Interviews

John Vesely - Secondhand Serenade ‘I’m Happy To Drink Out Of A Shoe’

Walladmin

Heavy Metal Wordsmith

Dec 2, 2025

8 min read

If you grew up embedded in ‘00s emo culture, you’ll know the name Secondhand Serenade. And if you’re deeply embedded and felt like an early IT genius coding your MySpace page, you’ll know the music act is a solo project by John Vesely, who gained huge recognition from releasing music on MySpace in the ‘00s.

With the social media page propelling him into stardom, songs from his debut album Awake and second album A Twist In My Story in particular took on a life on their own. It’d nearly be safe to say that every ‘00s emo teen knows the words to ‘Fall For You’, or has cried to ‘Vulnerable’ or ‘Your Call’. And hell yeah, we all used Secondhand Serenade’s music to get the attention of our crush on MySpace or MSN.

And not only will he be taking fans on a walk down memory lane, he’ll be backed by a symphony orchestra, ready to have fans feeling all of the feels.

So is he trying to make us all cry? John laughs at the question, but doesn’t deny it.

“100%!” he exclaims. “I mean even from the beginning, there’s a minute and a half intro before I even come out. My violin player and the string leader is incredible, and he's putting some of these arrangements together with some of the melodies that I put together and he brought me this intro, and I started to tear up just listening to the intro.

“It is wild man, this is going to be a crazy show for me and especially playing, you know, it's 20 years so that's very emotional for me. I feel old, but it's one of those things that I'm just I'm really honoured to still be doing 20 years later, and to the scale that I'm doing it, which is awesome.”

But if fans are expecting a sit-down show, with tears flowing, and everyone consoling each other in the audience, John has other ideas.

Upon Wall of Sound educating him about one the very Australian and somewhat embarrassing, yet never-dying trend of doing a shoey at a gig, John was game.

“I have pretty rowdy fans and I'm pretty rowdy myself,” he confesses. “Like, we played a metal venue somewhere in Indiana and it was sold out, and afterwards the promoter told my tour manager, ’that's the most alcohol that this venue's ever sold since it opened!”

“And it's like, because you have to remember these are nostalgic emo people that are just there to have the best time and scream their lungs out. It doesn’t matter if it’s acoustic, it’s still party time.

“So I’m happy to drink out of a shoe,’ he continued. ‘Should I bring my own? Like a clean one?”

With emo-loving fans now descending into elder emo categories, John raises a good point. No matter your age, there’s nothing more cathartic than bellowing out some of your favourite, nostalgic songs with a crowd of like-minded people.

“There’s definitely a whole new generation listening to emo now, I feel like emo music in general is bigger than it ever was and there’s not a stigma to it now like there was back then,” he muses.

“I mean, I remember I did emo music and sometimes people would be almost derogatory, but now everybody's in on it because they realise there was something really special about that time and that music.

“It’s a community of people, it’s not just a genre of music. It’s a community based around friendship and camaraderie. I’m proud to be a part of that, and I always was. It’s amazing to see it as big as it is now, and people just loving it, especially with things like When We Were Young festival and people just loving emo nights [emo-themed club nights]. It’s pretty wild.”

Emo may have been a dirty word in the ‘00s, but the 2020s is all about celebrating the scene, especially as more bands and musicians celebrate milestone anniversaries, like John/Secondhand Serenade celebrating 20 years of the release of Awake, an album that propelled John to viral stardom.

Reflecting on the two decades since he released the album, something he called a ‘bucket list’ goal and not something he ever expected to send him into a successful international music career, John calls himself lucky to have a passionate fanbase who stayed dedicated over all these years.

This passionate fanbase has now led to the musician teasing new music coming in the new year.

“I'm very fortunate enough to have a fan base that's still very much active and they've been here for a long time. A lot of them have been here since the MySpace days and MySpace made it possible for people to be there at the beginning of a band's life, you know, and in turn, like they became part of that band's success and part of that band's whole story.

“So I feel like they deserve an album that's made for them, and not the radio masses or anything. I just want to make music for the people that have been there supporting this music for that long, and hopefully I'll achieve that.”

It’s been 16 years since Secondhand Serenade hit Aussie shores while touring with The Fray, so it’s safe to say this run of shows is well overdue. And as for what Aussies can expect from the upcoming Symphony Orchestra tour, John touts it as an experience fans of his would have never seen before.

“It's gonna be one of the most emotional shows that I've ever put on in my life,” John says. “It's gonna be feelings for days. So it's definitely not one to miss, and I'll definitely drink out of shoe!”

Interview by Tahlia Pritchard.