In Conversation: Justice Tripp of Angel Du$t
In both his creative and personal life, Justice Tripp is only interested in being true and saying yes to that—whatever the consequences. It looks a lot like freedom.
Justice Tripp is a rare figure. Having come to the surface with Trapped Under Ice, a brutal but deceptively genre-pushing hardcore band, Justice took the idea about a hundred steps further to form Angel Du$t—an impossible-to-define, sonic fuck-off to genre purists that also works as a love letter to the musical visionaries who inspired him to seek that kind of radical autonomy. Angel Du$t’s excellent new album, Brand New Soul, carries that vision even further.
But beyond his music, I wanted to know where this dedication to openness came from and how it plays out in his everyday life, and—true to his own credo—Justice laid himself bare in our conversation with a lack of self-consciousness that I’ve rarely seen. I’ve often said that the primary objective of an Anti-Matter interview is that you “show me who you are.” It was clear from the start that Justice understood the assignment.
I feel like your thesis statement has been out there since very early on: “I have no interest in leading the blind, but walking among those people with open minds.” I love that. But I realized that I’ve never really gotten a grasp of where that mindset comes from. Like, I know how this developed for me, and how I got to a place of really valuing openness, but is there a place where you would start in that conversation?
JUSTICE: I think the essence of music that I was immediately captivated by, it comes initially from punk rock music for me. The more open, the more honest, the genuine it is, that’s what I associate with punk music. We call it “punk,” but I think it exists a little bit in everything—in early rock and roll and heavy metal music that’s relatable to me. I kind of talk about it in the new Angel Du$t record, how that’s the foundation of all rock and roll and all authentic music. It comes from the blues, and pain, and struggle. We can all relate to pain and struggle, maybe not on the same level as the blues, but that’s the thing that draws me to music.
When I think about my own life, one of the places where I’d start in thinking about this need to be open is with my family. We were an immigrant family, and my parents were really trying to keep up with the Joneses, just trying to be American and attain the American dream. But that meant that they were also obsessed with this idea of keeping our “dirty laundry” in-house, and so it felt like we were a super secretive family. It was very closed. As a kid, I rebelled against that, and I can draw a direct line from that place to the place I’m in now, where I just feel like, fuck secrets. I’m an “oversharer” and I have been for decades. Was openness in your childhood encouraged?
JUSTICE: I don’t want to talk bad about my family, but… it’s in the music, you know what I mean? My mother is an angel, but drug addiction has been a thing with everybody in my family and we didn’t come from very much. So yeah, there was a level of secrecy—or least there were things that were supposed to be secret.
My mom was a single mother for a bit of my childhood and didn’t have much. I think I can relate to what you’re saying about “keeping up with the Joneses.” All of our clothes were thrifted but she did a good job of cleaning us up and making us look good, feeling presentable and normal with our peers. She got a job cutting hair, which I think is a job where you get to express yourself a little bit—maybe there’s a little bit of art involved with that. And she was a fan of music. So I saw expression as exciting, and a release from having to hide. Your story kind of gives me a little different context, I guess, and makes me consider where that might come from in my childhood. So I would say that—maybe it’s my mom. I think she’s a pretty progressive person considering her set of circumstances. Maybe she’s the person who gave me the idea of expressing myself and being an individual.
I mean, honestly, I do think of hairstyling as an art. It’s funny because I always joke that my hair is, like, half my identity with some people. If you go on my Instagram, people are constantly talking about my hair. It makes me feel like when I finally go bald, I’m fucked [laughs].
JUSTICE: My mom owned a salon for a little while. That was her crescendo of creativity. I remember being a little kid and walking everywhere because we didn’t have a car, getting a free or reduced lunch—all the signs of struggle, you know? But my mom was going to school and doing pretty well for herself, and she got the money to open a salon. It didn’t last very long, but that was a bright moment of my childhood. Just being on the floor around a lot of bright and vibrant and creative women working there. They would involve me a lot, and let me help with sweeping hair or whatever. It was a very inspiring place. And again, my mom loved music, so there was always music happening in the salon or in the house. That’s some of my earliest influence with creativity and expression, and I never really thought of it like that. It’s funny. I appreciate your question. It made me think of influence at an earlier age.
