serenity // luke hemmings

2.07

From: Luke Hemmings <lukehemmings@hmail.com>
Sent: Monday, 5 October 2015
To: Alexandra White <alex_andra.white@gotmail.com>
Subject: Oh, shut up! They did not!

Alex,

That's amazing news, about the interview. You have no reason to be nervous. I've seen what you can do and you're already beyond talented. They'd be crazy not to let you in. Like I said, when I first saw your works, I thought that they were done by an established artist. You'll be fine, I know you will; and I'll support you the whole way. I may already be your biggest fan, who knows?

I don't think I consciously think about what's @Luke5SOS and what's your Luke, I guess things aren't always just one or the other. I like to think of it as a scale, with those two options being the extremes. People just fall somewhere along that scale based on what I feel like they need to know about me. You just happen to sit at the very end of that scale.

Honestly, I don't know why I came and sat down with you. I don't even remember making that decision; I was standing there thinking about it and then it kind of just happened, I was sitting there with you. I guess you intrigued me; you were sitting on the floor for one, and that was pretty odd but I wanted to know why you were sitting on the floor. It kind of just snowballed after that, it started with that one question 'why is she sitting on the floor?' and then I just wanted to know more.

I'm not sure if I had originally intended to tell you everything. I don't think I had, because I remember asking myself why I'd told you the things I did. There was just something about you that made me feel so comfortable and so understood that I didn't realise I'd placed you at the end of that scale until after it had already happened.

You can't figure out what I see in you? That is so typically you!

It doesn't matter if you're 'plain old Alex White' or if you're 'nothing extraordinary' (two things that I don't for a second believe), because you're you.

You're so unbelievably different from any person I've ever met, Alex. You aren't perfect but no one is, hell no one is even close to it. You're real. You have flaws, but who doesn't? I sure as hell do! It's the fact that, even despite your flaws, you keep trying that I think you're one of the most incredible people I've ever crossed paths with. For every bad thing you can point out about yourself, I could point out five more things that I love about you.

You think that you're a background character in your own life, but I can say with one hundred percent certainty that you're a lead in mine.

I kind of had this revelation on stage the other day. So, Calum writes a lot of our songs, more than half of the songs we have were written by him. And him and Mikey usually write the ones that are heavier lyrically, Ash and I prefer to write the upbeat ones when we write. Because of that Cal is usually the most emotionally invested in our songs; and if someone on stage it going to get teary it's usually him, because he lived those things. Those are his emotions spilled into lyrics.

We don't usually play a lot of our old stuff; there's a lot of reasons for that, but we just don't. Despite that we still play one song off our very first EP; and that song is called 'Beside You'. I'm rambling and I should probably get to the point sometime in the near future, this is an email after all, I haven't got forever.

Anyway, Cal wrote the song when we were maybe fifteen, I don't even really know anymore. It was always one of those songs for me; one that I could understand the emotions behind it but I had never been able to fully connect with them. That was until the other night. It hit me like a freight train, that for the first time I could understand exactly what the lyrics were saying. They made me think of you.

So, if you get a chance, go and listen to the song. Listen to the studio versions. Listen to live versions from the last tour we did; and then listen to a live version that's been recorded in the last few days. Listen to it and know that when I sing that song now, I sing it for you.

Yours,
Luke.