Photo courtesy of Dana Gorab

Back in 2019, Otherworldly Entity was lucky enough to open for the legendary nu metal band, Cold, at Buffalo Iron Works in Buffalo, NY. It was such an amazing experience because we didn't just play the show and do our opener thing.

We loaded into the venue about five hours before the doors opened, so we had a lot of time to kill. I lived in Buffalo for about 10 years, and even though I had moved away by this point, I still had a lot of friends around, so we invited a couple to the venue to hang out with us. We ended up spending a large chunk of the day sitting around with Sam, Lindsay, Jon, Nick and Scooter, better known as Cold. It was such an amazing, eye-opening and surreal experience. But why?

For this, we need to rewind back to 2001. I had just started dating a girl named Meg, and it was the day of her birthday party. We were both 14 years old; I had just started playing in my first band the same month, and I invited my friend Phil over to help us set up for the birthday party. The day before, I purchased Cold's 13 Ways to Bleed On Stage album, so while we were setting up, we put the CD in. By the time we made it to track four, “End of the World”, I was absolutely in love with what I was hearing. There was a darkness to it; a genuine humanity, the raw emotion coming out of those speakers spoke to me. I turned to Meg and Phil and said, "Some day, I will play with Cold." Phil said, "I think your band needs to get better." I said, "I don't care if it takes 20 years, it'll happen."

In 2008, I married Meg. In 2011, Phil lost his battle with depression and took his own life. In 2017, Meg and I went through a difficult divorce, and I ended up surviving a serious suicide attempt as a result. By the time 2019 had rolled around, I had lost these two people that shared in that decisive moment with me in 2001, and to some extent, I felt like I had lost myself, too. Two of my closest friends for over a decade, and my own sense of self. But here I was, 18 years later, sitting in lawn chairs behind Buffalo Iron Works, smoking cigarettes, having drinks, warming up to share a stage with these legends.

We killed our set, we really brought the energy. We even covered System of a Down's "Spiders", an homage to Cold's spider logo. When Cold took the stage, I went nuts. That is, until I heard "End of the World". My world had ended multiple times since that day in 2001. But here I was, in the most epic of circumstances. I had to go backstage and just relax for a while.

After the show, when the fans had all left, Scooter came up to me and gave me a hug. He said that he saw my story of my divorce, my suicide attempt and my unlikely survival. He said, "I'm glad you're here." I said, "I wouldn't miss it for the world." He said, "No...I'm glad you're HERE." I knew what he meant. He didn't need to say more. That day changed my life - it started a new chapter in my life, and a new push in the future of Otherworldly Entity.