You once said that you don’t belong in “the outside world,” and I’m a little bit curious about what “the outside world” is to you.
JUSTICE: I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently because I got a house in a nice, quiet little neighborhood, and I’ve just been doing more “adult” things recently, seeing my neighbors and how they live. Maybe as I get older that line gets thinner. When you’re young and you get hurt, you build walls, and my safety zone was exclusively aggressive music culture, hardcore punk rock music. So for me, if you didn’t have a patch with some band that I liked on it, or if you didn’t have some of the markings of an outsider, I didn’t feel welcome. I never felt welcome. But we’re all human, and I think there are [more] things that we can relate to than things we don’t.
If I were to draw a line at this point in my life, it’s not about what bands you like or who you went and jumped off the stage to last week or whatever. It’s more about that authenticity we talked about earlier. It’s about being honest with who you are and the world around you. I think that’s important for me to distinguish myself from “the outside world.”
Do you ever go back and feel like you maybe artificially segregated yourself?
JUSTICE: Maybe, but I was just also weird. I was a weird child. I’m still a weird person. And as I get older, I deal better with myself being weird. I deal with other weird people better. We all grow. A lot of friends I have in life now probably wouldn’t have liked me very much when I was young. They probably wouldn’t have given me a chance because, at the end of the day, I’m a strange person [laughs]. I’m hyper-obsessed with music, but it just channels itself differently now. Music is how I channel my individuality. In the past, I would see my individuality in everybody else by seeing how much I’m not like them. Like, again, I use school. It’s not like school was miserable, but it’s a reference for extreme socializing with people who might not be exactly like you. I didn’t allow myself enough opportunity to grow in high school. Maybe I wasn’t capable of it. I don’t think I was capable of it. I was too socially immature at that point. I didn’t have the tools, you know?
I mean, I dropped out of high school [laughs].
JUSTICE: That was definitely on the list of things I wanted to do.
So what kept you in?
JUSTICE: My mom would beat the whole shit out of me if I did that [laughs]. I’m not first-generation, but my family is from Poland. My mother was raised by Polish immigrants in a Polish neighborhood and they had a strong idea that they wanted us to graduate. My brother was the first person in my family to graduate high school in the United States, and I was the second. So not [dropping out] was really important for my mom.
I read that Stereogum feature the other day and the writer mentioned seeing a “Trapped Under Ice is ruining hardcore” flyer at a show. I was just wondering if you had any consciousness of that at all.
JUSTICE: I mean, I’ve seen people offended by everything I’ve ever done on the internet, but never a physical flyer—although I love that idea and I would love to get a copy of it. I think [we were just] a response to what the hardcore music community was at the time; we were trying to be abrasive. It’s like anything I do. I want to create my own lane, and that was the vibe with everyone in the band. I wouldn’t say we were threatening the ideals of hardcore as much as the fashion and the dress codes and the sonic territories of what hardcore is. There was maybe a good eight- to ten-year period of tradition [at that time], with people saying, “OK, hardcore is this. And you can sing about these things and wear these things.” When we stepped outside of that, maybe people felt threatened.
Not that Trapped Under Ice did this, but just that theme of bands taking from early hardcore and using it as a vessel for creation and pushing the limits and stuff, it’s gotten us to a really interesting place where you have these special bands that don’t fit the mold of hardcore, but that people call hardcore music. Like, I just saw Scowl the other day with Militarie Gun, MS Paint, and my friend’s band, Civilian, and everybody referred to it as “a hardcore show.” But I don’t think there was a single band on that show that is hardcore in the traditional sense. Or at least how the word “tradition” gets used…
I mean, it’s a point I’m always trying to make though. Even in the ‘80s, if you look at Negative Approach, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, and 7 Seconds—do any of those bands really sound alike?
