Hidy-ho fuckers!!!
I’ve been home for 6 days now and what a trip it is to be back in America. Terrorism, Terror alerts, Terror levels, and other such paranoia were something I hadn’t seen for 2 months now. Everywhere I turn... on the papers, on the corner newsstands, on the TV, on the radio. Hell, we might be under attack any minute. Shit, if I didn’t know better, I’d think my dog might be a terrorist. "Could Al Quada be turning man's best friend into man's best terrorist!?!?!?" The news screamed, "Stay tuned and we’ll let you know!". Golly gee, I’m scared. Hopefully this Zoloft that online meds sold me will make me feel all safe, cozy, and terror free.
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First of all, on behalf of the band, I'd like to thank all the crazed, beer drinking, metal loving lunatics that came out to all the shows, and made nearly the whole tour sold out. A few shows up to a month in advance. You guys kick every other bands' fans asses, Period!
I'd also like to thank all the kids and people who went to great lengths to follow the tour around. A few groups of 'em did the whole UK run, one group did nearly half the tour! We realize you don't have to do that, and hope you aren't neglecting other more important things to do it, but think it's really cool that you dig the music THAT much. I'd also like to personally thank my guys Adam, Dave and Phil for kickin' so much ass over there. They all stepped up to the plate and delivered nothing but home runs night after night. Those were as good a shows as we've ever done.
I’d also like to mention the several opening bands we had on this run. All have new records out that are worth checking out. Kill II This, Sikth, Mnemic, and Breed 77 deserve your attention.
The Head are for sure coming back for summer festivals, and have just been confirmed for the 2 biggest festivals in Germany, Rock am Ring / Rock am Park, as well as the UK’s Download festival. Don’t know the who, what, wheres, but we'll keep you posted.
Top 5 moments on the tour:
5) Halloween in Dublin. This should be mandatory from here on out. Dressing up like idiots, Metal-ing out with the Irish, Guinness, vodka, more Guinness, Halloween… Fuck Yeah!!
4) Last night with K2T... WAY too many naked guys on stage... Mark from K2T’s naked stage dive... parting the crowd like the Red Sea... wow! It was a pageantry of faggotry. Fuckin’ hysterical!
3) "_______’s buying a hooker... in Hamburg" (sang to the tune of ‘and she's buying a Stairway to Heaven’).
2) The absolutely, unbelievably, gigantically psychotic circle pit in Glasgow, Scotland... Oh – my – fuck – ing - God!!!
1) Ten of us singing Disco and 80’s new wave songs at the top of our lungs 'til 6AM, after getting W-a-s-t-e-d at the Portsmouth show. Woo-*cough*-Hoo *cough*!!!!!!!!!!
Top 5 albums of the tour:
5) Pantera – Vulgar Display of Power
4) Avenged Sevenfold – Waking the Fallen
3) Arch Enemy – Anthems of Rebellion
2) Lamb of God – As the Palaces Burn
And the number 1 album of the tour by a landslide...
1) Tenacious D Muthafucka. (With karate I’ll kick your ass, from he-ah, to right over dere)
Thanx to folks in the US for their patience, we are this close *holds fingers a quarter inch apart* to making an announcement regarding the states. Good, good news.
Bringing the vodka drinking behemoth that is The Head thru the states in early April, if not sooner.
'Til then... cheers fuckers!
-Flynn
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Hey, hey, hey.
Got a day off in Zurich, Switzerland today. Just chillin' at the Intercontinental Hotel Business Center at 1:05 AM. Being on tour is a trip, it's like working the graveyard shift. I go to bed around 5:30AM every night, 'cause I don't start "work" 'til around 11PM, so my morning begins at 2PM when I wake up. Day starts off with some Chai tea, or Chai Tea and a beer if I'm hungover. Do a bunch of interviews. Been doing more press than I've ever done in my life on this tour... DAMN! I'm not complaining or anything, it's cool, it's just a trip. After that I'll hang around the club, see what kind of interesting bathroom-like facility there may or may not be. Hang with the Kill II This's. Soundcheck, work on songs we're fucking up in the set, or songs we're trying to bring into the live set to alternate. Either that or jam on Priest, Maiden, old Pantera, or "The Safety Dance" by new wave gods Men Without Hats. *cough*
This tour has been going amazing, and I say that with sincere shock, people are freaking out on Machine Head, or as they pronounce it here in Europe,
"Mushy Ned". It's been really fun man... beer, vodka, brawls, love. Last night we played Treviso, Italy, this is the first time we have ever been to
this city, and girls were openly weeping in the audience during our set... for no reason! It was crazy!!! A couple of nights ago in Madrid, a couple of assholes thought it'd be fun to play "test the new guy", so after the show, the boys, following suit after Snoop D-O-double-Gizzle, had to hand out a couple of Pimp Smizzles. Ahhhh, you can take the Boys out of the Bay, but you can't take the Bay out of the Boys. A few nights before that, we played 2 nights in Portugal, and man, those fuckers are so crazy, it's just plain wrong. Biggest circle pit of the tour, HANDS DOWN!!! Fuck!!! Clapping along to "Descend"... singing it SO loud... even as I write it now... just... wow.
