In Tattooed, Pierced, & Fucked-Up: A Scene Memoir 2004–2008, writer, musician, and visual artist Lauren Napier does something that would send many of us into an anxious meltdown: she publishes her diary entries from the 2000s.
To be fair, this is not the first time Napier has committed such an act of bravery; she actually self-published the first half of this book in 2008, when seemingly everyone around her in the DIY scene was releasing something. “Everybody had zines, or their burned CD record, or all these bootlegs,” Napier tells The Fringe. “It was very much, ‘Just get what you need to share out there.’” Now, that energy is on the rise again. As traditional media crumbles around us and algorithms attempt to dictate every aspect of our tastes, subcultures and independent artists are taking the spotlight — making this the perfect time for Napier to revisit (and update) her memoir.
The first-ever nonfiction release from Dirt Books, Tattooed, Pierced, & Fucked-Up, out this summer, takes readers inside the mid-2000s emo/pop punk scene, which Napier explored as a journalist, merch girl, and frontwoman in her own band. The book’s first half, labeled “Side A,” includes writings from back then — band interviews, essays, and diary entries — all with new commentary, as current-day Napier converses with her former self. Then, “Side B” switches into new material, including fresh, retrospective interviews with bands like The Matches, Bleed the Dream, and close friends from the scene.
Napier fell into the world of live music after moving from a Navajo reservation in Arizona to Las Vegas during high school, and it didn’t take long before she made the transition from fan to journalist. She started writing for a glossy-covered high school publication and, a semester later, started writing for the local zine Smash, which welcomed stories about smaller acts — Napier’s true passion. “I realized that there were these stories of the smaller bands that needed to be told,” she says. “The headliners, I mean, sure. I’d heard about them before. They get lots of coverage. But what about the other guys?”
Speaking with The Fringe, Napier unpacked the inspiration behind the book, why smaller bands matter just as much as those who fill big arenas, and what we lose when nostalgia boils our memory of musical movements down to an aesthetic. Preorders of Tattooed, Pierced, & Fucked-Up are available now, and you can read an excerpt here.
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Cover of ‘Tattooed, Pierced, & Fucked-Up.’ Courtesy of Dirt Books.
How has the way you have personally related to this scene changed through the years?
Well, it’s interesting, because with the release of this book, my algorithm is serving me very different things than it used to on social media. And last night, it seemed to want to give me a bunch of cosplay. That’s not just the word I’m attaching; some of it had it in their bios of scene kid personas, complete with raccoon stripes — just everything, right?
Yeah.
It was fascinating to me, but I realized how when we’re nostalgic, sometimes we listen with our eyes. It becomes this aesthetic, when really, there was also an ethos in what I was interested in. Yes, Warped Tour has had a resurgence, and it exists, still, as a beautiful community for people to gather who might think slightly outside of the box. But I do think that the ethos of punk, or maybe having a little more depth other than just aesthetic, has faded in terms of that scene, but not necessarily in myself. I’ve had to find it in other places. Listening to what people who were vital to the scene in the early early 2000s are putting out now continues that thread as well — people like Brendan of Circa Survive, who has a project called HyperViolets.
We see that tension throughout the book, between the ethos and the fashion. In the first chapter, for example, you touch on this idea of being surrounded by people who seem to be wearing a uniform they’ve been told to adopt. What role do you think this plays in the broader commodification of this scene and genre?
I think it’s not just in the genre. I think it’s in the act of being human. The way that we are commodified these days and objectified to drive purchases just through our appearance or what we’re served on social media, it’s overwhelming. The disconnect between what we look like through filters on our phone and what we look like in real life, or what outfit we’re willing to do a fit check with and which outfit we’re willing to actually go outside in, I think that the greater population that’s consuming social media has lost sight of what's important, largely, beyond aesthetics. And I don’t think that that's just a scene thing.
Photo of a The Matches sticker. Courtesy of Dirt Books.
