Page 32 - Black Velvet Rock Magazine Issue 103

BV103 pg28-33 centre Dream State_BV103 pg32 23/12/2019 00:02 Page 5

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“I know, no matter what, we’re all brave for ex-

isting. We don’t know why we’re here, we don’t

know where it’s going to go, but I don’t want to give
up just yet, you know what I mean?” - CJ Gilpin

loyal. I couldn’t believe I was even capable guage. “But yeah, I feel like I have changed. hile the album includes senses
of this. You judge people… I never judge That was enlightening to know if that situa- Wsuch as guilt and frustration, it
people, I say don’t judge because you tion arises again, how I would do things dif- also includes hope and CJ and the band
never know what’s coming. You never know ferently. Not speaking my truth for a long want fans to always have hope. In ‘Twenty
what you’re going to do! But it was me period of time, keeping it all in and hiding Letters’ she sings ‘I’ve been feeling better’
learning about this… seeing aspects of my- things was ripping me apart. I started drink- and ‘No, they’re never gonna break me’. CJ
self that were new to me. And at first I was ing more then, smoking more ‘cause I thinks this is the most hopeful song on the
riddled with guilt. I was self-hating a lot, couldn’t handle the guilt that I was facing, album.
‘What have I done? What have I done?’ all but the second I was truthful and came out “I love ‘Twenty Letters’ cause it was
of these horrible things. But I realized, with everything, the weight just spilled off written in this one time, I’d gotten myself
sometimes things are in a certain place, I me. As painful as it is to face up to anything into a hole, I had an existential crisis
have to change it and I knew in that mo- that you’ve done that’s bad, you’ve just got again… I’ve had so many in my lifetime, but
ment I had to change it. It was all amicable to do it, ‘cause you’re like, ‘Uh, well, I’m I love these awakenings crises,” she says.
in the end. I was very lucky. The people in free.’ You’ve freed them, you’ve freed your- “Every time you hit rock bottom, if you can
my life are very open and loving. I had a self. There’s a lot of power in truth. Yeah, come out of it, you’ve learned so much
horrible guilt that I had to contend with. It I’ve learned from that. God forbid, if I ever from being in that darkness. It was either
didn’t resonate with who I thought I was. I face that situation again, I will be flat-out make or break for me one night. I was like,
was like, ‘Damn, am I a bitch?’” she laughs. real. I had to go in that situation to learn ‘I can either end it all and leave.’ I indulged
“Excuse me!” She apologies for her lan- from my mistakes. Mistakes pave the way.” that thought for a while. Or it’s like, ‘I can

DREAM STATE