- Hey guys, I'm Gavin Leatherwood.
And today I'm with BuzzFeed to revisit the past
by making a playlist of my favorite songs
from when I was a teenager.
If you want to listen along,
click the link in the description to access my playlist.
(soft music)
So I graduated high school in 2012.
I grew up in Orange County, California,
in the sleepy little town of Yorba Linda.
And we were kind of bored and found lots of trouble by
skateboarding in schools when they were empty
and stuff like that.
A lot of angst in those years.
I was a very sensitive little boy.
I grew up doing musical theater.
And I came back into the world of public school
in seventh grade.
Which like seventh and eighth grade are the worst years.
Puberty's hitting and you're changing and like...
This is me and my pops.
I had a middle part haircut
and a roller-backpack
and a Star Wars tee
and orange cargo-shorts
that were the zip off kind
that I thought were super cool.
And I got bullied a lot for it.
And I saw like the skaters and all of them
never took any beef from anyone.
And I was like, those guys...
And so my acting career kind of started again there.
And I shaved my head.
And wore big baggy shirts and little skinny jeans.
I really more pretended to skate.
I wasn't that good.
We put up little personas to kind of act
as a defense mechanism.
So I was a foe skater with a shaved head.
Which doesn't look good on me
'cause I have a little peanut head.
And I played sports and then realized I hated it
and traded it for a guitar at some point.
It feels like ages ago.
It's so weird to do a deep dive into your past.
It's so trippy.
All right.
First song on the playlist is "Eyes Open" by Taylor Swift.
This song was a set song that me and my buddy
played Call of Duty too.
It was my sister's boyfriend and he would,
skateboard over to our house
and they wouldn't end up hanging out.
I would always steal my sister's boyfriends
and end up like hanging out with them.
So me and him would literally park our butts on a couch,
play Call of Duty Zombies
and we would do it to the sweet sweet tune
of "Eyes Open" by Taylor Swift.
The beautiful sounds of that,
mixed with the killing of zombies,
that was strangely complimentary.
And keep your eyes open.
We were like glued to TV
and with video game controllers.
And I'm pretty sure we beat our high-score
listening to this tune.
So it's definitely capable
of bringing about magical moments.
"Feeling This" by Blink 182 is second up on the playlist,
ladies and gentlemen.
It was one that I knew every single word to
and could sing nonstop.
It's really kind of weird
how I would listen to this song which...
It's about sex.
Okay, it's about sex.
But I didn't know that, all right?
I didn't. I was just like,
I just liked the (vocalizing guitar)
And I listened to it before going into wrestling practice.
Which is the weirdest time to probably listen to that song
and then go wrestle around
with a bunch of sweaty boys and do that thing.
And I still know every single word to it.
Turn all the lights down.
I'm feeling this!
It's a damn good one.
"Pressure" by Paramore number three.
This was just another one of those
general angsty teen songs.
And she's still killing it.
When you talk about that artist factor
of people that got the thing,
the charming charisma thing,
she's got the thing.
That had a huge impact on me as a kid
where I was just like
get with your friends in a room
and literally jumping on the couch
and the bed kind of stuff.
And just thrashing around.
She started a thrashing phase in me.
I didn't even know I had it in me until Paramore.
So thanks Hayley.
Number four, "Thrift Shop" Macklemore.
This is when I started getting into a phase of thinking
I was a lot cooler than I really was.
He got me with the first couple of lines on this song.
Before you even started talking,
it was the what, what, what, what, what.
Macklemore can we go thrift shopping.
Something so fun and uplifting about it.
And I'm pretty sure he inspired loads
of people to put on their grandparents' clothing
and call it cool because that trend has not stopped.
Kudos, Macklemore, you did it.
This is "Yonkers" Tyler, The Creator.
I was listening to this when I was 16.
It sort of like redefined rap
and was just this huge thing.
And you could feel the magnitude of
what he was doing and in the form
of creativity and expression.
