Statements from Nick Ghanbarian and Anthony Raneri of Bayside

Some more information has come in surrounding the tragic circumstances on Monday which saw a number of injuries and the death of Bayside drummer, John Holohan.

Bassist Nick Ghanbarian, who was also seriously injured made the following statement:

I'm laying here in the hospital, awaiting my surgery tomorrow. To clear up
any questions, I broke my back ( L4 vertebrae ). I'm very lucky to not be
paralyzed. I was thrown through the window of our rolling van, after
hitting a patch of ice. I have a full torso cast on, keeping my back
straight. I just started eating again so now I can take some percoset
which helps with my intense back pain. All in all, Ill be ok and the
minute I can have a bass in my hand and be playing in front of people
again I will. It's all I know how to do and the only thing that makes me
happy.

Vocalist Anthony Raneri also shared a statement:

On Halloween I lost my best friend, big brother, mentor and band mate.
This letter, this week and the rest of my life is not going to be a mourning of
a lost life, but a celebration of a wonderful one.

On November 16th, Jack and I will be flying out to St Petersburg, FL to
join up with the Never Sleep Again. We will be playing an acoustic
set that night and every night through the end of the tour on December
11th. We loved this tour. Beatz loved this tour and this is something
that we need to do for ourselves, for our band and for John Beatz, who
would kick my ass if I didn't finish up what he gave his life for.

A memorial fund has been established in John's name, and donations can be made here.

A number of John's friends have also stepped up to provide some assistance, online retailer merchtable.biz has pledged to give half the price of each order to the fund.You can click Read More for the entirety of Nick and Anthony's statements.

I'm laying here in the hospital, awaiting my surgery tomorrow. To clear up
any questions, I broke my back ( L4 vertebrae ). I'm very lucky to not be
paralyzed. I was thrown through the window of our rolling van, after
hitting a patch of ice. I have a full torso cast on, keeping my back
straight. I just started eating again so now I can take some percoset
which helps with my intense back pain. All in all, Ill be ok and the
minute I can have a bass in my hand and be playing in front of people
again I will. It's all I know how to do and the only thing that makes me
happy.

Once hearing about all of the support from friends, bands and fans, my
spirits where immediately uplifted. All we have in this world are each
other, and in times of tragedy, you find out who is by your side until the
end and who is bullshit. Thankfully our music community surrounds us by
mostly heartfelt people who are going out of their way to help us in our
time of need and to help us keep our dream alive.
John Beatz was someone I looked up to, yet I walked beside him as a
contemporary. I learned from him as he learned from me. We started playing
in bayside 14 months ago and have both realized that our whole lives had
been lived to get us to this point, so we spent the time working our asses
off and making sure that that this band was going to succeed in what we
wanted: having people hear our music.

With his passing, we realize he paid the ultimate price as all of us would
have or else we wouldn't have been beside him. We live for rock and roll
and when you believe in something enough, sometimes you die for it.

What I want everyone out there to realize is the sacrifice every member of
every touring band makes. Safety, money, health etc. All of these things
are a distant second to our music. People get vans, trailers, equipment
and other personal items stolen, we play in unsafe neighborhoods, we
travel far distances in sometimes unsafe vehicles and unsafe weather. My
point in all of this is that we are a community, not a business. Support
and understanding with an open mind are what's most important in our
lives. Not record sales. Whether or not you like a band you must realize
that bands are giving their all for what they love, including their lives.
Showing your faces at shows and talking to us and letting us know you
appreciate the music and the hard work is infinitely more important than
the business side of things.

I'm happy to have my life, I'm happy to have known John and I'm happy to
still have a band. Please give your time and respects to John's family and
wife. All he ever did was speak of her, and every ounce of energy he put
into his life was for her. Hopefully we can all have love like that in our
lifetime.

- Nick Ghanbarian

The worst day of my life is over. It lasted 72 hours, but it's over. I
know now that everyday for the rest of my life will be a piece of cake to
wake up to, I'm just glad that I get to wake up to them. On Halloween I
lost my best friend, big brother, mentor and band mate. I find a lot of
comfort in knowing that I had a best friend, big brother, mentor and band
mate in the first place, when so many people will never know what it is
like to have someone as magical as Beatz in their lives. I'm so lucky for
that and so lucky that I survived this thing to tell everyone about him.
Anyone that knew Beatz fell in love with him instantly. Whether you were
his brother, his wife, his friend or you met him for five minutes. This
letter, this week and the rest of my life is not going to be a mourning of
a lost life, but a celebration of a wonderful one. He will live forever in
all of our hearts and in the music he created so passionately.

On behalf of Bayside, everyone in the Bayside/Victory camp and the Holohan
clan, I thank you all so much for your support through all of this. I have
to thank the members of Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein and Aiden, all of
their crews, everyone at Victory, our manager Nate Albert and our families
and friends for everything they have done since the second this happened,
to get us past the last few days. Our guitar tech Nicky Raneri, tour
manager Scott Robinson, guitar player Jack O'Shea and I are all home safe.
Nick is going into surgery in a couple of hours and will make a full
recovery; our drum tech Dan Marino is out of surgery and we hope to get
him home by the end of the week. Every one of the fans, the press and any
other company or person that has gotten in touch with us has just been
amazing and it's all that support that got us through this.

On November 16th, Jack and I will be flying out to St Petersburg, FL to
join up with the Never Sleep Again Tour. We will be playing an acoustic
set that night and every night through the end of the tour on December
11th. We loved this tour. Beatz loved this tour and this is something
that we need to do for ourselves, for our band and for John Beatz, who
would kick my ass if I didn't finish up what he gave his life for. After
that, we will be taking the holidays off, as planned, and then getting
back on the road again as a band in 2006. Aside from the next two weeks,
we can not let this situation slow our band down or cancel one more show
or tour. All any of us ever wanted to do was play music and make this band
into something that people would know and love. That hasn't changed and we
can't let it. Beatz wouldn't have it any other way.

It will take me a long time to get the horrible images from that night out
of my head and it will take some time for my friends Nick and Dan to get
their asses out of bed, but I will, and they will and life will move on
with only the happier memories of my best friend.

Thank you all for your support. The whole Bayside camp and the Holohan
family are living on it right now. Please look into the John Holohan
Memorial Fund. It's not about money; it's the thought that counts. For
all of us and his family to know that he made a huge impact on the world
is all we have right now.

- Anthony Raneri