Pete

Hey I’m Atlas the Kid. I’m a 20-year violinist, songwriter, writer and recording artist. Like fire, mankind discovered music in the dark. With patience and curiosity we grew to understand its power and with it we became enlightened. Today I wanted to take some time to talk about my last EP and put down some thoughts on the music. Mostly because some folks think April should be happier music. I say, Nah.

So my last project Pete contains two songs Thanks4Crying and, the title track, Pete. Both songs were written around April. April is always a touchy month for me because April 2015 my best friend from high school crawled into his parents crawlspace and shot himself. I found out on an HBCU campus on 4/20. I’m a stoner but i like 4/27 better (plus its not hitler’s birthday, so theres that.)

Once I found out, I made arrangements for my classwork and my job. [I was in college. I was told that I wasn’t excused because the death wasn’t in my family.] Ultimately I ended up on the road a day or two later on an 11 hour drive to a funeral armed with a close friend’s spotify premium.

I had a lot of regret because my family had moved to Kentucky the previous year so that spring break, a month earlier, I had to choose bewtween going to see an old flame and going home to see friends. She was closer and I could see them (all my friends) this summer which wasnt that far away. It seemed at the time like an easy choice. I chose the old flame, who later ghosted for some guy at her school. I went back to Kentucky and back to school.

Eh. You can’t blame yourself. I went to the funeral - the only Catholic Affair I’ve ever attended. After I became a godfather to his godchild and the daughter of our close friend. We all squashed highschool rivalries, watched Zombieland, and drank. (I also made an ass of myself with some other girl. Maybe the night after a funeral is too soon, who knows?). A few days later I made my way back to school.

You go home but it doesn’t go away.

SoI wrote that poem about a year later. I was trying to deal with my own depression at the time.After he took his life, Suicide was no longer an abstract concept for me. I could contemplate it as something I could do and I’ve been dealing with suicidal thoughts ever since. It comes and goes along with seasonal depression.

I wrote Thx4Crying as a means to deal with reality. I’ll look around and it seems everyone is just barely coping. Mad folks are just medicating and so am I. The trick is that the medicine isn’t the drugs. So yea we Trip, but the medicine is the good time. The song is supposed to remind you to focus on what you are doing and the life you are living now. Be present. Focus on verbs.

A Verb is an Action word. It means to move.Stop waiting for someone to pull you from perdition and tell you that you are chosen.

Make your own Choices.

The song Pete is a message to anyone who is feeling low and looking at life from the cheap seats. You aren’t alone. I’m Here.

And I guess a last word to my buddy,

Wherever I see you next, we’re scrappin cause you quit on me. But I love you forever, I forgive you for everything, and we will always be good.

-Atlas