The connection this record has been making with people over here is really amazing. Dudes running up to me shaking, kissing my hand and telling me "I
feel like I've known you my whole life", showing me their MH tattoos and shit. It kinda trips me out. I almost don't know what to say. I just try and calm them down, tell 'em it's gonna be alright, tell 'em music affects me the same way, tell 'em they don't need to put me up on a pedestal like that, tell 'em "You don't need to kiss my hand... Jeez!" It's been moving, really, it has been genuinely moving. Without trying to analyze things too deeply, it's kind of ironic that the record we finally wrote as just music fans again, is the record that's making the deepest connection to music fans.
U.S. situation is this close *holds fingers a quarter inch apart* to being worked out. A couple of surprises came out of nowhere just recently,
including an unnamed imprint thru an unnamed major that could be very cool. As soon as we know enough to announce, we will, Head Cases.
Until then, looking HELLA forward to rolling thru your city, with half the shows sold out in advance FUCK YEAH!!! We plan on getting ripped with all
of you. Our sole purpose is to metal out, drrrrrink your vodka, plunder your cities, and encourage the youth of your country to have promiscuous and consensual sex... in public toilet facilities.
ARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
-Flynn
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Played Madrid last night. Insane crowd. Except for the 3 spineless fucks who decided it would be cool to spit on the new guy and throw stuff at him. After 2 hours of taking their abuse I took it upon myself to jump in the crowd and pound one of them in the face a few times to make him think twice about ever doing it again. The look on his face when I landed right in front of him was priceless.
My apologies to the rest of the fans who had to deal with the fiasco at the end of the show. I should've handled it differently.
Today is a travel day and everyone is still asleep. I'm usually first one up and spend that time watching all the cheesy movies no one else wants to watch. Dave and I stayed up 'til about 7am rockin' out to classic "old guy" rock. Rush 2112, KISS Destroyer, Scorpions Lovedrive, Maiden Piece of Mind and Number of the Beast. Can barely talk today from screaming all the lyrics for hours.
We're parked near a beach somewhere in France while the driver gets his sleep. Off to Milan tonight and play there tomorrow night.
The bands performance is really starting to click. Every night it seems to improve. Can't wait to bring the full production show to our home crowd. Have no idea when that will be.
Still working on the US deal. These things take time. Duh.
So anyway, will check in again this weekend. Hope all is well.
And oh yeah, you fucking Euros need to chill on the smoking. Holy fuck!
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After reading a recent article that referred to the music of Lamb of God as "Nu-Metal", I am officially retiring the word "Nu-Metal" from my vocabulary. It is THE most played out, overused and generic term, OF ALL FUCKING TIME!
What up Fuckers?! How's it goin'?!?!
Just wrapped up the "Imperium" video shoot yesterday. Man, at 3 days, that was the longest video shoot we’ve ever done. Had a blast doing it. Got a REAL good feeling about this video, man. We shot at 8 different locations, warehouse, white room, blood red room, Metal tree , bunch of others . Mike Sloat directed it. He’s not a big name director or anything, just a young, super hungry, talented up-and-comer, who had really, really good ideas and was able to make our ideas come to life. We’ll have a "Making of the Imperium video" up on the site in a few days.
The record is done!! Colin Richardson RULED the mixes, made it heavy as hell. Mastered it with Eddy Schreyer down in L.A. Eddy mastered BME, but for some reason we haven’t used him since. Needless to say, we will definitely use him in the future.
I went from mixing the record, right into the press tour, and got back from the press tour a couple of weeks ago. A press tour is where the label flies you into different countries and has you interviewed by the press in that country. It was hectic man, one of the biggest I’ve ever done. Flew to Paris, London, Amsterdam, 3 cities in Germany. Doing like 18 interviews a day, 12 hour days sometimes. Reaction from the press has been really positive, kinda flippin' out, calling it a comeback and shit, a "new" Machine Head. I don’t really take anything the press says to heart... good or bad... but it was nice to hear.
Finally started practicing last week. Dave and Phil had jammed a couple of times when I was gone, but these we’re the first with all 4 of us together.
Jesus?! We sounded like the most God awful Machine Head cover band you’ve ever heard. Lots of, "How does that riff go?? Oh yeah..." "What’s that lyric? Oh Yeah..." It was funny, it’s amazing what 3 months off will do. We're shaking the rust off though, slowly but surely.
