GUEST BLOG: LIGHT THIS CITY’S LAURA NICHOL

I recently read about a certain phenomenon called “The Overview Effect,” in which people traveling through space find themselves overcome with an intense feeling of connectedness to the universe, a sense that they are a tiny (though still significant) link in a much, much greater scheme of things. While I was reading, I realized that touring across the country has a similar but almost opposite effect on most people. Being constantly on the go, driving to a new city every day, and racing against the clock, makes one more self-centered than usual. I don’t mean people become conceited, but this sort of travel creates an almost tangible bubble around the band van, or the venue, so that hardly anything else seems real or important. It consumes one’s world, so that it’s hard to remember the rest of the planet surrounding us, a world that has nothing to do with setting up equipment, soundchecking, selling merch, or planning our next radical tour. I occasionally find myself in this automatic tour mindset, when suddenly some trigger will snap me out of it. I’ll remember that even though the days seems pretty routine for us, and though we’re a fairly small blip on the radar of the music industry, everything we do has a greater effect on the people outside of our tour bubble.

Last week I received a message from a soldier stationed in Iraq, who wrote: “im chillin in iraq right now, just found out about your band in an old issue ov revolver… so i just wanted to say whats up and let ya know me and my bros are listenin to your shit when were gettin blown up, have a good day.”

If anything is going to take me outside of my various, petty crises of the day, it’s that message. Wow.

I also spoke for a long while to a man who helps run shows at a venue in Virginia about his day job in New York. I gawked at him and said, “Why do you come all the way out here to work these shows then?!” He replied, “It lets me unwind. I work for the Port Authority, in underwater forensics. Last week I had to dive down to pull a 3-year-old out of his car seat after his mother drove off a bridge. The fish had already gotten to his eyes and lips when I reached the car. You never know if a kid is already dead before he hits the water in those cases.” I was shocked. “You mean people actually kill their kids and then crash into the water to make it look like an accident?!” He looked at me, his expression entirely made of stone. “You don’t know how common it is…”

He related several more incredible stories, and even though they disturbed me beyond comprehension and I considered asking him to stop, I realized that he needs this nightlife, this entertainment, and these carefree people to talk to in order to maintain his sanity. For this man, and for the soldier who messaged me, music provides comfort and a reliable, healthy escape in a world of extreme hardship. To be a part of that happier place for them is fucking mind-blowing. I can only imagine that it is a tiny fragment of what those space travelers feel when they look back at their home planet from hundreds of thousands of miles away and realize their place in an intricate cycle of existence.

Have I sufficiently nerded out on you this week? Well, I know I didn’t talk much about the current tour, so here are some fun pictures we’ve collected from the past couple weeks! Enjoy!

P.S. If you want to read more about “The Overview Effect,” go here.

A revolution in mannequin-making! The New Orleans Silicone Model…who can sense when it's cold outside, apparently.

Ft. Worth's claim to fame? A truck with all of Iron Maiden’s cover artwork plastered across it. I’m just hoping this guy doesn't get plastered and crash it! Har har!

Ben from Soilent Green needs to be careful making super-hardcore punk-rock face. Mine got stuck like that.

Our drummer Ben popping the most brutal back-zit I have ever seen. Period.

Guitarist Brian knew he was destined to be in a metal band when his chest hair grew into an upside-down cross during puberty.

Long story short—Hollywood, our guitarist, passed a note to me that read, “Frost is gay.” Later that night Frost, our bass player, found the note and decided revenge is a dish best served while the other person is completely unconscious; Ben's nasty underwear on Hollywood’s peaceful sleeping face. Payback’s a little bitch.