The video tripped me out.
If you haven't seen it.
It's super dark.
So brace yourselves.
There was an element
about him that wasn't trying to be cool.
It was like, he was very much
in his body and knew who he was.
And you can see it like when he raps too.
'Cause everything had felt sort of manicured
up to this point.
His stuff just felt genuine and raw and real and like dark.
It's definitely inspiring in many ways
but I won't be emulating that same style.
I don't think,
I'm a softie.
He's a hard ass man.
Number six.
"My Name Is" by Eminem.
I was listening to this song
in my iPod mini in the back of seventh grade math class.
When we got to just do work and put headphones in.
This is before they started realizing
that whatever was happening
in these little things were incredibly distracting
in some way.
And I would listen to that on repeat.
It's such a vulgar song
and there's such a visual storytelling element
that Eminem had.
That he painted this really obvious and distinct picture
with his words,
was this element of violence and the anger
in his stuff that was sort of perfect for the seventh
eighth grade years of trying to figure it all out.
And that grip to me,
it was just like
I had never heard that before.
And there's like a little kid
yeah, yeah, yeah.
"This Is Your Life" by Switchfoot.
Switchfoot crushed it for me
when I was a kid.
It was what I was listening to.
It might've been like slightly before teenage years
but it definitely carried on into teenage years.
And they put me in my feelings in such a way,
looking out of a bus window
listening to this and crying by myself.
You know what I mean?
It had that sort of thing.
Those were like some of the first lyrics
because I started really paying attention
to as a listener.
"This is your life.
Are you who you wanna be?
This is your life.
Is it everything you dreamed it would be?"
And there was something that crept
into my conscience as a young kid
of wanting to live up to my own expectations.
So they made a big impact on me in some way.
It's heartfelt and sweet as hell.
"Little Lion Man" by Mumford & Sons.
It was sort of my first initial introduction
to what folk musics sort of sounded like.
Where it was mostly acoustic instruments
and banjos and stand up bases and whatnot.
It inspired me to pick up a guitar.
Because I saw these cool dudes playing music.
And I remember girls being like,
"Oh my God. Mumford & Sons
They're so cute.
And I love their songs."
And I was like,
"I gotta get a guitar."
It started something that hasn't ended.
And my love for folk music has just grown stronger
and stronger out of that budding scene.
This is "Crash Into Me" by Dave Matthews Band.
I was a really big romantic as a kid.
I think I really loved the romcom esque movies.
I just wanted to fall in love.
I didn't even know what that means.
I still don't know what that means, really.
Music was something that transported me
close enough to feel the feelings of what love felt like
in whatever my teeny tiny little child heart could feel
at the time.
I remember being in love at 12 years old.
I would listen to that song and like.
And she had no idea.
I mean, she knew I was in love with her.
But she didn't know
I was doing one of those.
And the tone of his voice and the swell
and the sound of the music
where you felt some form
of longing and love because of it.
And that's the magic of music is like
you may not even be able to intellectualize it
but emotionally it charges you in some way.
"Juicy" By Biggie.
I do not condone smoking.
I don't wanna.
But we would sit in the park driveway.
And we like (whistles)
in the car while listening to this song.
He made us feel a lot cooler than we were.
It turned me on too his story.
I started realizing
how much story was in rap as well.
Biggie felt like really hope-filled and inspiring.
Stick it to the man.
Stick to your dream.
Do it for you.
Damn it made you feel
you can come from nothing and get to something.
So thanks, Biggie.
All right, guys.
That was my ultimate playlist from my teenage years.
I hope you enjoy getting a little sneak peek into my past.
Let me know what you thought
of my choices in the comments below.
And don't forget to go stream my single, "Just For Tonight".
That you can find
under the moniker
Leatherwood on Spotify,
Apple music and whatever else
the kids are listening to nowadays.
Thank you a lot.
(upbeat music)