To our dear friends in Europe,
When I started working for TWLOHA, one of my first duties was responding to the international email account. I remember learning how to use Google Translate, and I got pretty good at guessing time zones and capitals and lingua francas. It was both inspiring and overwhelming to know that this message, our mission, had reached out in every possible direction across this world.
This excitement gradually gave way to the weight of what and whom I was responding to. It was as if on the other side of my computer was an invisible beach littered with bottles. Each one held an S.O.S. message, most of which were written by someone convinced they were stranded or alone. Each one was a reminder that the work we were doing in the States was only the beginning. Each message contributed to a new statistic revealing the numbers of people struggling with depression, suicide, or addiction beyond our own borders. At some point in each response, I typed, “We hope to reach you soon,” or, “In time, we plan on getting on the ground near you,” or simply, “Hold on! Our hearts are with you.”
A few months later, I read a news report about a school shooting in Germany. We ended up writing a response to the event on our MySpace, and I remember thinking that language is perhaps the only real thing that separates people in this day and age.
Our joys and our pains care very little about distance. There is so much more that connects us than could ever keep us apart. The questions that steer our dreams and the music that reminds us we are alive give us common goals. We scream just to remember we still have a voice or to remind our loved ones to keep fighting, and it echoes across oceans and ears.
In the spirit of these questions, melodies, friendships, and battle cries, we are very excited to let you know we will soon be touching down in Europe. Our friends in the band Oh, Sleeper have welcomed us to tour with them in late October and early November. You can find dates for those shows on our Calendar, and we will also be posting daily opportunities for you to connect with us face-to-face on this tour (just in case metal doesn’t happen to be your favorite genre).
We look forward to meeting you, our friends, in the U.K., Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. We will reach you soon; our hearts are with you.
—Chad