What About Hope? An interview with Some Kid You Don’t Know

At a small venue known as the Groundworks in Tucson, Arizona on December 16,2025 hosted a night of musical numbers of a variety of acts from folk punk to grungy protests. Playing the bill an artist known currently Some Kid You Don’t Know with a set of unique original sonic serenades and a few covers from the likes of the Pixies, among others not to be named (the room promised).

Hear the interview by clicking here.

Show flyer

Who are you, and what do you do exactly? 

Hi, my name is Emanuel Romero. I'm also known as Some Kid You Don't Know, or formerly in the band The Votes. 

You played a lot of songs: you played one that I found really interesting. I think it was called Song for the Sadists? 

Song for Guilty Sadists.

What exactly is that about?

Well, from my understanding, it's a song about exactly kind of what the song title is kind of describing, of being guilty for playing a sadist role in bed.

So, the guilt is being the sadist? 

Yes. At least I believe so. 

That's how I take the song. That's how I always perform it, I guess. To connect it more to myself, I'm quite afraid to hurt people both emotionally and physically, especially when it comes to a romantic relationship kind of setting.

So, especially in bed, it'd be a struggle for me to take on a sadist role, even if that's the kind of relationship that I have agreed to with my partner. 

What is fear exactly? 

Just, I guess, I will admit that I think part of this comes out of being, for lack of better words, a people pleaser.

When it comes to relationship, whether it be friendship, romantic, role models, stuff like that, I really want to prove myself and just kind of avoid any wrongdoing. When it comes to someone I like or have some kind of a relationship with, that's why I perform Song for Guilty Sadists. 

The opposite of fear would be hope. What do you think of hope? 

Hope? I think that definition has definitely changed for me. In my years of performing songs, I have definitely performed hopeful songs. 

I think that hope has definitely changed in recent years as I've grown older. As I started performing music in high school, I think the hope was that all my hopes and dreams, in this case, specifically regarding music, would have turned out. And within that time, I have been kicked out of the band, kind of spent a year out of music, not by necessarily a choice, but more inability to and trying to, and more in that time trying to figure out what I'm going to do with my life.
And right now, that is the hope. Being able to figure out what I'm going to do in my life, I guess, if that makes sense.

Do you think hope is necessary? Or is it a bit of a delusion that keeps someone going until they get where they want to be? 

I think that depends— it depends how people want to use their own hope. I truly believe that everyone has hope in them, even if they can't find it at the time. I think hope can be quite negative when it's an unhealthy kind of a thing, I guess. 

Maybe one that I would be able to relate to is an obsession with hope. I have this whole plan on one specific thing, and that's the only thing I focus on. And it just keeps getting out of reach, and I don't take the time to just stop and look around and just take in the information needed to assess the situation and assess, is this worth it? I think, at least with the people that I've met in my life, that is a big contrast that people struggle with, whether it be in a positive sense or in a negative sense.

So, what do you hope for? 

Well, I guess right now, I really just hope that things will work out for not anything specific. Whether it be my music, whether it be my relationship with my friends and family, whether it be my own career paths. 

That's what I'm hoping for, just for it to work out in some way. 

Thank you, is there any way that you can be found anywhere? 

Yes, currently my socials, it's only my private Instagram, but it is at somekidwhosnothacked— though that may change soon.

End of Interview.