Six is no longer the “strong one.” Because of you, Andy Biersack passed him by long ago. Because of you, I have had the chance to experience things that I could have only dreamt of as a child growing up in Southern Ohio. I have talked with thousands of you and we have shared our stories. They are often quite similar. I’ve sung my lungs out with you at shows from Los Angeles to Tokyo and I have tried to share my heart with you in every lyric that I write. I have seen such an incredible devotion from you and, because of that, I think that “Andy Six” is no longer needed to shield myself. Because of my best friends in the entire world (my band mates) and our fans, there is no longer anything to shield myself from. BLACK VEIL BRIDES is now the shield for so many of you that I feel it is time that I let go of my childhood moniker and move on as a happy, thankful and strong member of our BVB Army.
I am Andy Biersack. Andy “6” is no more than a nickname, now. Something that will always remind me of where I came from and how this whole thing started.
So, here we are in the final stages of post production on our first major label record. We are currently on the AP tour and life could not be more exciting for us and you can count on the fact that I will not rest until this band and our loyal and dedicated fans take over the world. You, my friends, inspire me and give me the confidence to say that. I know that, together, this group of outcasts and misfits can do something nobody else thought we could. Make things better for a lot of people.
I encourage all of you to find strength within yourself, no matter what. Be proud of who you are and never let anyone or anything take that away from you. Inner Strength is something that we are all born with. However, I’ve learned that it requires patience and perseverance to fully achieve it. I promise you, though, that as long as you know in your heart who you are and what you want from this world, nothing is gonna stop you.
Finally, please remember this. If you EVER need something that you can stand behind, something to help you to take on and deflect all of the hatred of this often cruel world, you will ALWAYS have Black Veil Brides.
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things"
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