A lot of people are upset when you work out your anger issues

Host: The studio was half-light and silence, its walls lined with old guitars, half-empty coffee cups, and the lingering smell of burnt cables and electric hum. The floor was scattered with lyrics—scribbled lines, scratched-out thoughts, paper that had absorbed both ink and rage.

It was late — the kind of late when the city’s asleep, and every sound feels like confession.

Jack sat in the corner, the glow of an amp haloing his silhouette, guitar in his lap, head down, fingers resting on the strings but not yet playing. Across from him, Jeeny sat cross-legged on the floor, her hair loose, eyes soft but alive with that rare mix of empathy and defiance.

On the mixing console beside them, someone had taped a quote on masking tape, ink bleeding slightly from sweat and heat:
“A lot of people are upset when you work out your anger issues, but there's a big industry for music which is furious and angry because, in my opinion, the world is looking for a justification to feel the same way.” — Devin Townsend.

Jeeny: (reading it aloud) “You think he’s right? That people need permission to feel furious?”

Jack: (smirking) “Yeah. Anger’s the last honest language left. You can fake kindness, fake calm, but you can’t fake rage. Not in sound, not in art.”

Jeeny: (softly) “But he’s talking about something deeper. He’s saying the world doesn’t just tolerate anger—it craves it. Like it’s waiting for someone to scream first so everyone else can exhale.”

Jack: “And music gives them that permission. It’s the world’s collective therapy session — loud, distorted, and out of tune.”

Host: The amp let out a low hum, a kind of mechanical sigh. Jack plucked a string, and the sound hung there — raw, vibrating, unfinished — a single note of defiance refusing to fade.

Jeeny: “You know, when I was younger, I used to think anger was ugly. Dangerous, even. I’d do anything to swallow it down.”

Jack: “Yeah, I can tell.” (He smiles faintly, teasing but tender.) “You’re too measured. Too graceful. It’s suspicious.”

Jeeny: (laughs) “You think grace means suppression?”

Jack: “Sometimes. Most people wear calm like a muzzle.”

Host: Her eyes shifted toward him, sharp now, reflecting the dull light of the console.

Jeeny: “And what about you, Jack? What do you call your version of it? Destruction?”

Jack: (chuckles, low) “Expression. There’s a difference.”

Jeeny: “No, there isn’t. You just found a prettier word for the same wound.”

Jack: (pausing) “Maybe. But at least I let mine bleed out loud.”

Host: A silence bloomed between them — thick, pulsing, like feedback. Jeeny reached for one of the crumpled sheets on the floor, reading lines scrawled in Jack’s handwriting:

“I screamed because no one told me I could cry.
I broke things because I couldn’t fix myself.”

Jeeny: (whispering) “This is what you mean, isn’t it? Working it out through sound instead of silence.”

Jack: “Exactly. The song forgives what the world won’t.”

Jeeny: “And the world buys it because they want to feel the same way.”

Jack: “Right. Everyone’s pretending to be fine, but we’re sitting on volcanoes. Devin Townsend’s right — there’s a whole market for rage because people don’t know where else to put it.”

Jeeny: “So you sell them catharsis.”

Jack: “No. I share mine.”

Host: The amp hissed again as Jack began to play, soft at first — chords that sounded like restraint barely holding. Jeeny watched him, the corners of her mouth lifting just slightly, like she was watching someone pray.

Jeeny: “You know what’s funny? Society tells you not to be angry. ‘Smile. Be patient. Let it go.’ But then it celebrates it in art. It’s hypocrisy dressed in headphones.”

Jack: “Because art is the only place we’re allowed to be human anymore. Everywhere else, we’re expected to perform serenity.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “And serenity’s just censorship with better PR.”

Jack: (stops playing, looking at her) “Exactly.”

Host: The lights buzzed. The room vibrated faintly with the echo of unspoken things — the kind that hide behind sentences and scream through silence.

Jeeny: “You think there’s such a thing as healthy anger?”

Jack: “Sure. It’s the kind that tells you something’s wrong. The unhealthy kind is the one you have to apologize for.”

Jeeny: “And music keeps you from apologizing?”

Jack: “Yeah. Every riff, every lyric — it’s a refusal to say ‘I’m sorry’ for feeling.”

Host: She moved closer, her hand brushing the edge of the guitar neck, her reflection caught in its polished curve — two faces distorted into one shape, beautiful in the blur.

Jeeny: “So it’s not just rebellion. It’s redemption.”

Jack: “Exactly. People hear a screaming song and think it’s chaos. But it’s not. It’s control. It’s rage, harnessed — like lightning in a bottle.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “You make anger sound poetic.”

Jack: “It is. Every emotion’s poetry if you give it rhythm.”

Host: The rain began outside — faint at first, then heavier, drumming against the windows in sync with the slow, steady strumming of Jack’s guitar. The sound filled the studio until words no longer mattered.

Jeeny: (softly) “You know, maybe that’s the real trick — turning what hurts into something that heals other people.”

Jack: “Or at least reminds them they’re not crazy for feeling it.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The world doesn’t want calm — it wants connection. And sometimes, fury’s the only bridge.”

Jack: (nodding) “It’s the closest thing to honesty we’ve got left.”

Host: The song was building now — not loud, not wild, but deep. A slow, burning storm of sound. Jack’s voice was low, gravel against melody; Jeeny hummed under it, her harmony softer but equally defiant.

For a moment, the room ceased to be a studio and became a sanctuary — a place where rage was not feared, but revered.

When the music finally faded, the silence that followed felt holy.

Jack: (quietly) “You know what’s strange? When you let the anger out, it stops being the monster. It becomes... the message.”

Jeeny: (meeting his eyes) “And the message is simple.”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “That we feel. That we’re alive. That we’re still trying.”

Host: The camera would have pulled back then — showing them small beneath the glowing console, surrounded by instruments and echoes, their anger not destroyed but transformed.

And as the night faded into dawn, Devin Townsend’s words hummed like a benediction through the cables and chords:

That rage isn’t the opposite of peace —
it’s the road we take to reach it.

That the world’s fury is not a disease,
but a sign of its aching heart.

And that through sound,
through noise,
through fearless expression,
we give the world
permission
to feel again.