Really don't know how this bothers you if you're a fan of their music lol. Their lyrics are very consistent in their pessimistic themes. Having your own interpretation is cool, but the doom and gloom is very present.
"Things don't get better just different"
To be fair, most of Hot Mulligans discography is about how life sucks and won’t get better. “Things don’t get better, just different”. On top of that, Tades just lost his grandmother so I’m sure he’s going through it.
He said basically the same thing when I saw them in Anaheim and we all laughed because it’s a thinly veiled joke about life. Especially for people that suffer from mental illness (which is basically what Leg Hole is about)
I mean, I was also at that show and that’s how I took it, most of the audience screamed along with him for that. Most people got it, others seemed puzzled. Which, as a big fan of their music, confused me why they would be confused at that
hopelessness is a huge prevailing theme in the emo community. Especially in Hot Mulligan. I appreciate that you can draw your own message from it though and it can be more positive.
Post Emo isn’t about bettering yourself it’s about trying to find contentment as the world crumbles around you. Pessimism flavored with twinkly guitars to make it go down a little easier
“No one is coming to save you” is correct. No matter how much I acted out or self-harmed, no one intervened to “fix me”. People just hand-wave struggles with “you’ll be fine”.
You have to save yourself. You have to take action. You might not be able to do it all alone. You have to seek help. Things will change. They will not get better in the way you expect, but they will be different. When you’re falling apart, different is a win, because it’s a chance at being happy rather than an assured status quo that is killing you.
When you realize that you’re in a pit, you can either rage and fight and claw your way out, you can give up and wallow in your suffering, or you can embrace the absurdity of it all and try to find humor and contentment in the situation. Hot Mulligan tends to take that third choice.
God, my heart dropped for a second then. I was thinking that he had said “hitler had a point” or something equally fucked up. But you’re mad because he is open about his mental health, and has opinions, that very much of the fan base with mental health issues probably agree with?
How old are you? What other pop punk and emo are you listening to? Because feelings of hopelessness, angst, alienation, depression, etc quite literally made this genre bud.
I don’t mean for the age question to be dismissive, I think it’s interesting because it seems like a gen z thing to not accept a message of hopelessness in and of itself. Whereas I think millennials and gen x would examine or joke about our depression in a self-deprecating way (I think the way Tades was trying to do, and it sounds like it fell flat).
I want whatever antidepressants OP is on to listen to their records and walk away with an optimistic vibe cause my Wellbutrin ain’t shit compared to that, lol.
he's clearly going through some shit rn :-/ i hope after all this touring they take a long ass break from everything and just rest and chill for awhile. i really hope things get better for tades <3
“I badly need to talk to my doctor, but I don’t wanna” has been on his IG for years. He’s not exactly a happy guy, but you either got that from listening to the songs or ignored the lyrics the whole time.
Gonna throw this out there. All of that “it gets better stuff” from pop punk and emo bands was superficial. They were just hopping on a trend of positivity. Tbh I love Hot Mully for that exact reason, they are sad and I am sad. It makes me feel less alone knowing that at least one more person out there feels as hopeless as I feel every day. Misery loves company. I’m not here to drag anyone down, but if you like hot Mully you probably feel the same in some sense because as you said, he doesn’t really preach any positivity at all. Not everyone’s life gets better. That’s life. Tades doesn’t owe you any positivity. He’s just doing the shit he loves while he still can but that doesn’t mean he’s gotta be some touring preacher about life getting better if he doesn’t believe it
THIS. The optimistic shit from most of these bands is either pandering, needing to feel like they’re doing “good” and are bigger than themselves, or them reaching a level of success where it DID make things better for them so they feel disingenuous continuing to complain. It’s mostly the pandering/riding the positivity train though.
I mean the line “things don’t get better just different” pretty much is how the band feels is what I’d imagine, so I’m confused as to how you don’t see that?
In Buffalo towards the end he gave us the “Hot Mulligan ethos” - *scream as loud as you can*, (something), something else maybe like look out for each other?? *because no one’s coming to help us*. Which does sort of relate to “things aren’t going to get better”
I disagree in regards to the genre 100%
Punk emo music whatever is literally about everything sucking and it will continue to suck...
