Music is a language all its own — a way to share ideas, express yourself, and connect. And the person who first taught me that was my childhood best friend, Jack Merritt. It's funny how these influences sometimes slip by unnoticed until life forces you to stop and look back. Jack and I spent hours dissecting tracks and swapping artists, which led to us forming a band in my garage to capture those shared sounds and put them into our own words.

To say we grew up together doesn't quite capture it — Jack was always a step ahead of me. He was effortlessly cooler, more mature, and always in tune with the newest bands and the best albums long before anyone else had caught on. On our last day of school, he dressed as Tyler, the Creator. Nobody knew who he was meant to be, but that didn't faze him. It was pure Jack — unafraid to own what he loved, even if the world hadn't caught up yet.

Jack's dad also greatly influenced him with his sprawling, well-curated music collection. In those pre-streaming days, Jack found a way to merge his family's collection with mine on iTunes. Whether it was burning CDs from our dads' music collections, MySpace discoveries, Limewire downloads, or YouTube-to-MP3 rips, we pulled everything we could into this massive shared library, each track meticulously labelled with the correct artwork, titles, and names. Together, we'd created a soundtrack that was truly our own.

Our music taste spanned just about everything: punk, hip-hop, indie rock (including all those throwaway indie bands of the 2000s), alternative music, and the classic icons everyone should know. He was drawn to artists who challenged the status quo and who stood for something; that same conviction was in him, and it coloured both our conversations and our playlists. Jack believed in people's power, and his music reflected that, deepening my appreciation for what music could say.

We'd devour each track, dig for meaning, and later pour those discoveries into our band's music, taking inspiration from the sounds and scenes we pieced together. And while I was getting my footing on drums, Jack was already writing, scribbling his thoughts and lyrics into a little black notebook. The words in that book felt profound, a bit beyond my understanding back then. Looking back, I see he was always one step further down the road than me.

One track, Village Life, captured his restlessness and dissatisfaction with staying put, a feeling that took me years to understand. He wrote about feeling stifled by "the same old people, the same old streets" — a sentiment I only really got once I left for London myself, leaving behind those same familiar streets and faces. Jack had always been ready to seize the world, and that's exactly what he did.

As we grew older, we drifted apart. Jack went on to find his path, his calling, helping to reform prisoners through education — a role that suited his ever-questioning, deeply empathetic spirit. Even now, I can feel his influence in the music I still turn to, the artists and albums he shared with me back then, familiar voices that have graduated from our janky shared iTunes library to Spotify playlists.

In a final, fitting tribute to Jack's life and impact, Nick Cave attended his funeral and played "Into My Arms," while Dave performed a tribute at his wake, then again on the Brit Awards stage. It's a testament to who he was — a person who always understood the power of music and connection and who helped me understand it, too.

Thank you, Jack. I wouldn't appreciate music the way I do without your influence.