The Emo Scene Queen Who Inspired All Time Low’s TikTok Sensation ‘Dear Maria, Count Me In’ Tells All

If anyone had a fun fact about themselves, it would be Maria Lucente. Yet she’s been reluctant to admit it. When she was around 20 years old, she served as the inspiration for the band All Time Low’s hit song “Dear Maria, Count Me In.” Now a vegan, yogi, married mother of two living in Austin, Texas, and more than a decade since the song was released, Lucente is ready to come forward.

The pop-punk anthem has recently gone 2x platinum thanks to TikTok, where Gen Z users have been romanticizing the scene era and millennials reminisce over their mid-2000s emo phases, with many sharing the song and saying, “Mom, it was never a phase, it’s a lifestyle!”

For Lucente, the song brings back memories of the Baltimore music scene around 2007 when she was hanging out with the not-quite-yet famous members of All Time Low and other emerging bands in the area, including Boy Crazy; Oh, The Story; Underscore; and her now-husband’s band Downtown Singapore.

Read more at The Daily Beast.