Hit The Lights were one of the opening bands for Valencia’s final show, and frontman Nick Thompson recently released a statement regarding the band and his feelings surrounding the industry. Check it out below by clicking “Read More”.

To everyone who came out to the Valencia show on Wednesday, thank you for making it such an amazing night. It’s nice to see a band that you’ve known for years able to reap the benefits of being what they are: A GREAT FUCKING BAND THAT DESERVES THE ATTENTION. In no way am I going to rant on about how “Valencia is so much better than other bands out now”, or how “the scene is a horrible place where great bands are going unnoticed”, because honestly, that shit is silly to focus on. I’ve been touring exclusively in this circuit for the better part of a decade and I’ve seen bands come and go. I’ve seen wonderful things happen to terrible bands and vice versa. I’ve seen just about every scenario a band goes through when touring full time. If there is only one thing I’ve learned out of all of this, it’s that anything goes. You don’t know what bands will be big next year, what bands will fall off, what the next trend will be and who will take the crown next - you just DON’T. When you spend your life on the road, you tour with other bands. The more you tour, the more you see bands come and go. You see your heroes fall and you see bands that you once took out initially completely eclipse you in popularity. You gain friends and you lose friends and, as long as your still on the road, it doesn’t ever stop. Constantly changing, always shifting, fads and phases - sometimes you actually see these kids and fans GROW UP - it can get weird. Why the fuck am I talking about this? Because Valencia is a band that we have essentially known from the very early points of our career as a full-time touring band. They’ve seen and experienced most of the things that my band has and throughout all of it, have proven that they are a band who writes amazing music and does it because they TRULY love it. They’ve PROVEN that they love it. They’ve endured and overcome hardships for years and always came back with great music and performances. If you think that they spent the time away from home and family because they can make tons of money and live like rock-stars, you are one stupid, stupid human being. There’s no resounding glory to Valencia’s story. No sold out arena tours. There’s just you and me. The fans who give them the purpose to keep on. We’re the ones who decide what bands stick around and what bands don’t. While Valencia isn’t the biggest band, the fans verify what they do with the responses they give to the music and tours. There are some nights when bands like HTL and Valencia will play to 15 kids a night, and that’s honestly not an easy thing to do sometimes. We play those shows and we rock the fuck out anyway because you bothered to show up and care, and we know it. When we go out on headliners we know we’re not the biggest band and there are going to be some sketchy fucking shows, but if the love for what we do is pure then we know that through it all, it means something. I understand the decision that Valencia has made to step back for a bit, because that grind gets tough. From an inside perpective, when your record doesn’t blow the fuck up and all your shows are half full, you’re not thinking about how much your music means to some people, and doing that night after night can cloud your judgement further. What counts are those shows; the ones where kids are singing louder than you can; the ones where you can look across a room and really pick-up that feeling like “Hey, we’ve got something really special here.” Nothing can top that rush, that energy that comes from moments like that. Watching Valencia play those 26 or so songs in front of Philly Wednesday night, that was one of those shows… x1000. It was an absolute honor and pleasure to play the show and to watch everyone show their appreciation and love for a band that I hold so close. Those dudes; they deserve all of it. Thank you to everyone for letting us share the experience. There’s a little bit of closure there(for me at least), and I wish all the dudes the best in whatever endeavors they choose to take on in their time off from Valencia. Just hurry up and get back together because I’m selfish and want to tour and hear new music. K thanx Bye.