It started
in 2018.
I met Joey through a friend named Ryder. I had met Ryder at school, and one day after school he came up to me with an idea.
Something along the lines of, "Yo, we should all ride to this abandoned house. I'm gonna be with my one homie."
That one homie was Joey.
I didn't know it at the time, but that random afternoon would turn into one of the most important friendships of my life.
We went to this abandoned house in Springville, Utah. I remember finding a yearbook inside that somehow had both my parents and Ryder's parents in it. It's funny how certain random details stick with you years later.
At some point, we heard cops might be coming, so we started heading toward the library. We were around 13, all vaping, and when a cop drove by, we took off running.
That was pretty much the beginning.
After that, we started hanging out every weekend. It became normal for the three of us to be together. Me, Joey, and Ryder.
We rode scooters, went places, met people, hung out with girls, and did the kind of random stuff you do when you're young and have no real idea how fast life moves.
Joey had a sense of humor. He was open with people and wasn't afraid to show who he was. He always seemed to have something going on. He was ambitious, adventurous, and wasn't scared to do much.
We were kids. We weren't thinking about the future or how long we'd have together. We were just living.
The road
took us.
One of the memories I think about the most happened in Eagle Mountain.
It was me, Joey, and Ryder. Ryder told us some girl wanted a "3 man," so naturally, we got on our scooters and headed out there.
It was a long ride. I'm talking probably two hours in the middle of the night.
We took trails, rode around, laughed, and just let the road take us wherever it did.
I remember looking up at the moon.
It's hard to explain why that particular night stayed with me, but it did. We were having such a good time. Nothing complicated, nothing planned out perfectly. Just three kids riding around at night, enjoying life.
"We peaked right there, bro. It was that fun."
Looking at the moon made me never forget that moment.
When you're young, you don't realize that some of the most ordinary nights will eventually become memories you wish you could experience one more time.
Back then, I thought we'd have plenty more.
He made
it his own.
There was something Joey used to say.
"Ain't no complaints."
It wasn't necessarily some deep statement every time he said it. Sometimes it was just his response to something.
For example, if he got a Christmas present that wasn't exactly what he wanted, maybe a smaller version of something, he'd say something like, "Ay, ain't no complaints though."
He even made the phrase his own. I remember him saying something along the lines of, "Yeah, I'ma make this a thing."
And somehow, he did.
It stuck.
I don't remember the exact first time he said it. I just remember hearing it enough that it became something associated with him.
At the time, it was just Joey being Joey. A phrase, a little joke, something we'd hear and move on from.
I never imagined I'd be sitting here years later writing an entire story around those words.
Because to everybody else, "Ain't No Complaints" might sound like just another album title.
But to me, it belongs to somebody.
And that somebody was Joey.
21—22
2020
Looking back,
it felt gold.
The last time I saw Joey was April 21, 2020.
I had spent the night at his house. That day, me, Joey, and his sister Jill went out to a field and played soccer.
It was one of those days where everything just felt right.
The sun was hitting really good. I remember the feeling of that day more than I can explain.
Eventually, my dad came to pick me up. Because of the custody situation between my grandma and my dad, I was going to spend the weekend at my dad's house.
I remember asking Joey if I could stay another night.
Deep down, I already figured the answer would probably be no because his mom was pretty strict about that kind of thing.
So I said something like, "Ight bet," and got picked up.
"Looking back at it, it just felt gold that day and ever since things started slowly turning grey."
I didn't know that would be the last time I saw him.
I didn't know that the next morning would change the way I remembered everything.
The next morning, I woke up to a bunch of missed calls from Ryder.
I called him.
"Yo, wsp bro? You good like damn?"
He was crying.
He kept repeating the same thing.
"Yo, yo, yo. Joey killed himself, bro. Joey killed himself."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
I started calling people in our friend group. I even contacted Joey's family because I needed to make sure it was real.
I went down to his family's house crying, bringing flowers. There were police everywhere.
It was one of those moments where your brain knows what somebody is telling you, but you don't want to accept it.
Joey had died by suicide.
