THIS CHAPTER IS NOT WE/US RELATED SKIP IF YOU WANT TO
Hey. It's actually pretty late and I should've gone to sleep a while ago, but I really need to share this.
A while back, Amber Liu, one of my favorite artists of all time, was featured in a song/mv with her friend. His name was James Lee. At the time of the song's release, I was not too keen on listening. I was too focused on Amber's solo work to care. I did check it out, but it wasn't my taste. I decided not to add it to my library, and just kept it in my Amber playlist. As time went on, however, I found myself thinking more and more about the song. I decided to listen to it again.
The second time around, things were a lot different. I listened carefully to the lyrics and found myself really mesmerized by the unconventional background track. I also found myself falling for his voice. It's deep and resonates within my heart with its passion. I ended up listening to the whole EP, only 5 songs, but all 5 were amazing.
Today, however, my views completely changed. What started out as a simple google search spiraled into a story full of tragedy, soul-searching, and growth. It's funny, really, I just wanted to know his last name. Saying "James" isn't really descriptive enough when sharing his music with others, although all of his music is listed under just "James". I looked around a bit and found James Lee, former bassist of the k-rock band, Royal Pirates. I was like dang, I didn't know that. Then, I found an article talking about how he left and why. The article explained that he was in an accident which resulted in injuries too severe to continue being a bassist. So, he left.
From there, it only got deeper. His story goes a little like this: he was at a restaurant in Korea when a doorway caved in on him. The accident was very severe and almost cost him his life. He was rushed to the hospital with severe injuries to his left wrist/hand. In the end, his hand was amputated and reattached in a 7hr surgery. Afterwards, he faced many more medical complications, underwent many additional surgeries and physical therapy, and found himself lost. Without being a bassist, what was he? He didn't know.
During his recovery, he wrote his EP. He was struggling at the time, which is probably why it's filled with so much raw emotion and angst. I really relate to that. I also have a lot of pent up angst from my past.
One thing I really relate to is his pain. Throughout recovery, he shared that he was in a lot of pain. There were times when his wrist/hand would randomly start hurting. I, too, experience that. I like to call it phantom pains, a result of permanent nerve damage. For me, I had a surgery on my back and was run over by a car (specially over my inner left knee). Both left scarring and nerve damage. For my leg, there were a lot of complications. I underwent physical therapy to rehabilitate it and also to remove the fluid that was building up in it. I always dreaded therapy, as it was painful (the fluid thing) and took forever. Not to mention, the severe road burn I got too.
I have since finished therapy, but the scars still remain. I have knee problems now and phantom pains. I can't feel the surface of my inner knee, yet I can feel excruciating pain or aches randomly when I'm just sitting down. Even laying in bed writing this, I can feel my nerves tingling. I'm thankful to have someone like James to look up to; someone who knows and understands what I go through. It reminds me that I'm not the only one and there's always someone out there to support me.
So, to James, please let me be your light. And you can be mine.
PS: Also I'm an emotional wreck cause I'm crying over how much I relate and look up to James and how I'm so full of love and admiration for him. He's an all-kill no joke. Catch me buying his merch soon when I find time/money. Goodnight it's 11:30pm and I have school tomorrow.
Please check out his EP the Light, it's very impactful.