NVM, ILY

NVM, ILY (never mind, I love you) is a Los Angeles based Mexican American emo and pop punk project led by songwriter, vocalist and producer Gerald Cerda. Rooted in early 2000s emo, Warped Tour pop punk and Southern California Mexican American culture, the band turns heartbreak, memory, family and identity into songs that feel both nostalgic and distinctly current. Rather than treating emo as revivalism, NVM, ILY frames it as cultural memory: the sound of Mexican American kids raised on MySpace, loud guitars, family parties, late night drives and the feeling of growing up between worlds. The music carries echoes of bands like My Chemical Romance, Pierce the veil and Allison while building a perspective centered on a community often left out of emo’s mainstream history. After 2024’s Keep Your Mouth Shut and collaborations with Danny Goo and Gavin Prophet, NVM, ILY sharpened that identity with 2026’s Mexican American Blue. The EP places Mexican American experience at the center of modern emo and pop punk, connecting personal songwriting with Los Angeles Mexican emo culture and community. For NVM, ILY, emo is more than a genre. It is a language for a generation shaped by two cultures at once, alternative music and Mexican American family memory, in a way of writing Mexican American emo kids into the center of the story. The shift makes the project less about recreating 2000s emo and more about documenting what the genre means to Mexican Americans.