Hella, hella, HELLA excited to get back on the road again. Had a contest on the Roadrunner website to name the Tour, the "Through the Ashes of Europe Tour" begins Oct 31st (Halloween) in Dublin, Ireland. We expect all you crazed lunatics to come Halloween-ed up in your craziest costumes. We plan on getting good and Vodka-ed up, and hope Dublin feels like joining us.
And that goes for the rest of the tour too, my beer breathed brethren. The Head hasn’t come to your city for a while now and we expect you 'Head'cases to come drink, raise hell, and celebrate being alive with us, like only you fuckers know how to.
Let the Vodka flow!
Woo – Hoo!!!
-Flynn
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What up Fuckers?!?!?!?!
Motherfuck, motherfuck, Noich, Noich, Noich..... Smoking weed, doing coke, smoking blunts, who smokes the blunts, we smokes the blunts, who drinks the Brown Eyes, we drinks the Brown Eyes....
And I drank A LOT of Brown Eyes the other night.
Whe-he-he-hew.
Cuh-lord have mercy.
Went to the Kerrang Awards, and had fuckin blast. The host / and editor Ashley Bird was fuckin' hysterical. Every Rock, Metal, Punk, and Emo-core band you've ever / never heard of was there. Hung out with Christian and Laz from Ill Nino all night. AC from the Murderdolls. Met, and got d-ru-huh-huh-unk with a really good emo-core (?) band called Funeral For a Friend, who won Best British Newcomer and are super cool guys. Met the singer for Killing Joke. The singer for The Used (who I don't really like, but was a really nice guy). Kicked it with Shavo from System for days, Nick from Dimmu. As well as hung with all my record company people who were cool enough to get me the hottest ticket in town at the last minute.
The Kerrang awards were a charming mix of rock-n-rollerz, and incredibly snobby, British music biz-ers who would start off conversations like... "Hey Robb nice to meet you, it's a shame your band never made it..."
No class man.
No class.
Hung out with Lars from Metallica (who were there to pick up a Kerrang Hall of Fame award). And I gotta say, he was a cool fuckin' dude. Never really hung out with him before other than, "Hi... bye... thanx for Donington". But the guy definitely gets a bad rap man. VERY down to earth, funny.
He took, and still takes, an unbelievable amount of shit for the whole Napster thing.
He was the figurehead. Everyone basically blamed "him" for it, even though the "band" made the decision. Yet he still gets out there, and does his thing.
Regardless of where you, or I stand on that issue, "he" took a stand for something "his band" believed in, took a firestorm of shit for it, and still keeps going. I think it would be tough to even show your face after all that. It must have been.
Think about it.
Could you do the same?
Put yourself in his shoes.
Would you want to go on as the Metallica mouthpiece after that?
Could you take a stand for something you believed in, (whatever it is),
and take THAT much shit, and still do what you do?
I don't know if I could.
I think I could, but I'm sure it'd be pretty fuckin' brutal.
Don't really know where I'm going with this, just some random thoughts I had after meeting him.
As you may have noticed, I'm still in England. Still wrapping up a couple of songs. We went a little over time on the mixing *cough*, in no small part because of me *cough, cough*, and Colin *cough, cough, cough*. Not to worry my Metal Maniacs, the metal is flowing like molten hot lava. We wrap up in a few days, and Master on the 31st of August. For sure!
WOO-HOO!!!
An 8 song advance went out to journalists the other day, so I'm sure it's only a matter of time before...*ahem*.
Now I ain't saying that every journalist is gonna do that, but you know...
The folks at our record company had a good idea, though - they suggested putting different mixes for different versions of each CD that's sent out, which we did. There are guitar up mixes, guitar down mixes, alternate vocal mixes, even no swearing versions floating around out there, that way, if it gets out, it'll make it easier to trace who leaked it. So, we'll see.
The feedback to TTAOE has been really positive so far. Did a playback session for the press, and everyone was really stoked, calling it a comeback and shit. Did another playback for press, RR street team-ers, and contest winners at a rad Metal club in London called The Intrepid Fox. People were pretty much freaking, really good reaction. Hollerin' that it sounds like (as we say in MH) the B-word. I chock that up to the free drinks at the open bar... you know... the more you drink, the less we stink.
LOL
The coolest comment I heard, was from a kid who, when talking about the melodic stuff on the record said, "I never doubted that you we're capable of making a record like this, I just never thought you would".
Thanx!... er...
Actually I thought it was a great, incredibly honest comment, and it meant a lot.
