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