Noah Sebastian, the quiet, thoughtful and enigmatic frontman of much-hyped Richmond metalcore stars Bad Omens, made headlines last month when he suddenly deleted all of his social media channels without prior warning. His 'disappearance' sparked a frenzy within Bad Omens' ultra-engaged fanbase, with many wondering what it could mean.
In a brand new interview in the latest issue of Metal Hammer, in which Bad Omens star as one of four special covers, Sebastian opens up on the discomfort he feels at being the centre of attention as a high-profile artist. While the interview was conducted prior to his social media vanishing act, some of his musings paint a very clear picture of why he isn't entirely on board with the dynamic social media creates in the first place.
“I was trying to use my socials, and I just had to constantly mute them,” he explains. “I got really tired of seeing my own face, or seeing a stranger’s opinion of me every day. I don’t think that’s healthy. I’ve seen these accounts that collect baby pictures of me they find on a distant relative’s Facebook and make an entire shrine out of them. It’s very one-sided, you know. If there was a female artist that I admired and I had a collection of pictures of her as an underage child, people would probably fucking try to put me in jail. It’d be weird, it’d be extremely inappropriate. It’s really funny how selective people are with their ethics.”
Sebastian goes on to explain why he struggles with the notion of being a 'rock star', and why the narratives many Bad Omens fans have created around him aren't exactly painting an accurate picture of who he is.
"I don’t really see myself as a rock star," he insists. "I don’t even know if I believe in the concept of a rock star anymore. I definitely wish everyone in the world knew me in real life and just knew how boring I was, and just knew how fucking lame I was, so that they could, you know, relax a little bit. But, that’s art, man. Art’s powerful.”
Earlier in the interview, Sebastian uses an amusing anecdote involving an Hollywood A-lister and Batman star as the perfect encapsulation of how he feels about the whole thing.
"I read this thing once about Robert Pattinson," the singer begins. "He was being harassed by a fan and invited them to dinner, and then he just bored the hell out of them – talked their ears off about the most boring, uninteresting stuff until they left. He out-punished the fan. I thought that was really amusing. If I ever had that experience where a fan wouldn’t leave me alone, and we went to dinner, once they got to know me, they’d be like, ‘Ah, OK, I’m gonna move on. Back to K–pop, back to Taylor!’”
title"I got really tired of seeing my own face, or seeing a stranger’s opinion of me every day. I don’t think that’s healthy." Bad Omens' Noah Sebastian recently deleted all his social media, and his new interview with Metal Hammer might explain whyssue, out now. Order your copy here while stocks last. Bad Omens tour the UK with Bring Me The Horizon later this month.
