A video starring members of Sleeping With Sirens, In Hearts Wake, You Me At Six, Secrets, New Found Glory, The Ghost Inside and This Wild Life has made its way around the web the last few days, but not exactly for its musical content.
The video was conceived as a Pop Punk Proposal and is the brainchild of Gold Coast man Anthony Hyland who enlisted some of his favourite bands to help him pop the question to his girlfriend, Tiannah Brown.
The video, set to the tune of Puppy Love by This Wild Life, shows images of the various pop punk musos with handwritten signs reading, “Tiannah Brown… Are You Ready?”, before we get to the final slide which reads, “Tiannah Brown, are you ready to spend the rest of your life with me?” Naw.
Music Feeds caught up with the 26-year-old punk lothario behind the video to find out exactly how he managed to pull it all off. Oh, and for the record, Hyland assures us she said yes.
Watch: Pop Punk Proposal
Music Feeds: So Anthony congratulations, how are you feeling right now?
Anthony Hyland: Very good, very happy. I’m feeling very, very happy right now.
MF: Did you expect the video to go viral?
AH: No. Kellin [Quinn, from Sleeping With Sirens] sent me a message to send him the video. I didn’t expect him to share it at all. Then I woke up to like 2000 notifications and I was like, “Holy shit what happened?”. Then Kevin from This Wild Life shared it as well. Then In Hearts Wake shared it and it just blew up from there.
MF: So, tell us how you got in contact with the bands in the first place.
AH: Literally only four weeks ago I made an Instagram account called Pop Punk Proposal and I wrote a list and then I posted photos of the bands, used hashtags and then everyone was just tagging the bands in them.
Then Kellin Quinn commented on it saying, ‘I got you, when do you need it by?’ I was like, “holy shit this could actually happen”. But then I kind of lost him in the comments, ‘cos he gets like a million comments a day, so it took me about two weeks to get him again and I ended up getting to him on Twitter. He followed me, sent me a message and sent me a picture.
Then Josh [Franceschi] from You Me At Six, I sent him a message on Twitter and he replied straight away, “sure what can I do”. Then The Ghost Inside pretty much just said email me. Actually, the Secrets one is a good story!
MF: Tell us.
AH: One of the dudes told me to email him and he’d do it for me, but it took a while for him to reply and so these two girls from San Diego who I’ve never met in my life actually made a sign and took it to the show super early. They waited outside for the band to arrive and got the photo that way.
MF: Wow. So your fiancée never clued in at any point during all this?
AH: There was almost a hiccup where I was logged into the [Pop Punk Proposal] Instagram account and accidentally liked one of her photos. But I know her password so I logged in and deleted it before she saw it!
MF: So this whole idea, had you been thinking about it for a while?
AH: Honestly, I have no idea where it came from. Yeah, I would have to wake up at like 4am to be on social media when the bands were on. It was crazy.
MF: How did you decide who you asked? Are they your favourite bands or your fiancée’s?
AH: They’re all pretty much bands that we both really like. They’re definitely not just my taste. They’re definitely her taste as well. Which is good.
MF: Anyone in particular she was excited about seeing?
AH: Actually, In Hearts Wake is her favourite band, which is crazy. She was most excited about that. And of course Kellin.
MF: Was there anyone you didn’t manage to get for the project?
AH: I tried the All Time Low boys, Pierce the Veil, A Day To Remember but they’re like Kellin – they get so many messages a day you can’t really keep up. Joel Birch from The Amity Affliction offered to do the proposal on the stage on Saturday, but I felt that had already been done a few times.
MF: So you turned him down?
AH: Yeah. Pretty much! I couldn’t wait, I got a bit excited. It came together very quickly, it was very surprising.
MF: Were any of your friends on board?
AH: No, I didn’t tell anyone at all what I was doing. I told one friend that I was going to propose but that’s it, and my mum. I felt it was safer to not have everyone know, everyone talks these days.
MF: Especially as it was all done over social media.
AH: Yeah that was the hard part. I was definitely getting asked why I was on my phone so much and why I was always putting it facing down! But I’m like, “It’ll all make sense later on”.
MF: So who’s playing at the wedding?
AH: Yeah, that’s a big question. I feel like I have to get someone! The wedding won’t be until next year though, I have plenty of time to plan this one…a Pop Punk Wedding.
https://twitter.com/Kellinquinn/status/554504154144854016
