Starting his junior year at NHS, Evan Greis develops an undying passion for music. As a choir student and physical music collector, music influences Evan to be the person he is today. 

Society today is vain.

It’s hard to be considered cool without physical desirability, perfect personalities or brawn. Evan shares that the band Slipknot powered through this by wearing masks and hiding their appearances for fans to focus solely on their music.

“They don’t need to be a persona,” Evan said, fidgeting with his earbuds. “They don’t need to be a special thing to be cool. They were just themselves, and that’s what stuck with people.”

Slipknot plucks the strings of his heart and empowers his self confidence to be comfortable with who he is. 

Music inspires Evan to be open. He says bands like Nirvana, Sex Pistols, and Dead Kennedy are known for talking about things no one wanted to talk about.

He shares the their lyrics prove that something is wrong in the world and needs to be fixed. For example, Nirvana talks about rape, pedophilia and kidnapping — kidnapping of young children especially.

“It was how people learned to be more open. Bands like Sex Pistols were revolutionary because they made purely anti-political music in an age where if you were anti-political, you would go to jail. They would play God Save The Queen in the middle of town square outside of where the queen was living, which is a song about them overthrowing the government and killing the queen.”

Music gifts Evan with an open mind, and encourages him to speak up. 

Evan expresses himself mostly through music, and musical influences drastically change his life, to embrace taste and live his life.