#HowEyeSeeIt with Casey Harris of the X Ambassadors

Casey Harris, the piano player for the X Ambassadors, has been legally blind his entire life. As part of the Foundation Fighting Blindness' recent digital campaign, #HowEyeSeeIt, we traveled to Seattle to meet with Casey and the rest of the X Ambassadors to hear his story. In his own words Casey describes his ability to see as 15% vision in good light and closer to 5-10% in bad light. Technically speaking Casey has 2200 vision with a 10% field in the middle.

In addition to sitting down with Casey, Foundation Fighting Blindness had the entire band partake in a blindfold challenge. During sound-check, each member attempted to play some of their top songs while blindfolded. Unsurprisingly, the consensus from the rest of the band was that playing blindfolded was a very disorienting and informative experience. The drummer, Adam Levin, commented that he did not think playing blindfolded would be nearly as difficult as it turned out to be, but immediately found it difficult to orient himself and locate his set. As his bandmates continued to share stories from their brief sight-less performance, Casey sat between them, grinning the entire time. Casey's older brother and bandmate, Sam Harris, noted that at first being blindfolded was extremely empowering as he successfully hit chord after chord on the guitar; but, once they began the second song, which called for the use of a guitar peddle, Sam became frustrated as he continued to miss the pedal with his foot, completely shifting the tone of the song. Sam went on to say, "my sense of balance was off. I had to stabilize myself using my microphone and found it hard to find the top of the mic." To this, Casey, smiling at his brother, chimed in: "Yup, the microphone is the hardest part." After Adam and Sam confirmed that they had a new found respect for Casey after opting to spend a few songs in his shoes, we moved on to focus on Casey's experience as a blind musician.

Casey described performing live music as his "favorite thing in the world." He continued to say, "you get this immediate raw feedback as to whether what you're playing is good or not. If you're writing or recording - which is amazing as well - you're your only critic and you tend to second guess yourself; but playing live and performing you get a visceral and immediate satisfaction." Casey spoke fondly regarding the sense of connection he feels with his crowds when they react to his music, describing it as "the most amazing feeling in the world."

When asked what they think about while performing, each band member had something different to say, but agreed that they aren't thinking about the music too intensely. Sam said he goes back and forth between losing himself to the music and consciously performing for the crowd as the band's frontman. Adam noted that he tends to play best when he completely forgets about everything around him and can slip into "an almost meditative state of not thinking." Casey agreed that all musicians play best when they aren't thinking about what they're doing; he also added that "when you don't have to look at your instrument and you can play what comes to your head purely be feel, it makes it a smoother interface between the musician and the instrument."

After the blindfold challenge and sit-down conversation we stuck around to film Casey in his element, performing in front of a crowd of thousands of people. As Casey said before, you don't need your sight to feel the energy from thousands of people responding to what you're putting out into the world.