The point of the music that's therapeutic is to help people understand it's not just them it sucks for it's everybody
Maybe you should be listening to Taylor Swift lol
You've obviously never listened to any interview Tades has done. He has a pretty heavily nihilistic view on life. His music reflects that. Tades, like many people have experienced a ton of trauma and found solace in music that expresses that kind of sad, hating myself, life, fucking up etc.
Like others have said, Tades doesn't owe anybody any kind of uplifting thing and he's never been one to pull punches. They aren't some "I love my friends" pop punk band man, idk what you've been hearing when listening to their songs.
Also, none of this says that time won't help heal wounds but mostly that right now, shit sucks and let's sit with that emotion.
I do think that, as a lot of us do, he has personal struggles and that is his way of coping.
He sometimes bops into threads on here so maybe he will appear and give his two cents on your critique. I do understand what you’re saying but not every frontman is a motivational speaker. He is sarcastic and that’s okay. Music gets people through a lot of good and bad times but we shouldn’t be taking life advice from anyone but maybe a professional.
For me I really identify with the “things aren’t going to get better” mentality. I really don’t feel like things are going to improve at all, for any of us, and I don’t feel like it’s worth fighting just trying to make the best of the cards I’ve been dealt. Idk I find the honesty of it comforting that I’m not the only one feeling like that. And I agree with other commenters that it’s pretty in line with a lot of the lyrical content the band puts out and shouldn’t have been very surprising to you.
I don’t like the message, but I’d be more inclined to think that maybe Tades has some stuff going on personally that may have led to him saying that. I have zero idea and don’t mean to speculate, but that’s how I’d read it. Important to remember that we never know what others have going on in their lives, and we never know what performers have going on off stage.
As much as I don’t like the negativity, I’d be more worried on a human level about where it might be coming from is all. Hope he’s well, maybe just a bad night.
Yeah, they seemed to have slightly different energy this last tour than the WWIW tour. They were just as amazing, but I got the feeling that they had personal stuff going on. Which, I mean, makes sense given the sheer volume of shows they’ve put on in the past 6 months to a year. They consistently have 3-6 night runs without a break. If *I’m* tired seeing them 3 nights in a row, I can only imagine how the band feels.
Really hope they get a long break here, I feel bad for a lot of artists now who feel the pressure to always be on the road to stay relevant. It’s just not healthy for anyone, totally agree.
With emo, there's optimistic, there's pessimistic, and there's everything in between. Most artists agree that everything sucks. Even among optimists theres subcategories like "everything sucks but that's okay." , "Everything sucks but hey, let's make it better." and "everything sucks but it WILL get better" Then, there are bands like Say Anything that kind of switches attitudes on an album by album basis
They've been through the wringer man, they're people too sometimes things get a bit overwhelming.
All I can say is I hope homeboy gets the time to calm his mind down, someone to talk to who gets him so he can get his thoughts out in a supportive conversation, songs are rather one-sided.
Some of us need bands like Hot Mulligan and this exact attitude towards the future. I don't think I agree with your assertion that the emo community stands for believing that things will get better, but if that's what you've experienced and how you interpret the message most bands send then that's a fair for you to feel that way.
But some of us are in a different place. The things that drag me down will not be getting better. My mom won't be resurrected, my health won't get better, I won't wake up tomorrow missing all these fun mental illnesses. The idea of every band in this genre trying to tell me that things will get better feels like toxic positivity. Sometimes shit does get better, but sometimes it doesn't and it's comforting to know that other people like Tades are in the same mindset even if I wish he wasn't. I wish none of us ever felt that darkness, but we do and ignoring it does nothing but isolate people who are struggling. Until he's out there telling people to harm themselves I can't be pressed that he's not putting on a happy face to make other people feel better.
Seeing them live twice last week and screaming those lyrics is part of how I deal with the fact that most of the shit I'm dealing with will not be getting better, but I can believe it will be different. I'll never be fine. And frankly that's OK, it's more upsetting to me to imagine being fine with the shit I've been through. Some people live through things we shouldn't be OK with and expecting them to try to develop a positive outlook about it isn't the way.
I understand how they might have been jarring, and perhaps a bit uncomfortable to be in the crowd for (especially if everyone went quiet). Just because Tades feels that way doesn't mean you have to.
