Behind The Artworks: STAHV - Electric Youth (2022)

Throughout my life, I’ve been very bad at keeping photographs. I have so few images of myself that I usually end up asking friends for photos of various eras of my life. My high school best friend and bandmate John essentially co-produced this album with me via Messenger. Electric means just as much to him as it did to me. He suggested the name Electric Youth for the album too. When I told him I was doing this he sent me this image he took of me in Menlo Park at age 15 or so, maybe 14. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it; it was so perfect, it had to be the cover. In the pic, I have a sticker of The Cult on my Squier Stratocaster next to a bunch of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’m wearing a weird burgundy suit jacket that I took everywhere back then. My hair is in a little pageboy cut because that was the only way I could trick my parents into letting me grow it out. I tucked it behind my ears when I went home, then shook it out at school and band practice.