JUSTICE: Definitely not.
Right. So even today, when we talk about “mixed bills”… To me, you don’t even have to call it “mixed.” Hardcore has always been mixed. We just didn’t feel a need to say it before.
JUSTICE: Yeah. Like, for me, Hatebreed from the jump was one of the most important bands to me. It would inspire so much of what I’ve done in my life and what I still want to do in my life. But I don’t want to sound like Hatebreed. There are a million Hatebreed clones, and [at one point] that was the standard. The sound of hardcore was that you sounded like Hatebreed or you ripped off Madball. They are incredible bands. Their influence is huge. But I think the most tasteful, respectful, and the most punk thing you can do is take those influences and create something new with it. There are a million Madball clones that wish they could do what Madball has done, but I’m going to forget all of them [laughs]. Trapped Under Ice is influenced by Madball, but I think we took it and made it our own. We took a lot of different influences and made it its own thing.
I don’t know if “remorse” is the right word, but do you ever feel bothered by the idea of Trapped Under Ice being slotted as an “ignorant hardcore” band?
JUSTICE: On some level we were asking for it, you know what I’m saying? Because again, that was not cool then, so we were kind of pushing that image because it was not cool. I love music that comes from that. I love Fury of Five—that’s what I think a lot of people would define as “ignorant hardcore.” We love Hatebreed, we love Madball, we love Biohazard. So we were asking for it. We were playing into the role and trying to make that idea cool to people that it wasn’t cool to initially.
But on some level, I’ve always seen myself as an artist, and I think Trapped Under Ice was making art. When people would brush it off, like saying, “Oh, this Trapped Under Ice record is all about fighting or being tough or whatever,” I was like, did you read the lyrics? It’s all about getting my feelings hurt, not having a father… It’s very vulnerable lyrically. It was never about being tough, and the band itself was never being tough. One thing that bummed me out about Trapped Under Ice is that idea carried on so much that there were people who would try to physically challenge us on tour, a lot. And we’re all human. We’re not the kind of people who would allow that. But I think the nature of Trapped Under Ice and the image, the art we were presenting… People got carried away and it led to some violent situations, which we would just as easily love to have done without.
You once said that hardcore was “being the most painful version of yourself.” I love that.
JUSTICE: It’s how I’ve come to discover all the worst things about myself. A lot of the Trapped Under Ice music, I love it. It’s very much me. It’s not phoned in at all. It’s like too much of me; it’s a problem [laughs]. I sing about some things in my childhood, like abuse and things I never came to terms with at that point—and maybe didn’t come to terms with until the last couple of years. I acknowledge those things without ever saying it clearly, and it’s how I came to know myself. It’s kind of coming from the perspective of an insufferable, self-centered, woe-is-me, brat of a child, but everything I was saying was real. I was really hurt and all I could see was my hurt. I had to just wear the hurt and that helps you to overcome it.
The lyrics I write in my thirties are a lot different now. It’s therapeutic. It’s a big part of how I’ve grown and matured as an adult, and how I’ve become better with social things, like we talked about earlier, and alienated myself less. You just keep writing things and saying your feelings until you realize, these are human feelings. I’m human. I relate to other humans. How can I be more respectful and compassionate to other humans around me and see their pain?
There’s a lyric on the new Angel Du$t record: “They don’t like it when I let go of my past now.” I was thinking about it as you were speaking because I do think that there’s this tendency for people to want you to be the version of yourself that you were when they found you, or when they loved you, or when you spoke the most to their lives—and I’m speaking from experience. But this notion of staying put in that place seems very regressive to me, and even damaging to the person.