The pop punk world is full of music about how shitty women are after a breakup, how life will get better, how your hometown sucks, and mental health. You'll agree with a lot of it and disagree with a lot of it, but at the end of the day lyricists and band members are not our therapists and are not required to be harbingers of hope for their fans. Tades feeling this way and vocalizing it isn't a new thing, which again doesn't make it less uncomfortable to hear for many. But it's how he feels, and he has every right to be honest about it.
Just know that there are many other bands that have a more positive message, and if you need to hear that positivity right now, I'd implore you to check out some of those bands right now.
Was it always meant that way? It's possible is Tade's reinterpretation of he's own work. Or maybe he's own personal interpretation since it's the band's work not just his.
I wouldn’t take that personally. One thing I’ve learned at shows is that Tades’ showmanship kinda revolves around being the villain. Dude loves to be a heel, which seems apt since we have a wrestling themed spring tour and a music video that matches.
If you want some solace, I’d say that they relate to you being low and the world being crap. Only difference is you’re holding on to that silver lining and they’re big on comedic nihilism. Still a light at the end of the tunnel, they just think it’d be funny if it was actually a train coming for them
is this satire? bc considering they’ve shared this disposition in so many of their songs, idk why it only hit you once tades made a joke abt it on stage
p.s. coming from someone with diagnosed mental health issues, pls quit whining, maybe take a nap or have some water? idk, just get a grip
Nah dude, this is a weird take. It WON’T get better (just different.. lol), and TONS of emo/pop punk bands have a similar outlook. It’s odd to me that it bothers you; It’s nice having a soundtrack to my hopelessness.
Not to mention “you’ll be fine” is a lyric from Analog Fade… “you’ll be fine, just forget all about me.” I feel like that portrays the sentiment behind it pretty well.
Really don't know how this bothers you if you're a fan of their music lol. Their lyrics are very consistent in their pessimistic themes. Having your own interpretation is cool, but the doom and gloom is very present. "Things don't get better just different"
I said the exact same quote in my comment. This is basically Hot Mulligans MO
To be fair, most of Hot Mulligans discography is about how life sucks and won’t get better. “Things don’t get better, just different”. On top of that, Tades just lost his grandmother so I’m sure he’s going through it. He said basically the same thing when I saw them in Anaheim and we all laughed because it’s a thinly veiled joke about life. Especially for people that suffer from mental illness (which is basically what Leg Hole is about)
I mean, I was also at that show and that’s how I took it, most of the audience screamed along with him for that. Most people got it, others seemed puzzled. Which, as a big fan of their music, confused me why they would be confused at that
Breaking news: obviously depressed man has a negative outlook on life.
hopelessness is a huge prevailing theme in the emo community. Especially in Hot Mulligan. I appreciate that you can draw your own message from it though and it can be more positive.
I hope you don’t listen to Spanish Love Songs
Understatement. SLS is amazing and I feel so lucky to have seen them live last tour.
Post Emo isn’t about bettering yourself it’s about trying to find contentment as the world crumbles around you. Pessimism flavored with twinkly guitars to make it go down a little easier
“No one is coming to save you” is correct. No matter how much I acted out or self-harmed, no one intervened to “fix me”. People just hand-wave struggles with “you’ll be fine”. You have to save yourself. You have to take action. You might not be able to do it all alone. You have to seek help. Things will change. They will not get better in the way you expect, but they will be different. When you’re falling apart, different is a win, because it’s a chance at being happy rather than an assured status quo that is killing you. When you realize that you’re in a pit, you can either rage and fight and claw your way out, you can give up and wallow in your suffering, or you can embrace the absurdity of it all and try to find humor and contentment in the situation. Hot Mulligan tends to take that third choice.
you get it
THIS.
God, my heart dropped for a second then. I was thinking that he had said “hitler had a point” or something equally fucked up. But you’re mad because he is open about his mental health, and has opinions, that very much of the fan base with mental health issues probably agree with?
How old are you? What other pop punk and emo are you listening to? Because feelings of hopelessness, angst, alienation, depression, etc quite literally made this genre bud. I don’t mean for the age question to be dismissive, I think it’s interesting because it seems like a gen z thing to not accept a message of hopelessness in and of itself. Whereas I think millennials and gen x would examine or joke about our depression in a self-deprecating way (I think the way Tades was trying to do, and it sounds like it fell flat).
