SUPERNOVAblackhole

I’ve got it.
You’ve got it.
We all got it—and say it with me now…

GENERATIONAL TRAUMA.

Know what else we have?

Some of the coolest musical influences imaginable.

And what better way to represent this musical kaleidoscope of an album than with a little bop about being under the many influences of my life…

Musically, of course.

I’ve had the privilege of learning from so many teachers in my life. Blink-182. Skrillex. Fever the Ghost. Missy Elliott. And on and on and on.

Every artist, every sound, every weird little thing that made my brain go, “Wait. You can do that?”

This song is my way of acknowledging that we are all products of everything that came before us.

But eventually, all of that passes through you.

And then you have to decide:

What happens to it next?

Let me show ya~

Your Honor,

If I may…

I’d like to present this as evidence to the court that this is the second-to-last time you will have to hear me try to prove this man was an ass.

But I’m going to break character for a second.

There was a part of me that used to wonder what happened to that photo.

That version of us still lives in that room.

But you’re crazy if you thought I wasn’t going to drag his ass out of there and put him on trial in my head.

And what a twist, though.

You thought the trial was gonna be about the other stuff.

Hahahaha.

I wrote this one from a very real place of being tired.

And from watching other tired people just try to make it through the day.

This isn’t “Oh, I need some sleep” tired.

This is “Oh… I can’t keep doing this.”

It may be hard to hear this one.

Also, I’m fine.

Sometimes you just want to put the armor down and fall apart while someone is there with you.

Not to fix anything.

Not to give advice.

Not to ask anything else of you.

Just to let you fall apart for a minute.

No Matts were harmed in the making of this song.

The opening words to this song came to me mid-conversation with my friend.

As in, he was actively talking to me while my mouth was over here forming the words:

“You… can make… a dog bark…”

So there I was, stupidly mouthing that to myself while someone was trying to have an actual conversation with me.

Naturally, I ran with it.

And somehow it turned into an open letter to the universe asking why, no matter how much effort I put toward an outcome lately, I still seem to come up short.

Like…

Stop being mean to me.

I’m trying my damn best here.

Also, canaries really deserved better than what we did with them.

This is actually not new material.

This was a poem I wrote about ten-ish years ago for another male organism who broke my little heart.

It’s a running theme.

But this was so cool to do.

I had to change some of the words to give it a little more movement, but yeah—that’s really all this was.

Sorry to the lore team who thought I was changing teams for that other jackass two songs before this.

I was not.

Also, this was not supposed to become some kind of rave anthem.

I wanted something moodier.

But, as the music gods decided after one too many clicks of a button, it is now apparently a club banger.

Thanks, Dan.

(His name isn’t Dan. I need to ask people if they actually want to be mentioned before I start putting them in these.)

My meds get another shout-out.

Whoop-iee.

One of the more fascinating problems I ran into as someone who takes medication—we covered this three or four albums ago for those of you just joining—is that you kind of can’t emote too far in either direction without someone eventually asking about it.

Well…

Asking about your meds.

Because it’s the meds.

Obviously.

Can’t just be a little happier these days.

Can’t be a little sadder.

Can’t be louder, quieter, more excited, more tired, more anything without wondering if somebody is going to start doing the math for you.

So you learn to just sort of contain it.

And that’s fucked up.

But it’s a truth I hate to reveal.

No jokes on this one, friends.

Juuuuust meds.

After all of this happened, I found it really hard to cry.

Not because I wasn’t sad.

Because one thing would connect to the next, and then the next, and before I knew it, I wasn’t crying about what happened that day anymore.

I was crying about the entire fucking year.

And then people start having things to say about that.

So, eventually, you learn to separate it.

This feeling belongs over here.
That one stays over there.
Deal with this one now.
Do not open that box yet.

Because apparently feeling all of it at once makes you “too much.”

But here’s the part I had to learn:

I am allowed to be upset about this shit show for as long as I need to be.

It was a lot, man.

The kind of psychological shit that changes a person.

And yet, somewhere along the way, I taught myself how to carefully portion out my own feelings so nobody else would have to be uncomfortable with them.

Which is a pretty fucked-up thing to have to get good at.

But I’m fine.

That’s it.

It’s time to cut out the people who were only around when I was useful.

And that hurts.

There’s something particularly shitty about being the one who stops making all the calls, sending all the texts, making all the plans…

and then realizing the entire relationship stopped with you.

Nobody wants to find out they were the only thing keeping something alive.

But I don’t wish them any ill will.

I’m not interested in revenge.

It’s just time to readjust some things.

Where I put my time.
Where I put my energy.
Who gets access to me.

And you may or may not be part of wherever this ship is sailing next.

Good on that.

It’s got one of those fun mouth sounds when you say it.

IN. DE. PEN. DENT. RE. VERB.

See?

Then we made it hot as fuck.

That’s pretty much the story.

We also desperately needed a little breather around here.

So here you go.

Breathe.

But, like…

hot.

There’s a lot I’m not sorry for.

This song is definitely one of those things.

I wanted that kind of ear candy that makes you physically feel something happening in your ear.

But underneath all of that, this one is a bigger statement.

