Rock Music in a Little Girl’s Eyes

Jessica Prouty

jessicaprouty

Photo taken by Merina Zeller

My childhood was filled with tennis lessons, moon-bounce birthday parties, boating at the yacht club, and Christian Rock Music. Life was balanced by two loving parents, a blonde baby brother, church every Sunday, and one of the highest rated school districts in Massachusetts.
My childhood was filled with music. Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Zoe Girl soon shifted to Avril Lavigne, Aerosmith, and Evanescence. I found my love of black clothes when I was 12 years old, and I became the angsty teenager with emotional problems and a bad attitude for six months or so. Eventually the goth-punk phase subsided, and I put my emotions into songwriting instead.
I’ve been in a self-titled band for almost seven years. Those yacht club commodore’s balls and images of a comfortable middle class family vanish when we go out to perform at dingy bars in Providence, motorcycle expos in New Hampshire, and events coupled with lingerie companies in Maine.
Hard rock music is dirty. She’s unapologetic, and she holds everyone in her arms with the smell of cigarette smoke and whiskey lingering on her breath.
I write songs for broken families, for the man whose life revolves around the next drink, the next fix. I write music about lost love, the hope of filling the hole he made in her heart when he left her with two kids and no child support. I write for the girl who’s overweight and insecure, living a farm town in northern Vermont.
I wonder if I’m even qualified to have heart to heart moments with these people. They listen to my music, they come to my shows, and they share their lives with me as if I’d understand, as if my music is a reflection of my life story. We become friends while we’re talking at last call, while they’re struggling to walk in a straight line out the door of the pub. They even thank me the next day on Facebook for listening to them.
I’d keep asking myself the question, “Am I true enough for them?” Their lives have had so much more loss and emptiness compared to my petty problems. I suppose it’s all a matter of perception. Loss isn’t measured in quantity or quality – we’ve all experienced loss. We’ve all felt empty.
Though I haven’t endured the same situations that they have, the language we speak is music. A lyric, a melody, even the silence in between links my life to theirs. And when I look into those girl’s eyes in the front row, I don’t see loss or emptiness.
I see hope.
Hard rock music is dirty. She’s unapologetic, and she holds everyone in her arms so tenderly, from the widowed mother at the bar to the little girl playing tennis at the yacht club, with the smell of cigarette smoke and whiskey lingering on her breath.

Jessica Prouty is Marblehead, MA native who spends her time writing songs, producing marketing plans and performing out with her hard rock band, 95Hyde. Her previous writing credits include Berklee’s Music Business Journal as well as three rock-albums. When she’s not working on her music or the business behind it, she enjoys her passion for video games. Jessica will be graduating May 2015 as a Music Business/Management major. www.95hyde.com

 

95 Hyde’s performance at the Maine Rock Gods show this past summer following the band JACKYL –
Check out more 95 Hyde (formerly Jessica Prouty Band) on SoundCloud –