JUSTICE: Yeah. I mean, you nailed it. I’m very conscious of that. I don’t want to relive a sound or an idea. I don’t want to fake it ever. I’m growing constantly, and again, I think truth, honesty, and transparency is the basis for real art. I’ve always said that Biggie Smalls’ Ready to Die is a hardcore record because it’s just authentic and transparent and it’s real. He’s doing the same thing we’re doing. We just write hardcore music from a different place, and we have different tools and different resources, so it just comes out sounding different. I just want to keep making authentic music, and if you’re the kind of person who’s hung up on a genre, you might miss it.
People have this idea of Trapped Under Ice being a really big band. We weren’t a big band. Angel Du$t is significantly bigger than Trapped Under Ice was while we were a band. We sell more tickets, we sell more records. That’s just the reality of it. I love being a part of Trapped Under Ice, but we’re not an active band at this point and there are people who expect me to be that. I’m like, “Bro, you missed it.” I mean, I would love to do a Trapped Under Ice record, and that’s something that’s always on the table, but I am not going to recreate Big Kiss Goodnight. I’m not going to recreate something. You missed that. But if you're looking for an authentic experience, then sign up now. Don't wait and miss it.
Do you ever feel that being a public figure has ever gotten in the way of personal growth?
JUSTICE: Oh, man. Absolutely. Definitely. You know, I never asked to be a “public figure,” but at some point I realized that I was on a small scale. But you do gain some sort of responsibility, and I think that for a lot of people that responsibility becomes, “How do I keep these people happy? Well, they liked me when I wore the spacesuit on stage, so now I’m going to wear the spacesuit forever and I’m going to be the guy in the spacesuit” [laughs]. I understand where that comes from. But I think you have more of a responsibility to grow, because that’s what society needs. Society needs to grow, and if you have any influence over people, you need to be growing. You need to be adapting. I don’t think much of anybody has advanced in society from following strict traditions or strict regulations to maintain what you are.
You were straight-edge during Trapped Under Ice, right?
JUSTICE: Yeah. Most of my life.
I’m curious, having been straight-edge for as long as you were, if there was a thought process behind when you stopped.
JUSTICE: Coming from a family with addiction, I had fears of, like, will that become me? Or, if I smoke pot, am I going to just accidentally fall into addiction and be a drug addict overnight? But waiting until adulthood to experiment with some of these tools gave me the self-awareness and value of self to know that’s not my path. Addiction is not my path. My main thing is that I like smoking pot. I smoke kind of a lot [laughs]. But at that point in my life, which was a couple of years ago now, I had more responsible people around me than not. And that idea—that fear—seemed a little more irrational.
I’ve always had anxiety problems. I was prescribed medicine for anxiety for a long time, and I think some of those things I was prescribed had some really dark consequences. So I was afraid to go back to that, and I was at a point where I was having some little breakdowns and stuff, so I started trying CBD. I was like, “Oh, this is straight-edge.” And then it turned into, “Oh, I’ll do the CBD with a little bit of THC because it activates the CBD”—and it really did help. But at some point I realized I like cannabis and what it does. It helps me feel better. You know, it’s scary to be dependent on anything, but it’s an incredible tool when you’re in the moment and you’re feeling awful and anxious.
Actually, I was hospitalized kind of recently, before Trapped Under Ice played in Baltimore a couple of months ago. I was just dealing with a lot, and in those moments, I usually turn to using cannabis to calm my nerves. But I think I was so busy—just working for a week straight, people flying in, getting ready for this show, ordering merch, this, that, and some other personal life stuff—that it just got to be too much. So I had some health issues that they thought might be a stroke at the time. I was in the emergency room, hooked up to all these machines, and they did all these tests. Finally, the doctor came in, maybe about an hour before Trapped Under Ice was supposed to play our set, and he was like, “Oh, you’re fine. You didn’t have a stroke.” I was like, “Well, what happened?” And all the symptoms pointed to a mental breakdown. I guess there’s some crossover between a stroke and a mental breakdown that looks similar [laughs]. But I realized I hadn’t smoked pot in a week or two, and I was dealing with way more than usual. The doctor was like, “What do you have going on?” I said, “I’ve been really stressed out.” Even the doctor was like, “Do you smoke pot? You should probably smoke” [laughs]. That’s where we are now. It’s what doctors are prescribing.
