ALIVE IN BARCELONA members’ struggles with loss, emotional pain, and grief have paved the way for the band to develop its mission statement: “to inspire hope in those that have none.”. Their new EP “Flatline” is out now on Smartpunk Records, and to celebrate, the band just released their new music video for the song “Decay”. We have teamed up with the band’s guitarist Jesse Barton to give you something more.
“Flatine” was co-written with Landon Tewers from The Plot In You and serves as a perfect treat for fans of Beartooth, Architects, The Plot In You, and Of Mice & Men.
Since guitarist Jesse Barton is a competitive FMX and Motocross athlete, we caught up with him to give you his list of top 5 moments when extreme sports and heavy music have intersected – see below.
ALIVE IN BARCELONA’s guitarist Jesse Barton has been riding motorcycles since he was 7 years old.
“In fact, I started riding before I had ever played music.” – he admits. “When I was a kid I had a track in my backyard. I loved anything with two wheels back then. I first raced a motorcycle when I was 8 years old at The Fossil Bowl in Clarkia Idaho.”
Fast forward to his teenage years, once he started focusing heavily on music as a career choice, he stopped riding for many years.
“Both of those hobbies are incredibly costly and It was hard to juggle both.” – comments Jesse. “I spent about 10 years touring with my bands and traveling the country for music. Once I got older and had more time at home, I traded one of my Harleys for a dirt bike and started racing again about 5 years ago.”
“I’ve always had a love for freestyle motocross and just the overall environment of being around racing. I’m now considered an “old guy” in the racing world at 31 years old but was able to pick up a Vet Class Championship in the 25+ class this year along with learning quite a bit of freestyle this past year. All in all, moto and music are my life.”
There are a million examples of when music and extreme sports intertwine, but Jesse gave us his top 5.
1. Monster Energy is the title sponsor of MANY of the extreme sports events we watch today including Monster Energy Supercross and Motocross.
They are the title sponsor for may of my favorite freestyle athletes and supercross racers. However, they also sponsor some of the largest festivals on the planet supplying free monsters to the crowd as well as tour waters for the artists.
2. Growing up before the internet (I’m dating myself here), most of my outside influence came from old moto/skate/bmx videos.
I discovered most of my original favorite teen angst bands from these videos. I will always remember the first time I watched “Children Of A Metal God” which included footage of a track located just a few short miles from my house along with pissed-off punk music. This was a game-changer for me.
3. Video games are another great example of this such as Tony Hawk and ATV Off-Road Fury.
I remember hearing “Spoon Man” for the first time in ATV Offroad Fury. I still hear songs sometimes today and say to myself, “Hey it’s the song from X video game.”
4. With Motocross and Freestyle athletes. Music and Moto go hand in hand.
3 of my favorite X Games medalists were actually all in a band together. In Fact the Monster Energy Supercross Commentator today Daniel Blair his brother Vincent Blair, and my buddy Mike Mason (who is an FMX athlete) were in a band together called Main Event.
5. The Holy Grail of Extreme Sports and music culture crossing paths is the Vans Warped Tour.
I was lucky enough to experience 4 full summers traveling with Warped Tour and the entire idea for Kevin was to cross music culture with music. The title sponsor was Vans shoe company which is geared toward BMX and Skate and who can forget that for the first 20 years there was an actual vert ramp that people actually skated on? Let’s just cut to the chase and bring Warped Tour back already, please? Thanks.”
