Premiere: Vezza grapples with bittersweet first love on ‘You are My Heroin’

That first love starts off so pure and innocent. The ribbon is bright red and shiny, and you untie each moment with a ravenous appetite for the adventure sweeping out before you. The earth seems boundless, and you’re soon far too unconquerable to see the truth. The high, however, quickly wears off, and you’re feet land back down on solid ground. Rampant toxicity, which you had long buried beneath the thrill, resurfaces and sends you cascading away from the only life you’ve ever known (romantically, speaking). As alt-pop radical Vezza can attest, such an entanglement can come at a heavy price.

With his new single, “You are My Heroin,” premiering today, Anthony Vezza scoops out his heart for a spacey, prismatic banger to be as cathartic as it is a unavoidable sensory overload. “She’s wearing Gucci by the bar / And I just drove her in my fucked up car,” he spits, the memory stretched out as an asteroid crashing straight through the earth’s stratosphere. “She’s the only one who knows my dirty secrets,” he abruptly admits, a statement of fact rather than a spiteful retaliation. Synths slurp between electronic blips, star-strewn and otherworldly, but it is the conviction in his voice, sometimes celestial, that keeps him rooted in place.

Only his second-ever single, “You are My Heroin,” situating a drug’s addictive qualities as a reflection of his relationship’s quick collapse, contains one of the year’s most bop-able hooks. “Just two kids from Jersey / Hitting up the train to Philly / Gonna kiss you in the city / Hold my hand, you’re so pretty,” he sings, a punk-ish slather bending the ends of his words. His heart exposed as stripes of frayed neon flapping in the summer’s breath, Vezza exerts a wildly intense and dreamy charm, web-like as he hypnotizes you into his world of dazzling fluorescence.

Vezza, once a staple on the New Jersey pop-punk scene, circa 2006-2008, commands an imposing presence and a calm demeanor. “I never felt a love like you / This doesn’t ever not feel new / You show me things that don’t seem true / You’re like a needle and the drug is my future with you,” he later wrestles with himself, the sweet mingling with the bitter for a sticky sugar buzz. “[This song] is about a first love falling apart in Southern New Jersey. I feel like a lot of people outside of South Jersey disregard the role Philly’s influence and culture play in our community. When you’re young and start dating in South Jersey, one of the first things you do is get on the train and go to Philly for a date night to enjoy one of the many amazing restaurants,” he explains to B-Sides & Badlands over email. “The nature of South Jersey is funny in the fact that we are upper middle class suburbs with surrounding farm areas – many rich and poor relationships colliding. I wanted to capture that with this song.”

Even the addict-riddled community became fused with the song’s backbone. “Heroin is a major issue in New Jersey, and I just really wanted to use that term, drug to describe how addicting a first love can be even if it’s extremely toxic,” he says.

“You are My Heroin” clips on the heels of his debut single, “Anxiety,” and cements Vezza as a future pop titan.

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