In a lot of the world now, it’s about psilocybin mushrooms. I use mushrooms, too, and it’s way more therapeutic and healthy than anything I was ever prescribed. I have less fear of becoming addicted to psilocybin than I do Xanax. Xanax has crippled entire communities of people. It’s like awful, awful medicine. If you’re taking it, it’s something that feels so good that you know it’s bad. So yeah, there was never a moment where I felt like, “Oh, this is a big deal. I’m betraying the straight-edge or my brothers and sisters in the straight-edge community.” It was more a thing of being like, this is way better for me and probably for a lot of other people. But it’s not for everybody.
I kind of want to go back to something you said before. You were talking about Trapped Under Ice, and you were saying that you wondered if people read the lyrics—how you were really in pain and in your own feelings. You’ve always described yourself as, quote, “an emotional person,” and at one point you even called yourself a “crybaby.” So as someone who has been described as a “godfather of emo,” I’m clearly going to cosign on that [laughs]. But have you ever felt like that part of you was at odds with the scene you operate in?
JUSTICE: I guess, initially, when we started Trapped Under Ice, I thought that was the case. It felt like a thing nobody was doing in our scene, typically—with exceptions, but it wasn’t closely related. Like, American Nightmare was an “emotional hardcore” band at the time. But I think about this a lot, because I’m always writing lyrics and I always wonder what people are identifying with the most. And I think that, in general, people most identify with those really emotional lyrics.
I guess this is sort of a personal question for me. Because I felt like, growing up in hardcore, there were always parts of my character that felt more valued than other parts. I used to have this thing, where I called myself “street, but sweet.” Like, I grew up in New York City and I know how to take care of myself. That’s a part of me. But there’s also this part of me that’s very sweet. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I care about people. When I first got into hardcore, it felt like the street part was way more valued than the sweet part.
JUSTICE: Yeah, I can see that. I think it’s a little different now, but I can see that. I can think of two things this reminded me of that are interesting. You know how if you typed in something like, “Trapped Under Ice” into Google that Google would make suggestions based on what was most commonly searched for? It used to be that if you typed in “Justice Tripp,” the first thing that came up was, “Justice Tripp Gay.” That was the first thing people wanted to know about me. So being emotional in the context of music that is more street-level, I think a lot of dudes were like, “Man, this is kind of hard. Hold up. Is this dude gay?” [laughs].
Another interesting thing that kind of relates to what you’re saying is that when we did Big Kiss Goodnight, there were a lot of people who wanted to gatekeep the position that Trapped Under Ice was in; there were a lot of older street-type dudes who didn’t like “Justice Tripp Gay” being the face of hardcore, you know? Obviously, we had success with men in general, but the label who did the vinyl for us, I remember him calling me and saying he had sold more copies to women than he’d sold for any other record, period, of any other release he’d ever done. Women alone out-bought any release he’d ever sold, which I thought was interesting. Maybe women didn’t see it as a threat as much as they were just able to enjoy it and live in the moment. But also, maybe the emotional value, lyrically, was something they were more open to at the time.
It’s funny to think about “Justice Tripp Gay” because, as a gay man, there was definitely a period of time when I was in the closet where if “Norman Brannon Gay” was the number one Google suggestion, I would have freaked out [laughs]. But if you’re not gay, how do you internalize that?
JUSTICE: Well, there are a lot of layers of this conversation. Not every movement in my life has been straight, you know? I’m in a straight relationship [now], and I’ve never identified as a gay man, but I’ve never been offended by that concept. Being where I’m from, there have been situations in my life where I was the minority, and in those situations, the hurtful word was the f-word. So I’ve been that. I grew up being that. I had blond hair and green eyes in a place where that doesn’t exist. So it started off as “pretty boy” and then it turned into “fag” all the time. I think that when you’re young and you hear that, you just believe it. You’re like, “Oh, I’m gay. That’s what I am.” So by the time I started making music and people were thinking I was gay, I was so past being offended by it. If anything, all my heroes were gay or dabbled in the gay sciences… the gay arts [laughs].
