Hoobastank's 2004 hit The Reason goes viral on TikTok

LOS ANGELES - Noughties band Hoobastank is going viral with its 2004 hit The Reason on TikTok.

To people of a certain age, the opening riff of the 17-year-old song with the lyrics "I'm not a perfect person, there's many things I wish I didn't do" will bring back memories.

To the TikTok generation though, it is a viral trend, a catchy ditty to be used with posts on, say, "When you ate all your sister's snacks".

More than 67,000 videos have been posted with the tune over the past few weeks, and the hashtag #NotAPerfectPerson has been used a mind-boggling 450 million times and counting.

Lead singer Doug Robb said in an interview with Variety magazine on Thursday (Feb 4): "It started just like, 'Hey, you know, there's this thing they're doing on TikTok using The Reason, and it was building and building to a point where it was like, 'Yo, you've got like 300,000,000 people using your song for this thing; maybe you guys should chime in'."

Last Thursday (Jan 28), the alt-rock band launched their own TikTok account with a clip poking fun at their name, which was a nonsensical word they had made up.

In the clip, Robb is looking at a wall of their awards as the song plays, with a caption: "Realising 20 years later that you named your band Hoobastank".

In less than a week, the self-aware video had garnered 2.2 million views, much to the delight of the band who are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut album this year. They have not released an album since 2018's Push Pull.

"We've been at this long enough to know that there's an ebb and flow to it. You're not always hot and you're not always hated," Robb said. "So we're wise enough to be able to appreciate it when people appreciate the music, and also be able to have enough self-confidence and thick skin to know when it's not your turn, when something else is happening."

Even though it is mainly Gen Z users who are using the song, Robb, 46, said he could still relate to them: "I don't feel so removed from being a 20-year-old. I remember what it felt like to be that age and to have the world at your hands, and your whole life ahead of you and not a care.

"I vividly remember that, and maybe that will come out in our music or our TikTok videos."