I want whatever antidepressants OP is on to listen to their records and walk away with an optimistic vibe cause my Wellbutrin ain’t shit compared to that, lol.
He doesn’t owe it to you to be uplifting
he's clearly going through some shit rn :-/ i hope after all this touring they take a long ass break from everything and just rest and chill for awhile. i really hope things get better for tades <3
Things don't get better. Just different.
“I badly need to talk to my doctor, but I don’t wanna” has been on his IG for years. He’s not exactly a happy guy, but you either got that from listening to the songs or ignored the lyrics the whole time.
Gonna throw this out there. All of that “it gets better stuff” from pop punk and emo bands was superficial. They were just hopping on a trend of positivity. Tbh I love Hot Mully for that exact reason, they are sad and I am sad. It makes me feel less alone knowing that at least one more person out there feels as hopeless as I feel every day. Misery loves company. I’m not here to drag anyone down, but if you like hot Mully you probably feel the same in some sense because as you said, he doesn’t really preach any positivity at all. Not everyone’s life gets better. That’s life. Tades doesn’t owe you any positivity. He’s just doing the shit he loves while he still can but that doesn’t mean he’s gotta be some touring preacher about life getting better if he doesn’t believe it
THIS. The optimistic shit from most of these bands is either pandering, needing to feel like they’re doing “good” and are bigger than themselves, or them reaching a level of success where it DID make things better for them so they feel disingenuous continuing to complain. It’s mostly the pandering/riding the positivity train though.
I mean the line “things don’t get better just different” pretty much is how the band feels is what I’d imagine, so I’m confused as to how you don’t see that?
In Buffalo towards the end he gave us the “Hot Mulligan ethos” - *scream as loud as you can*, (something), something else maybe like look out for each other?? *because no one’s coming to help us*. Which does sort of relate to “things aren’t going to get better”
Just give me the sadboi shit and I'll handle it from there.
If the title of "you'll be fine" means a lot to you personally, finding out it was meant sarcastically doesn't have to take that away from you.
I disagree in regards to the genre 100% Punk emo music whatever is literally about everything sucking and it will continue to suck... The point of the music that's therapeutic is to help people understand it's not just them it sucks for it's everybody Maybe you should be listening to Taylor Swift lol
Even a Taylor Swift has lyrics about killing herself or wishing she was dead on 4 or 5 of her last albums.
You've obviously never listened to any interview Tades has done. He has a pretty heavily nihilistic view on life. His music reflects that. Tades, like many people have experienced a ton of trauma and found solace in music that expresses that kind of sad, hating myself, life, fucking up etc. Like others have said, Tades doesn't owe anybody any kind of uplifting thing and he's never been one to pull punches. They aren't some "I love my friends" pop punk band man, idk what you've been hearing when listening to their songs. Also, none of this says that time won't help heal wounds but mostly that right now, shit sucks and let's sit with that emotion.
I do think that, as a lot of us do, he has personal struggles and that is his way of coping. He sometimes bops into threads on here so maybe he will appear and give his two cents on your critique. I do understand what you’re saying but not every frontman is a motivational speaker. He is sarcastic and that’s okay. Music gets people through a lot of good and bad times but we shouldn’t be taking life advice from anyone but maybe a professional.
For me I really identify with the “things aren’t going to get better” mentality. I really don’t feel like things are going to improve at all, for any of us, and I don’t feel like it’s worth fighting just trying to make the best of the cards I’ve been dealt. Idk I find the honesty of it comforting that I’m not the only one feeling like that. And I agree with other commenters that it’s pretty in line with a lot of the lyrical content the band puts out and shouldn’t have been very surprising to you.
What lol
I don’t like the message, but I’d be more inclined to think that maybe Tades has some stuff going on personally that may have led to him saying that. I have zero idea and don’t mean to speculate, but that’s how I’d read it. Important to remember that we never know what others have going on in their lives, and we never know what performers have going on off stage. As much as I don’t like the negativity, I’d be more worried on a human level about where it might be coming from is all. Hope he’s well, maybe just a bad night.