That was something I consciously talked to people about in Trapped Under Ice. I kind of felt like the way I moved on stage, or some of my style, or being sensitive or emotional created that idea. And once we knew that was the idea, I was like, I’m fine with that. There were always rumors about who I was being sexual with. Like, I have a trans friend that everybody in the particular community started theorizing that we were an item. I just let it go. What does it take from me? Like, am I going to sell less records or is someone going to beat me up? No. We’re fine. But if anything, what I will do is advocate for this person that is maybe misunderstood by some of their peers. So yeah, I’ve been thought of in that context a lot. And on a super technical level, maybe people weren’t wrong [laughs]. But again, it’s not my identity, and I don’t wave that flag.
I mean, a lot has changed since even back then. And certainly since I first started going to shows. Because when I was a kid, I was really bugging out because, on one hand, I found hardcore and I was like, “I found my people!” But on the other hand, I knew that I’d better not say anything [about being gay].
JUSTICE: Yeah, absolutely. It’s a cool time for young people right now. I don’t want to mix my message up, but I appreciate the people who have advocated for gay and trans people, and who have made it such a welcoming place. Like, people have created a better hardcore scene—more authentic to what we thought it was when I was a kid—so that young version of you could find that place you wanted to be in and feel comfortable and safe. It’s a beautiful thing.
I wanted to ask about something I literally just saw this morning. I was watching an interview that you did recently where you talked about doing a nude photo shoot, and there was something you said that I wanted to get into a little bit. You said, “I think anybody who knows me knows I don’t care what you think about my sexuality or my body.” We started this conversation talking about openness, and that’s quite possibly one of the most open things that a hardcore singer has probably ever said.
JUSTICE: Yeah. I’ll say this, and maybe this isn’t the best answer for this, but I’ve allotted myself a little more freedom than some of my peers because I’ve always been less afraid of consequences. It’s like, you can go on the internet and be like, “Justice is gay” or whatever, but what is that? What are you going to do about it? [laughs]. Maybe that’s a macho, egotistical response, but that’s in me too. That’s authentic.
I remember doing that [photo shoot] and being like, “I get to be a part of this cool thing.” Molly is a brilliant photographer and artist, and she explained to me her vision and I immediately got it. It’s like, this is what men have been doing to women for years. There are a million books you can go buy with naked women that some fucking creep took photos of, you know? It’s such a rare situation where the roles are reversed. And when we took the photos, it was incredible how true to that Molly was. I’m not saying she was being a creep; she wasn’t a creep at all. But she was taking photos of [me] naked, and it wasn’t about my feelings. It was like, “Hey, you said you wanted to do this? Then go over there and enter this vulnerable situation, turn around and let’s see your ass from behind.” I’m a grown man doing this and it’s vulnerable, and it’s scary, and it’s a really interesting perspective. And I think you can see that in the book, it’s a whole series that she did, and you can see it on everybody. It’s cool and it’s teaching, serving the purpose of art.
I remember I had friends that were like, “Oh man, people are going to tear you up on the internet if that comes out!” But nobody can tear me up on the internet. I don’t allow that. It’s like, I’m still going to make cool records. That’s never been a thing that deters me.
I mean, that’s an artist’s way. I have always gravitated towards putting myself into positions in which I feel uncomfortable. That’s where the growth is.
JUSTICE: You know “Give Me Danger,” the Stooges song? I have it tattooed on me. It’s a song about sex and love, or whatever, but that concept of giving me danger is very relevant to artists. Put me in a position of compromise and make me swim out of it.