People get very wistful about the days of “Myspace music,” and discovering small bands and micro-scenes. But then, when we’re actually talking about this scene in nostalgic terms, it’s usually about the bigger bands that are still very much around. What do smaller bands’ trajectories teach us about this scene that gets lost when we focus on larger bands?
I listen to a lot of music from past decades, like ’50s, ’60s, and also consume media from them — TV shows, movies. And what I often have to remember is that what I get to consume now is only what was preserved. That’s not everything that was out; that’s what someone took the time to archive, or maybe what was popular.
“Popular” does not always mean “best,” and I think that that’s an important lesson to apply to this current early 2000s nostalgia. We thought the internet would be forever, and then we lost our Myspaces, and certain songs are gone. Bands lost licensing to their music, so it’s not online anymore. The smaller bands who are at the mercy of their own finances once they’ve been signed and maybe shelved by a bigger label, their music is just kind of lost to the ether.
When we focus on these bigger bands who have had the money and the power behind them, even if at a later stage, we lose what else existed that wasn't treated as preciously. Just because it’s not on the top shelf doesn't mean it didn’t exist.
Where should people look to find new bands and avoid letting algorithms or nostalgia dictate their tastes?
I think we have to get away from the screen. I think that we have to show up to the show early. I think that we have to go to the local venue, even if that is your local Irish pub that happens to have music on Wednesday nights. I think that we could pay attention to the flyers on the telephone poles, rather than just walking by them, because local bands are working hard to put those posters out to make sure that you see them. I think we have to move into the tangible realm and explore, like when we used to hand out mixtapes, or handbills.
Photo of Lauren Napier. Courtesy of Dirt Books.
I love that the book is sort of this thought collage — layers and layers of commentary and memory and re-thinking about your experiences and writings from the past. What has it been like to revisit your former self, and your writing from back then?
Very vulnerable.
I can imagine!
There were a couple times where I second guessed it. Like, “Well, this is horrid and terrifying. Why would I do this?” And then, there were moments where, going through it, it just felt like this very natural conversation with myself, which is something that we don’t often get to do. Sure, there’s the little voice in your head that rattles in there, or you write things down, but you don't get to actively converse with your 20-years-ago self very often, word for word, even the little doodles in the margins and things.
It was very vulnerable, but also empowering, to see the threads of self that are still there — to see the friendships that are still there, created by music. Which underscored, I think, the power of the tether of music and an alternative community that is tight knit. Humans are not always my favorite beings en masse, but working on this book showed me the beauty in them again, and the importance of sharing our stories. We used to be this storytelling group of creatures, and now, of course, we don’t do that as much. We don’t pass things down. It’s important to share our stories, because we’re all interconnected, even if we don’t know it.
Photo from Temecula Music Fest. Courtesy of Dirt Books.
You write about some pretty difficult experiences in this book, often in the margins. What role has this music, and this scene, played in your surviving and ultimately processing those experiences?
I think that there is a beauty, and even a necessity, in music that offers catharsis — whether it’s in minor chords or screaming vocals. And I think that polished pop music does away with that. There are even classical pieces where you can find that discordance that you need to express certain things. But then, you just flip through the stations on the radio, where there’s all of the mainstream, shiny, plastic pop stuff that allows you to feel, maybe, like, three candy-coated emotions. Any kind of alternative music offers something that the mainstream doesn’t. For me, it’s offered a place to feel — and to find what I needed to feel audibly.
What do you hope folks take away from your book?
I was revisiting conversations with a friend of mine yesterday, actually, and he had told me many years ago, “You have to tell the story for other little Laurens like you.” I think that was 2006, when I was interviewing to be on the truth bus for Warped Tour. He was on the panel, and he has continued to be my friend. I messaged him last night and said, “I wrote it for the Little Laurens.”
I do believe you can be on the outside of the mainstream, whether you’re female, whether you’re biracial. You can be sexually assaulted. You can have horrendous things happen to you and still continue, and be okay, and find hope and happiness in some facet. I think that that's important to know, and just to feel a little more seen.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