Yeah, they seemed to have slightly different energy this last tour than the WWIW tour. They were just as amazing, but I got the feeling that they had personal stuff going on. Which, I mean, makes sense given the sheer volume of shows they’ve put on in the past 6 months to a year. They consistently have 3-6 night runs without a break. If *I’m* tired seeing them 3 nights in a row, I can only imagine how the band feels.
Really hope they get a long break here, I feel bad for a lot of artists now who feel the pressure to always be on the road to stay relevant. It’s just not healthy for anyone, totally agree.
Hot mulligan is very self deprecative. A lot of it is tades’ experience with mental health. Like “things won’t get better just different”
With emo, there's optimistic, there's pessimistic, and there's everything in between. Most artists agree that everything sucks. Even among optimists theres subcategories like "everything sucks but that's okay." , "Everything sucks but hey, let's make it better." and "everything sucks but it WILL get better" Then, there are bands like Say Anything that kind of switches attitudes on an album by album basis
They've been through the wringer man, they're people too sometimes things get a bit overwhelming. All I can say is I hope homeboy gets the time to calm his mind down, someone to talk to who gets him so he can get his thoughts out in a supportive conversation, songs are rather one-sided.
Lmao you’re sad
Some of us need bands like Hot Mulligan and this exact attitude towards the future. I don't think I agree with your assertion that the emo community stands for believing that things will get better, but if that's what you've experienced and how you interpret the message most bands send then that's a fair for you to feel that way. But some of us are in a different place. The things that drag me down will not be getting better. My mom won't be resurrected, my health won't get better, I won't wake up tomorrow missing all these fun mental illnesses. The idea of every band in this genre trying to tell me that things will get better feels like toxic positivity. Sometimes shit does get better, but sometimes it doesn't and it's comforting to know that other people like Tades are in the same mindset even if I wish he wasn't. I wish none of us ever felt that darkness, but we do and ignoring it does nothing but isolate people who are struggling. Until he's out there telling people to harm themselves I can't be pressed that he's not putting on a happy face to make other people feel better. Seeing them live twice last week and screaming those lyrics is part of how I deal with the fact that most of the shit I'm dealing with will not be getting better, but I can believe it will be different. I'll never be fine. And frankly that's OK, it's more upsetting to me to imagine being fine with the shit I've been through. Some people live through things we shouldn't be OK with and expecting them to try to develop a positive outlook about it isn't the way.
I understand how they might have been jarring, and perhaps a bit uncomfortable to be in the crowd for (especially if everyone went quiet). Just because Tades feels that way doesn't mean you have to. The pop punk world is full of music about how shitty women are after a breakup, how life will get better, how your hometown sucks, and mental health. You'll agree with a lot of it and disagree with a lot of it, but at the end of the day lyricists and band members are not our therapists and are not required to be harbingers of hope for their fans. Tades feeling this way and vocalizing it isn't a new thing, which again doesn't make it less uncomfortable to hear for many. But it's how he feels, and he has every right to be honest about it. Just know that there are many other bands that have a more positive message, and if you need to hear that positivity right now, I'd implore you to check out some of those bands right now.
Was it always meant that way? It's possible is Tade's reinterpretation of he's own work. Or maybe he's own personal interpretation since it's the band's work not just his.
I wouldn’t take that personally. One thing I’ve learned at shows is that Tades’ showmanship kinda revolves around being the villain. Dude loves to be a heel, which seems apt since we have a wrestling themed spring tour and a music video that matches. If you want some solace, I’d say that they relate to you being low and the world being crap. Only difference is you’re holding on to that silver lining and they’re big on comedic nihilism. Still a light at the end of the tunnel, they just think it’d be funny if it was actually a train coming for them
is this satire? bc considering they’ve shared this disposition in so many of their songs, idk why it only hit you once tades made a joke abt it on stage p.s. coming from someone with diagnosed mental health issues, pls quit whining, maybe take a nap or have some water? idk, just get a grip
Nah dude, this is a weird take. It WON’T get better (just different.. lol), and TONS of emo/pop punk bands have a similar outlook. It’s odd to me that it bothers you; It’s nice having a soundtrack to my hopelessness. Not to mention “you’ll be fine” is a lyric from Analog Fade… “you’ll be fine, just forget all about me.” I feel like that portrays the sentiment behind it pretty well.
This has got to be a joke, right? Lol
Soft.