It makes me think of “Rick Ta Life on a Horse,” if you remember that. It was a sensation on the internet. All this man did was get on a horse! Motherfuckers tore him up for years. Like, it’s still a thing. People are still digging into this man. So I think when I did the photos with Molly, that was something that was brought up. Like, “It’s going to be your Rick Ta Life on a Horse.” And I was like, “No. Because, one, it’s a different time, but also, I’m different.” Rick would go and defend himself on the internet. He’d be like, “So what if I ride a horse!” But for me, if you’re so dumb that you’re offended by me being naked in a book that you didn’t have to buy, fuck you [laughs].
OK, I have one more thing. I feel like so many of us in punk, we’re constantly saying how we don’t give a fuck what people think. But behind the scenes, we can actually be very deliberate about doing certain things as a way to be perceived. So I wonder if there’s ever been something that you deliberately did in order to communicate something, to be perceived in a certain way, but that you feel didn’t go over.
JUSTICE: Right. Where I missed. I could think of a lot of things, but what would be the most significant to me… [pauses]. The intention is the important part. I’ve definitely done stupid shit in my life and then been misunderstood… I think one real important thing that you said is that we say we don’t give a fuck about what people think, and that is true on some level, unless it means being misunderstood. From a career perspective, there’s been that idea of what I was talking about with being misunderstood in the context of being street or tough or macho, where my desire has always been to have a playful balance of the two sides of me as an artist—aggressive music and extreme street-level things with vulnerability.
There’s a Hard Lore podcast where Colin of Arabia is the guest, and they ask, “Who do you do?” The idea was that every frontman is doing another frontman. It’s all been done. So if you’re a frontperson, you are emulating somebody. And I think, for me, everything I do artistically is a combination of influences, and how do you mash them all together to make something new. I’ve always said that mine has been Stikman from Fury of Five: Raging psychopath. A fierce, unstoppable force. And then Iggy Pop: Sexuality is always in question. A true artist. Vulnerable. Literally allowing himself to be a punching bag when the Stooges were a band—or at least in the stories I’ve read. I never saw the Stooges at that time [laughs]. Not even fighting back. He would just take ass-whipping as part of his art, you know? So that’s been my two I do. Two people I’ve always thought about on stage. There’s been a lot of intentional moments, in the context of art, where I’ve tried to lay out who I am. And I think we all have that in us. We all have the street, but sweet—exactly like you said.
That’s the thing with alternative forms of expression. You risk being misunderstood, and you’re just looking to be understood, because being misunderstood hurts, you know? But that’s kind of part of being an artist: You grew up misunderstood, and you find a way to deliver your message, and that becomes your whole world.
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Norm, incredible interview as always. This is something I'm sure *you* know or have experienced at some level, but maybe Justice hasn't:
In regards to "Justice Tripp Gay" popping up on Google, I don't necessarily think that's because of legions of straight men trying to figure out if they should hate him or not.
As a gay man myself, I'm constantly Googling celebrities or musicians to see if they're gay or not. Not to pry into their lives or to judge them, but because I'll recognize something of myself in them or something I'd like to be or have in them. I'm looking for kindred spirits in the places I inhabit.
The people searching "Justice Tripp Gay" are just as likely to be queer people in the scene who see something of themselves in Justice and are looking for role models or trying to find community with him. Regardless of how Justice identifies, I think it's pretty great he can provide that kind of safety to folks.
(A big chunk of people searching "Justice Tripp Gay" are also likely gay men who think he's hot lol. Again, a compliment)
I’m a little surprised this interview hasn’t gotten more traction in the comments. I appreciate how you let Justice draw out this point in particular - “we’re all human, and I think there are [more] things that we can relate to than things we don’t.”
The evolution to that statement feels like the essence of anti-matter and your thoughts on what hardcore is.
At the end of the day, we are all trying to make our way in a world that challenges us. Many of us have an urge to creat. The balance of that urge with the realities of life gets a lot easier when you can find commonality with more people.