It’s 2 a.m. and everyone on the floor is studying or sleeping. But not Rob Bylan. He picks up his guitar he traded a two-six of Fireball for, fires up his webcam and lets loose a rendition of “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Green Day.
Sure, it’s pitchy, badly paced and he’s singing the lyrics wrong, but the 16 Youtube subscribers can’t lie.
On the wall, a neighbour pounds and screams for Rob to “shut the fuck up” because they’re “trying to sleep!” Bylan ignores them — he knows that the only thing better than silence is his guitar and voice. He plays on, forgetting most of the words while simultaneously singing without either bass or treble, the mark of a talented singer.
His song is uncompromising, because how can you un-compromise something that is so inherently compromised?
Bylan’s inspirations include the song “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” and that’s mostly it.
“People mostly like it,” said Bylan.
And people mostly do. The people in Smallwood affectionately call him the “guitar asshole,” as a term of endearment. Some have even gone out of their way to close their doors when he starts playing as a means of respecting his artistic privacy.
On the next steps for his success, Bylan said that he hopes to maybe write a song.
“I wanna write a song that girls would like, like the song ‘Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).’”