Written By Alex Foster
So for the first edition of what Alex's gently calling the "WHO CARES", we'll talk about LITTLE SISTER, a very personal and meaningful song for the whole band…
WHO CARES: Ben mentioned in a previous interview that working on a song like Little Sister, dealing with mental illness and sexual abuse, brought a weird feeling of loneliness and misunderstanding… do you felt the same about writing the song?
ALEX: Guess it's never easy to write a song exposing a person you really loved or you've been pretty close to… it's always kinda weird to explain to every single friend who calls that you won't go swimming on a perfect sunny Sunday afternoon when its 95°F outside cause you're writing about sexual abuse and won't be able to deal with your personal emotion, so you better stay in your secret place… I never know how I'll be reacting to the feelings emerging from writing… inspiration's still a strange beast for me and Little Sister has been quite a challenge… I had images, smells and a face dancing before my eyes while writing… guess Ben was referring to that state of affective destabilization…
WHO CARES: Who's ''Little Sister''…
ALEX: "Little Sister" refers to a 20 years old woman dealing with several emotional challenges I had the privilege to shelter home for almost a year… she came to me right after a church meeting I was invited to speak at… she came to me and said "do you think God can love a dirty soul like me… is he strong enough to take care of me… I'm sick and need to be healed from the past… do you wanna pray for me pastor"… I was quite shocked… ain't no pastor, you know… I'm more a sinner than a Saint… believe me… so I took her home, figuring she would be more welcomed with the band and our friends… especially after seeing the frightened eyes looking at her without any desire of doing anything in that so-called church… never been so ashamed to be a believer… ain't the building… it's all about the soul… and I had enough room in my heart for that wasted girl...
WHO CARES: Ben refers to mental illness, while you're talking about emotional challenges, quite a different analysis, especially coming from a former social worker.
ALEX: This young lady was schizophrenic and depressive… but honestly, for me, her real and true pain was the fact that she has never been loved the way we all need to be loved. Born from a heartless and apathetic mother who never gave her any affection, raised by an egocentric, violent and abusive father, she grew up in a religious setting used as an excuse to abuse her trough every single disgusting behaviors a kid could ever face. Schizophrenia was basically her way out… far from hurts and pains… she totally closed herself from any emotion… from any affective contact… she abandoned everything… wasted her self on meds and mutilation…
WHO CARES: How did you reach her inner world?
ALEX: It has nothing to do with reaching her inner world… I believe it was more a matter of touching her heart and being there for her, whatever the cost, whatever the results, whatever the investments. Might sound strange, but even if they were staring at images I wasn't able to see and were looking kinda lost, she had the most magnificent eyes I ever seen… the first time she touched my hand was a spiritual awakening for me… I've learned so much on myself and the world only by looking at her… it amazed me how calm she was… she went to hell but was still speaking with angels at night… I hated God for such misery… but she taught me mercy for having such faith… her inner world… no… she was the one reaching out to me…
WHO CARES: The "Little Sister'' lyrics refer to a carousel slowing stopping down and to Alice never coming back from Wonderland. Can we assume the ending is not happy?
ALEX: Let's just say her story is far from being over… reality not a freakin' Disney's movie… Alice's sleeping… wish every story could end up being three clicks of the heels… nobody's Dorothy you know…
WHO CARES: what do you mean?
ALEX: When I'm thinking of ''Little Sister'', I'm seeing a young, proud and joyful woman who got rid of her personal demons, living in peace with the past, who found the strength to forgive, who found dignity and hope. Pretty far from the living dead junky crying her guts out in my living room on a cold night of June screaming to be loved, praying to be free, when she first came in. I still feel guilty for letting her father come back in the picture... that piece of shit is everything I hate from that generation of selfish men abusing their own blood… and everything I rebuke from religion… I'm so tired of those devils dressed as everybody' friends…
WHO CARES: You seem in utter reaction towards what you're calling "our father's apathy" and "the imposture of religion".
ALEX: (sigh) I'm truly fed up of stumbling upon pathetic men staring and criticizing our generation with disgust eyes… I'm sick of seeing those men shining their luxurious cars in front of their children dying to be turned into a vehicle to be loved and taking care of, sick of seeing those overfed pieces of fat screaming at their anorexic daughters to cover their ass for school while looking at her friend's bodies, sick of seeing those pathetic losers ridding their mustang and dating our sisters to remember their first high school blowjobs, sick of seeing those little men spitting on their own flesh to please their wicked needs of country clubs and RV… am I revolted… shit yes I am… no more sweet Bob Dylan gently weeping guitar for peace… this is war… not middle east… it's crack houses, guns in school, teenagers without dreams, 10 years old selling smack to teenage mothers, innocent kids killing for colors while colors is money for the big kids leading the pack… it's a young girl raped by her brother, a boy knifing to eat, a generation cutting for an add… it's America… it's the streets and it's our lives… "Little Sister" got sexually abused by her own dad… got gang banged by her boyfriend's buddies… got beaten and left for dead… kids were kicking her head to steal a few bucks for their daily fix… she won't be able to have kids… she's hardly able to speak… she's over meds… and when she told her mom about her situation… she was a whore, a teasing bitch… 8 years old is quite young to be any teasing whore… I know it's not everybody… I know… I know… I'm sounding like a frustrated demagogic preacher… but when we I took a look around, when I take the time to hear the sounds coming from the streets, it looks like "Little Sister" is a freakin' common story… and I'm sick of it… I'm so sick of it…
WHO CARES: And for the religious question?