I was still a kid. I didn't know how to process something like that. I don't think anybody our age really knows what to do with news like that.
I remember the viewing, too. Seeing him there is something I carried with me for years. I passed out when I saw his body. That image stayed in my head for a long time.
At first, I don't think I fully understood what losing him meant.
I remember thinking that I wouldn't get to do all that fun stuff with him anymore.
No more random nights. No more scooter rides. No more laughing about whatever we were laughing about that week.
As I got older, it started affecting me differently.
I had dreams where Joey had somehow faked his death and was still alive. Those dreams felt amazing until I woke up and remembered what had actually happened.
I've thought about how things could have gone differently. I've wondered what life would look like if he were still here.
But I don't blame myself. I was young. I couldn't see everything happening inside somebody else's head, and I couldn't have known what was going to happen.
It took growing up and going through my own difficult stages in life to understand that somebody can be hurting in ways the people around them don't necessarily see.
I can't say exactly what Joey was feeling. I won't pretend I know everything he was going through.
I just know that I wish he had gotten more time.
Sometimes being there
is enough.
After Joey passed, I kept visiting his mom.
For a while, I was going over there about twice a month just to see how she was doing.
There was a period when I didn't see her for a few months because of everything happening with my own family and the custody situation between my dad and grandma.
When I finally went back, about a year later, things had changed.
One thing that surprised me was that Joey's mom had started smoking weed.
I remember asking her about it because I knew how she used to feel about Joey smoking.
I asked her why she smoked now.
She said, "Well, people change."
That conversation stuck with me.
We ended up smoking together, and it was cool seeing her in a more mellow place.
Most of the time, our visits weren't really about talking about Joey. We'd talk a little, but I tried not to keep bringing him up because I knew she was going through so much already.
Sometimes it was just about keeping each other company.
She had lost her son. I had lost my best friend.
We didn't have to spend every visit talking about what happened. Sometimes just being there was enough.
I was young, too, but I wanted to keep showing up.
Life kept moving.
I kept remembering.
Years passed.
The people I knew back then slowly became people I no longer talked to. Life moved in different directions. I eventually moved to Oregon. I started growing up and figuring out who I wanted to be.
I'm about to turn 22.
Sometimes I wonder what Joey would be doing at this age.
Would we still be friends? Would we have gone our separate ways like I did with almost everybody else from back then?
I genuinely don't know.
Maybe we would've stayed close. Maybe we wouldn't have.
"But even if we weren't friends anymore, at least he still would've been alive."
That's something I think about.
I wish we could've grown up and seen where life took us. I wish I could've seen what he became, what he was interested in, and what kind of person he would've turned into.
Joey used to freestyle over random beats when we were younger. He had songs on SoundCloud, too. I remember thinking it was cool that he was expressing himself through music.
I didn't start taking music seriously until years after he passed.
Sometimes I wonder what it would've been like if we were both making music at this age. Maybe he would've still been doing it. Maybe we would've made something together.
I think those songs would've been fire as fuck.
I'll never know.
A phrase finds
a new meaning.
For years, I didn't really think about the phrase "Ain't No Complaints."
Then, sometime around 19 or 20, after I had moved to Oregon, I was up in the middle of the night thinking about random album titles.
And it came back to me.
"Ain't No Complaints."
At first, I just thought it would be a hard album name.
But the more I thought about it, the more I remembered where it came from.
Joey.
A phrase he'd say when we were kids. Something that probably seemed so small to everybody else, but meant something completely different to me.
I already had an album planned, so I pushed this project further out. I wanted to give it its own time.
Now, it's becoming something bigger than just a name on a tracklist.
The orange and yellow colors associated with the project have a meaning, too. Joey had red-orange hair. He was the only redhead friend I had ever had.
Those colors remind me of him.
I don't need to mention him in every song. I don't want the entire project to become something that takes away from my own music or makes every track about the past.
This is still my album. My music. My life.
But there's a piece of him in the meaning behind it.
And if Joey could hear what I'm putting together, I think he'd fuck with it.
I wish he could.