Today’s song is “Blossom” by Stay Wild on Panic Records.
Panic State Records was founded on the ideals that music can make a change in the world. In two weeks, Panic State Records is releasing one of the most important records in the labels history by the California Punk/Hardcore band Stay Wild.
Stay Wild are outspoken proponents to all of the ideals that Panic State Records were founded on. In response to the disgusting and pointless loss of life in Orlando, Florida, they have decided to make Stay Wild’s song “Blossom” available for download as a “Pay-What-You-Want” option.
Panic State Records and Stay Wild will be donating 100% of all sales of “Blossom” to the families affected in Sunday’s shooting. On top of that, Panic State Records will be donating 10$ from every Stay Wild – “Feminist” shirt sold for the month of June.
Here is what Nick Riggs (Vox/Guitar) of Stay Wild had to say, “We’re releasing this brand new song early (name-your-price) in order to donate proceeds to those affected by the mass shooting in Orlando, FL on June 12th. Our other songs will be available along with this one on our new EP livelearnlove on June 24th, via Panic State Records. Homophobia just caused America’s deadliest mass shooting. This was an attack on love and the freedom to love another human being. We were devastated. Our queer brothers and sisters are constantly the target of discrimination and violence. This happened on such a large scale, but smaller instances take place consistently around the world, in your state, in your city and in your community. Whether someone is ostracizing another for having a same-sex partner, threatening a woman entering a bathroom because she may have identified as a man in the past, or calling someone a faggot, its all fucking disgusting. It all comes from the same place that helped produce this massacre. This song was not written to urge anyone to change their beliefs, but rather as a statement of solidarity with the LGBTQ community. People choose to be on the wrong side of history quite frequently. Those who can acknowledge human progress and wish to associate themselves with the ideology that gay folk are people too, they will come around. In the mean time, we’d rather voice our support for an empowered community of our beautiful, smart, loving brothers and sisters. While writing the lyrics for this song, I (Nick), was seeing my best friend and our bass player Jehiah struggle with coming to terms with his bisexuality. This is one if the strongest people I know who was battling with something that should be so simple. Unfortunately, due to our society, social stigmas, and some intense lingering religious brainwashing, it wasn’t the easiest task for him, and It was very hard to see him fight with it. That definitely came out in the song. I don’t think there’s too much to say about why we decided to release this song early for this cause. The three of us that make up Stay Wild experience social privileges. We are young, white, male, and mostly cis. We will most likely never go through the types of hardships that most of the LGBTQ community regularly endures. We know that these donations will never help repair the damage that has been done, but we hope to at the very least financially alleviate those affected in any way that we can. To the victims of this tragedy, to the families who had their beautiful wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, daughters and sons taken away from them so abruptly for no reason, to the LGBTQ community, we admire you deeply. And we will forever be by your side.”
Listen below and purchase the song and t-shirt here.