ALEX: I have an enormous respect for the people who have a true relationship with God and who have a profound faith, hope, and deep sense of compassion. Thus, I have a great disgust for those fake men of God hiding themselves behind purity and sanity, in order for others to see them greater than Jesus himself. I've been there you know, seeing those saints impersonificators urging their assembly to take care before raising their dirty sinners hands, while their own hearts are overfilled with hypocrisy and perverted spirits… And don't get mistaken, I'm a firm believer….but I stand my ground in lucidity… the wolves are leading the flock… so knowing "Little Sister" father is still leading the worshiping saints kinda helped me understand why Christ left the house to sleep under bridges and squat disaffected buildings… I'm sad you know… profoundly sad… heaven's love has been spilled in religious despairs…
WHO CARES: How did your experience with "Little Sister'' changed you?
ALEX: You know what… It didn't change me… I've been transformed. There is a world of difference between these two realities. We can adopt certain behaviors… but accepting to be transformed implies a point of no return… the water splitted before my eyes… and I went through… eyes opened, ready to fall…
WHO CARES: What do you mean?
ALEX: ''Little Sister'' opened my eyes on every chains I thought I was free from… on the non-sense I used to hide to keep going high… I've lived the rejection of being different, I've felt the humiliation of being poor, dealt marginalization of being left alone… I was short… I was fat… I was miserably dressed… I was fantasizing death every single day… I wear the tags… I shut my mouth… I fed the ass-holes with my depressions… "Little Sister" taught me a great lesson… avoiding past was leading me right to the rabbit's hole… let's say she came right on time… I stopped being sorry for who I am… to feel ashamed for my past… to fear the path ahead… I received mercy and healed my soul… she taught me how to turn violence into passion… desire into determination…
WHO CARES: Is there something you would've change regarding the support you offered to "Little Sister''.
ALEX: I'm still feeling guilty for letting her go… I should've beaten the shit out of her father when he came back in the picture… she got back like a sheep offering everything she got to his slaughter… she was so happy when he got back… she was meds free, beautifully in shape, her eyes were filled with hope, she was incredible… he didn't looke at her… he grabbed her hands and locked the doors… she turned to me, quietly crying while the car was leaving… the life in her eyes, the hope in her smile, everything was gone as he turned the wheel… I should've done something… I hated what I saw… I've seen her a few months ago… her soul in ruins… she hardly recognized me… her eyes were darkness… long way gone… never been so cold in her company before… wished I were able to touch her… she was winter covered with bruises… I felt so much violence and frustration I could have seen my nose bleeding like it used to do when I was filled with hate…
WHO CARES: What does this imply for you?
ALEX: Since I withdrew from the gangs I was involved with, I always promised myself to never use violence as a solution in order to solve injustice or as a coping mechanism for anger and frustration…
WHO CARES: You rarely speak of what inspires you to write. Why have you chosen Little Sister as the WHO CARES first edition… the song is not even displayed on your myspace jukebox and might not even be part of your next release…
ALEX: Little Sister remains one of the most sensitized and personal lyrics I've ever written up until now… and cause I never revealed the "Little Sister" story before, a lot of people thought I was trying to prevent kids from taking drugs or something… lol… I told myself it was time to elaborate a little… parents thought I was cool and kids were like "piss off dude"… lol… no… I'm just kidding… but after what I said in this interview I might have other concerns… lol… I asked Jeff if he really wanted me to share openly… lol… we might have problems… lol… can see a thousand parents writing to the band after seeing their kids rebelling from their authority… believers writing to warn Jeff about the judgment coming… and big brother Tom deleting our account for abusive thoughts… lol…
WHO CARES: Are you concerned about the readers' reactions?
ALEX: sometimes I am… I mean, really… I'm from the street… I'm spilling passion and I'm who I am… I'm sick of apathetic pains and acceptable injustices… I'm just sick and tired to see the kids filled with anger and hopelessness… every time I look around, every time I read desperate comments and messages… I just can't stand people tagging "failure" on a 12 years old kid… you know… I'm used to be hated… used to hear people screaming at me… but at the end of the day, I'd rather be real than being appreciated… I'm more concerned about the wasted kids… cause I'm still one of those failures… and I ain't no kid anymore…
WHO CARES: Do you believe "Little Sister" might educate people towards mental illness and sexual abuse?
ALEX: Well… I don't know… I'm not an educational commercial sponsored by the public health care services… I'm a man touched by human tragedy, arms wide open… I'm an utopist dreaming of justice and equality… an artist whispering stories for anyone willing to hear… "Little Sister" was about my friend, my soul-mate, my mother, my brother, my father, my lover, my enemies, my haters and most of all about everyone suffering from the most common and fatal illness of our decade… and it's not a mental one… it's the lack of love… and we're all suffering… at least I am… cause "Little Sister" might be pieces of you… but was mostly framed on me…
WHO CARES: In closure, could you share with us the next song's lyrics to be exposed?
ALEX: Must be "Open Your Eyes"… a new song to be released on MySpace in the upcoming weeks… or "I Might Be Wrong"… don't know… first let's see if the WHO CARES is really a hit or not… lol… Jeff might win his gamble after all…