I’m not sorry I chose to survive in the ways that I did.

I’m not sorry for this music.

I’m not sorry for what I had to turn into art to make it through.

And I’m definitely not sorry if you have big feelings about any of it.

File them accordingly.

I’ll get back to you on the next album.

You are witnessing the birth of something magical.

Because the second this song hit the album, an entirely new era for VA//A:RE opened up.

This song became bigger than the pretend studio it was recorded in.

She showed up.

Then she killed it.

And everybody else.

We went MAX.

We went UNLIMITED.

And apparently that still wasn’t enough, because she carved herself out of this story, kicked open a door to another universe, and went off to destroy that one too with UNLIMITED DELUXE.

Yes, this is a plug.

Go listen.

Miiiight be better than this album.

Jk.

(But, like… maybe.)

Anyway.

We are reaching the end…

The mystic.

I have a weird relationship with that whole world.

Sometimes I’m completely on board.

Sometimes I have way too many questions.

Usually, it’s both.

And that’s kind of where this song sits for me.

I don’t need to understand everything to respect that it means something to somebody.

I just have a lot of questions.

And a lot of respect.

You do whatever.

There was no timeline where I didn’t end this with a bang of cosmic proportions.

I poured my everything into this record.

For the entirety of this project, I was working alone. I was afraid to get people involved because, frankly, I hate people. But some wise friend of mine who knows too much about me told me to sit with it and see how I felt.

And I did.

For about two weeks longer than usual.

That’s a fair trade-off.

Look, ladies and gentlemen, I’m painfully aware of how fast I move. And I appreciate you sticking with the story this far.

I wanted this record to be as true as possible to what I actually wanted to write and hear in music. I wanted to use all the lessons and knowledge I’ve gained along the way. I can play any of these songs now and feel the maturity that has moved into both my writing and my life.

There is no “real end” to this story, right?

This felt as close to an actual finale as I could give without lying and saying, “It all worked out.”

Some stuff did.

Some stuff didn’t.

But above all, I Still Hate You Part 2.

This record is also very special because, for the first time, I invited people to work with me on the lyrics, the sound, and the overall story being told. I took their feedback and actually used it to make something better.

I play these songs just because they’re good.

And I’m not trying to stroke my own ego over here…but like, damn.

I didn’t have to go that hard.

As painful as it was to live this story, I had a fucking blast writing SUPERNOVAblackhole.

And i’m not sorry.

One last little bit about the dumb event that sparked this whole concept.

Trust me, it’s not as good as the pizza song.

In the span of one year, I had two people call me a black hole.

I, to this day, am not entirely sure what the fuck that means.

But it didn’t feel good.

And twice?

I decided I wasn’t a fan.

So naturally, I created the most ill-proportioned reaction possible.

If I’m a black hole — still need clarification — then that means I had to be a fuckin’ star, baby.

I hope that after the roller coaster that was the other 99% of this work, you hear at least one song that you like.

And not just because it’s part of this project.

I mean a song you catch yourself humming a week from now.

And to little me:

Hey, dude.

We are now officially registered on the same chart system used for things like the Billboard Hot 100.

You did it.

You wanted something so badly that you ripped apart the ending that wrote you off and left you to die.

You made sure to take us to space.

And you made sure that, no matter what, even when you went out, you shared whatever light you could with the people you tried to help — even when you couldn’t hold yourself together anymore.

I’m sorry we lost everything.

And I’m sorry we hurt some people when we finally did change our shape.

There isn’t a reality where I fully forgive the things you had — and still have — to survive.

But I can say that the life we have now is something you would look at and think:

“Holy crap. That’s awesome.”

As of this message, there have been 24,000 interactions with this project worldwide.

Numbers can get weird. But no matter what, you fucking did it.

Because this was never meant to be some 1,000,000,000-viewed thing.

I wanted it to be the thing someone could find one day and watch as a person learned to live with all the ugly he inherited — and still chose to try to love every person he came across.

You chose love that day.

And every day after that.

It may have taken different shapes, but you held onto it even when it cost you everything.

You knew the odds were slim.

Even with this.

But somehow…

you got to tomorrow.

You’re not here in the way you should have been.

There will always be a part of me that fights a little harder for you.

That cries a little longer.

That hurts a little more.

But I love everything you are becoming.

This entire project can do two things.

It can show you how one act can alter the entire course of someone’s life.

And it can show you how someone is choosing to keep fighting anyway.

It’s been difficult.

It is difficult.

And sometimes trauma works in ways that make you doubt what the mind can even do to a person.

Like:

“Oh, hey. I am not dead in a ditch, so I shouldn’t feel bad about how I can’t look at a fabric tape measure anymore.”

It makes no sense sometimes.

But if there is still a reality where this musical translation of healing, anger, humor, and pain can reach someone — and reassure them that they are normal for wanting to climb inside a cabinet while having a panic attack at 1 AM — then I’m not sorry for how much it has cost me to stick with it.

But I like it.

And I hope you do too.

If you’re just getting here…

strap in, friend.

If you’re exiting the ride, thanks for taking the time to listen to the voice of someone who came back as a very pissed-off ghost who apparently can’t shut up about it.

with love,

Matt P.