Monsters Who Sleep – The Underground, Underdog Rock Star

Howdy! You probably know me as Monsters Who Sleep…I go by the name Joshua by day. Started in the days of anger when my parents enlisted me in piano bootcamp. I’ve grown drastically as a musician and person since then. Something that started as a humble weekly activity, and I’ll be honest: I hated it most of the time, and tolerated it at best.

You didn’t start reading to hear me whine about my childhood, I know. Believe it or not, piano sparked my life’s blazing passion for music. A few years in, I got tired of dragging my feet to fiddle with some ivory keys. I began experimenting with new instruments. I took an affinity for bass guitar right away, admiring the low end in some of the metal music my Dad would play in the car. Electric guitar came along soon enough, and especially with his Death Metal guitar pedal so appropriate for expressing how I felt about piano lessons. I could get lost in the music for hours on end and never get bored. Crazy to think how much trouble you can get into just spending a little time and effort on it.

Soon came the influence and sex appeal of the drum set – inspired by the late legend, Joey Jordison. Started out playing on the Rock Band drum kit and quickly transferred the skill to a real electric drum set. Even joined my first band in middle school, after walking into the school band room, where the three unsuspecting dudes were rocking out. I asked them if they needed a drummer, and it worked out well enough that I filled the role for our first show at the upcoming school assembly. The gears were really turning the next few years, where I played in several heavy metal bands as their beat keeper. My life was at an all-time high at this point. I was unstoppable. My group of friends were immortal in freshman year. At least that’s what I thought.

Life hit me like a tumbling brick wall, and my mental health came down with it. Drugs, alcohol, sleep deprivation; not the kind of lifestyle you need in your mid-teenage years. I ended up suffering through mental breakdowns almost every day, and everyone around me including my family thought I had behaviour problems. The abyss inside inside my head swallowed any sort of light around, and the instability caused me to be kicked out of my own house for the safety of my parents and younger siblings. I was transported in the back of a police car to a youth shelter where things kept getting worse. There were several other kids living there, and they made my life anything but easier. They treated me like an animal to the point that I got kicked out of the shelter by the facilitators. Ironically, their reason was that I was “causing trouble”. Their group of friends not only beat me around at the shelter, but them and their older friend chased me to the next shelter, too, where I was abused to the point of giving up on living at a shelter anymore.

This might all sound so bleak, and it was for an excruciating amount of time. I landed in the men’s shelter, where my mental health continued to get worse, and I had regular visits from a counselor who worked at the local youth hospital. Specifically, the mental health unit. Reasonably, they thought I was unfit to stay at the men’s shelter anymore after some weird moments I had with the staff. The ambulance transported me to that exact hospital for months, where they botched my proper recovery by discharging and re-admitting me before I was ready, over and over again. They pumped me with medication against my will, and my body felt like it was going to collapse under the intense suffering I had to endure. In and out of hospitals all through my late teen and early adult years. From my second year of high school, until around 21 years old, myself and everyone in my life it went through hell.

What do they say about hell? If you’re going through it, keep going. Soon after my 21st birthday, I started seeing changes in my life manifest from making better choices every day. Even though I was still struggling quite a bit, I began to gain ground in controlling my own life. Still medicated, I was discharged from the adult hospital for the final time. This is pretty much where the light at the tunnel revealed itself. The next few years proved to be full of progress. Securing a part time job, joining a metal band, and finding love in my life were pipe dreams for a long time. But at this point, I had them. Things became better than ever before. The metal music I loved playing in grade school was my living passion again. I was drumming full tilt in a gigging band, back home with my family, and my mental health was on the upswing.

Over a decade after my life degraded so deeply, this fun little project that I love so much is my pride and joy. I’ve invested countless hours and money into what I do here, and all so that I can help and inspire people to get through life in stride. It hasn’t been an easy trip for me, but I can say without hesitation that it’s worth every second. This is my story, and even through all the suffering, I would not take it back for anything in the world.

Whether you’re joining me on this journey for the first time, or are still part of it, I hope we can enjoy this beautiful life together.