Dear friends, 

If you will indulge me I’d like to start this by posing a hypothetical:

Lets say that for the better part of your life you have been “different” in some form or fashion…you as a person tend to stray from what is conventional and this often causes you to be at odds with most of society and the culture around you. Over the course of your time on this earth your general well being is predicated on your own ability to survive and flourish when the world outside is so often dark and empty and so as you grow you learn to build your own defenses. This basic idea is in no way uncommon or really even reserved for the “different” people…its innate in all forms of life.  Protect yourself so that you can continue to live, learn and grow as a being. 

Now with that self preservation in your arsenal you go out into the world. You go to school or work or even often at home and you are persecuted but you have this internal dam that you’ve built to protect your heart from the negativity. What happens to dams when the water rushes in too hard and fast?  The dam breaks.

Sometimes we all face those moments where we have just had it.  We’ve had it with what they say, what they’ve done and how they act (“They” of course can be anything from your neighborhood bully to your boss or even sometimes a loved one) and we explode right?

Lets get back to my hypothetical…

You are standing with your best friends in the world and you’ve just been notified that something that you have all worked on so hard and have put so much of yourself into is receiving an award! You feel so proud and elated, particularly when you are “different” its a hell of a feeling to know that something you have done may have connected so strongly with the other “different” people in this world. 

Minutes after you find out that you are being honored in this way you are sent into a room. You enter this room and it’s full of people, these are people who don’t know you…haven’t laughed with you, cried with you…they have shared no pain or joy with you and though you are eager to share in your new found joy with them they suddenly begin to show you that they hate you and your friends. They do not agree with the notion of awarding your hard work and they are actively and openly telling you as much with cursing, booing and wagging middle fingers.

How do you feel? Not necessarily how do you react…but how do you feel?

It is easy for me to sit and wax poetic about the justification of behavior and how something I or any of my friends have done is just and right but I genuinely want to ask you…my friends, my fellow “different” people, would your dam come bursting down? Would you feel an overwhelming sense of anger towards those who are so aggressively attacking your very existence simply for doing the thing you are most passionate about in this world? Do you think you could find yourself defensively yelling back? Maybe even saying things you regret or throwing the attacks they have about you, your appearance or your life back at them?

If you think that maybe you could or would feel that way……I can relate.

I know that sometimes I am a hot head or a loud mouth and yes one could accuse me of loving the sound of my own voice but it’s because when the world outside didn’t want me…I built myself into something I could be proud of.  Necessity is the mother of invention and when you are a lonely kid who instead of going out to play with the mean kids outside would rather make KISS costumes and sing Misfits songs in his room you have to find ways to create your own personality and existence, otherwise the feeling of sorrow or neglect can eat you alive.

I have always firmly believed that we can be anything we want to be in this life. I am a kid from Cincinnati Ohio who used to get my ass handed to me everyday for how I chose to express my creativity and yet I have been able to find this community of people that allow me to make music for a living and tour the world.  It’s pretty damn cool when you think about it!

I have been “different” all of my life, and like so many of you I have and will continue to pay the price for it but I refuse to let other peoples opinions of me or my band change the way I live. I will continue to make music with my friends, I will continue to sing this way, look this way and act this way. 

 But sometimes when the world outside pushes you too far…I think it’s okay to say 

“Fuck You”

In the words of one of my biggest inspirations and heroes Dee Snider..

“We’re not gonna take it anymore!”

-Andy Biersack 

  
As many of you know, I started Black Veil Brides when I was pretty young. I was at a point in my life where, like a lot of teenagers, I felt a certain sense of longing. I just knew that I wanted to do something more than what my life, my school, or even my town, at that time, could offer me.  I wanted to be a rock star. I didn’t have a clue, at that time, what the title or the job, itself, truly required.  I did know, however, that I wanted it more than anything I had ever wanted in my life. I also knew that, aside from comic book heroes, the only real life heroes I had were musicians. 
 
I spent countless hours at home, alone in my room, listening to my Dad’s classic punk albums from bands like The Damned, Dead Boys, and Generation X. I covered my walls with posters of all kinds of bands whose image I loved ranging from Motley Crue to the Misfits and began to try to re-create their stage makeup. I’d take plastic WWF wrestling rings and turn them into elaborate rock band stage designs. I even started to make my own stage “costumes.” I’d ask my Dad to record me singing along with my favorite Social Distortion or Tiger Army songs so I could watch and listen the tapes and learn how to be a front man like my heroes. In my mind there was only one thing that I KNEW, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was  born to do. PERFORM.  
 
When I got the chance, I wanted to create a band that could be a calling card for every kid who who felt like I did. A band for the outcasts who dreamt of escaping the sadness or loneliness that they felt in their life. I wanted to rebel against all the hatred and anger that I felt from those who judged me for how I looked, instead of who I was. I  wanted to create a community, via my music, that would provide those kids with the sense of belonging that I lacked.

At the time I formed BVB, I felt that to properly provide an escape from life’s day to day drudgeries and create something that kids could look to as a source of strength, I would need to create a character. I felt it needed to be something that could not only inspire but also something that as a young kid, myself, I could hide behind…like an iron shield to deflect the outside world and all the horrible things people would say and do. Something that would stand out and be larger than life.

For me that character was “Andy Six”
 
Andy Six could be all of the things that I wanted so badly to be as a teen. He was tough and confident. He stood up for those who needed help. He was the person I knew I wanted to become. I hoped that, over time, I would learn to be as confident in Andy Biersack as I was in Andy Six.
 
Move ahead to 2011, and here I am sitting in my tour bus on the road,  20 years old and the lead singer of Black Veil Brides. I am touring the world and meeting so many amazing friends and fans along the way. Our band has an entire army of people who believe in the same things that we do and who have all found strength in themselves as I have in my own life.
 
Andy Six is no longer the “strong one.” Because of you, Andy Biersack passed him by long ago. Because of you, I have had the chance to experience things that I could have only dreamt of as a child growing up in Southern Ohio. I have talked with thousands of you and we have shared our stories. They are often quite similar. I’ve sung my lungs out with you at shows from Los Angeles to Tokyo and I have tried to share my heart with you in every lyric that I write. I have seen such an incredible devotion from you and, because of that, I think that “Andy Six” is no longer needed to shield myself. Because of my best friends in the entire world (my band mates) and our fans, there is no longer anything to shield myself from. BLACK VEIL BRIDES is now the shield for so many of you that I feel it is time that I let go of my childhood moniker and move on as a happy, thankful and strong member of our BVB Army.
 
I am Andy Biersack. Andy “6” is no more than a nickname, now. Something that will always remind me of where I came from and how this whole thing started.

So, here we are in the final stages of post production on our first major label record. We are currently on the AP tour and life could not be more exciting for us and you can count on the fact that I will not rest until this band and our loyal and dedicated fans take over the world. You, my friends, inspire me and give me the confidence to say that. I know that, together, this group of outcasts and misfits can do something nobody else thought we could. Make things better for a lot of people. 

I encourage all of you to find strength within yourself, no matter what. Be proud of who you are and never let anyone or anything take that away from you. Inner Strength is something that we are all born with. However, I’ve learned that it requires patience and perseverance to fully achieve it. I promise you, though, that as long as you know in your heart who you are and what you want from this world, nothing is gonna stop you.

Finally, please remember this. If you EVER need something that you can stand behind, something to help you to take on and deflect all of the hatred of this often cruel world, you will ALWAYS have Black Veil Brides. 

Forever.

Andy 

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things”