I always felt different as a kid, and the Kinks were like, ’Yeah, we’re the Kinks.’ Celebrate your difference don’t be afraid of your sense of humor, or your personality, or who you are. It emboldened me.

Weatherly recalls feeling like an outsider in childhood and describes encountering the band The Kinks as a formative model of self-acceptance. The Kinks’ very name and public persona suggest an unapologetic embrace of eccentricity, and he frames their example as permission to treat difference not as a liability but as an identity to inhabit with confidence. The quote links humor and personality to authenticity: rather than sanding down quirks to fit in, he suggests leaning into them. In effect, music becomes a cultural script for resilience—an external affirmation that emboldens an individual to be visible, distinctive, and unashamed.