“Why this nineties high school punk band is suddenly bigger than ever” the headline of an Oct. 15 article by Rolling Stone Magazine read. The article is about the band Everyone Asked About You, and amidst the bylines and quotes, one thing stands out: “Little Rock Central High School.”

The founding members and alumni, Chris Sheppard and Lee Buford, met as students and played together in a band, Low End Theory, before they were joined by Collins Kilgore, who was a couple of years younger. Eventually, John Beachboard, Hannah Vogh, and Matt Bradley joined, and the band evolved into the group that we know today. They played at small venues until their cordial split up, as the older members began leaving for college.

In 2021, a group of Japanese college students found a video of the band on YouTube, and the use of social media helped shine the spotlight back on them, leading to their reunion. Oct. 16 marked a pivotal moment in their musical journey as they traveled home to play at Vinos’s for the first time in 30 years.

“I get more nervous to play Little Rock than any other city because I want to make you guys proud,” Sheppard said.

The show sold out quickly after the show was announced, which was a change from when the band played at the venue in the nineties.

“For the first time for this band, there are dozens of people here to see us who know all of our songs, and I don’t know any of them, and they were singing all the words,” Kilgore said. “They weren’t even friends of mine, and that was a very amazing feeling to know that people had only one connection which was our music.”

As they have kicked off their tour, they have had time to reflect on where they are now, and how it compares to when they were teenagers.

“It is so completely opposite of when we were trying to scrape together change in the van to get Taco Bell and to play for zero people at the next show,” Beachboard said. “You know, I think our younger selves would be like, you’re a d*mn liar.”

Each member went about their lives, with jobs ranging from swim coaches to lawyers. They never imagined that their paths would cross like this again, but it was the time that they spent growing up that eventually brought them back together.

“The path that someone follows isn’t necessarily going to be the one that has the spotlight on it. It’s the one that they shine the spotlight on. There are so many people around you who are going to tell you that you need to do this, and you should do it this way, and you should do it that way. It’s just learning to trust your intuition and your gut and your friends,” Sheppard said. “For example, John pushing me outside of my comfort zone so that we can even have this opportunity again. Sometimes the path that people are lighting for you isn’t necessarily the path you need to be taking.”

Being apart for so long led to some hesitation when the band initially discussed reuniting, but they took the chance.

“You think to yourself, ‘What could happen next? What happens next? What if we say ‘yes?’ What if we go to play that silly L.A. show, or what if we do rerelease the stuff with this record label’,” Beachboard said. “We wouldn’t be sitting here right now, talking about this band from 30 years ago. Just have curiosity and the most benign, weird things can turn into magic.”

Although many of the members left Arkansas, the group has held onto their roots, as their Instagram describes them as “Little Rock Emo.”

“Back when we were first a band, there was a very big independent DIY music scene, and that was kind of part of a national network,” Sheppard said. “There was the genre of emo and punk rock music that was kind of in vogue at the time, and it just ended up being the kind of music that we played. The word emo was kind of used as a bad word back then, like, you’re not punk, you’re emo. It’s fun to be where we are now and to be proud of that.”

Though they spent so much time apart, their reunion and trip home has elicited the nostalgia and pride that the members feel about where they’re from.

“We all have spent time living in different places. And when we got back together for the first time to play, I was thinking, ‘Where are we from’?” Kilgore said. “We all live different lives, like many of us haven’t lived here in 20 years.”

Though scattered from L.A. to Boston, the alumni hold their history in Little Rock close to their hearts and embrace their origins as part of their identity.

“Before we played our first song back together, Chris got up and said, ‘Everyone Asked About You from Little Rock, Arkansas,’ because we are, and always will be, from Little Rock, Arkansas, and I’m proud of that. It makes us unique. It’s a big part of who we are,” said Kilgore.