Start the press tour next Monday. Shooting a video for "Imperium" when I return mid-Sept. Brand new MP3's coming to the site soon. Week 2 of the video diary comin'. More Euro tour dates comin', plus Support bands to be announced... keepin' our fingers crossed. Album cover to be up very soon. New photos. New merch in production. Track listing is finalized:
01. Imperium
02. Bite The Bullet
03. Left Unfinished
04. Elegy
05. In The Presence Of My Enemies
06. Days Turn Blue To Gray
07. Vim
08. All Fall Down
09. Wipe The Tears
10. Descend The Shades Of Night
Bonus version of TTAOE that will include a bunch o' shit that only "hardcore" MH fans will appreciate. In other words... don't buy it if you're not!! It will also include 6 unreleased demo versions of the TTAOE songs.
Full lyrics included with CD, as well as song titles "on" the CD, as per your request, MH1erz.
EEEEEEeeeeeeeee.
Motherfuck, motherfuck, Noich, Noich, Noich..... Smoking weed, doing coke, smoking blunts, who smokes the blunts, we smokes the blunts, who drinks the Brown Eyes, we drinks the Brown Eyes....
Over and out.
-Flynn
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Hey Fuckers
What up from Merry old "warm" (?) England. I brought the Cali weather with me.
I write to you from the thriving metropolis that is Lincolnshire, England.... population "10"!! It's actually a "village"....... There's some really cool stuff around, once you get past the fact that there's nothing around.
It's beautiful. The English countryside is as cool as you've read about in books. Very lush and green, with brick cottages everywhere. Mist covers the hillsides in the morning, sleepy brooks wind through the village, and rabbits run wild, I feel like I'm in a Led Zeppelin song or something. Old buildings are all over the place, and when I say old, I mean O-L-D. The building next to me is from the 1300's!! For my California ass, that's hella fuckin' pre-California times.
Mixing is going fucking splendid. Got "Bite The Bullet" under our belts, working on "In The Presence Of My Enemies". Colin is the fuckin man!! Sonically it's..... well..... I'm not gonna say it sounds like this album, or that album...... I will say this, the main CD we are referencing during the process is our first album.
But it's not gonna be that!!!
It's funny though, we've had a couple of full circle moments.
Experimentation is cool, necessary even, but we ain't tryin' to experiment.
Colin's basically said "With what's on tape (hard drive?), there's only one place the sound can go".....
Song titles are completed, the following is not the final track list order,
but are the song titles themselves.
Through The Ashes Of Empires:
Imperium
Bite The Bullet
Left Unfinished
Elegy
In The Presence Of My Enemies
Days Turn Blue To Gray
Vim
All Falls Down
Wipe The Tears
Descend The Shades Of Night
European tour dates will be up by Thursday. UK dates are locked in and will be up later today, and we are hella fuckin stoked about em'.
AND, they sell Sam Adams Boston Lager at the Grocery Store 10 miles away.... WOO-HOO!!!!!
- Flynn
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WOO-HOO!!!!!!!!
Motherfuck, motherfuck, Noich, Noich, Noich..... Smoking weed, doing coke, smoking blunts, who smokes the blunts, we smokes the blunts, who drinks the Brown Eyes, we drinks the Brown Eyes....
And we
are
done.
With the recording that is.
Yesterday was our last official day in the studio. And everything went fucking excellent. We go to mix for 12 days on Aug. 2nd over in England with Colin. Master Aug 15th with George Marino at Sterling Sound. Doing photos this Friday with Alex Sulca.
Mr. Duce -aka- the Lord Of The Low End Frequency, threw down some Bad Ass Bass tracks, and vocals over the last few days, you heard right!! We have The Duce-ter back on the trade off vocals, and harmonies, and you're all gonna be jaw dropping-ly shocked at how good his voice sounds.
Demmel came in and threw down solos the other day as well, and without a doubt, it is his best solo work the guy has done since I've known him, just fucking slaying the Metal dragon. I've always felt the best solo we ever had on an album was Logan's solo in "Spine". Just a really cool, unique solo. Phil has thrown down a solo in Egypt II, now called "In The Presence Of My Enemies" that is now my favorite solo EVER. KK Downing eat your heart out.
I'm gonna be throwing some lyrics up in a minute, and will be writing a diary that goes into more detail about everything soon. Apologies for the laggin' on updates.......... but you know.... I been havin' to Pra-doos results.
-Da Pra-doos-err
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Finished my rhythym tracks on "Hawaiian Shirt Saturday". Topped it off with a couple Grey Goose Foo-Foos to celebrate with RF and engineer Mark Keaton.
Had a few rough spots, but got through 'em. Robbio's written some pretty fuckin' bad ass riffs on this one that aren't the easiest in the world to just bust out. It's gonna be a guitar heavy album so we want them right.
Mr. Flynn has settled in to the producers chair nicely and was very cool to work with in that capacity. He has some cool ideas and has my every confidence in getting it done.
Do my solos on thursday. I've been totally looking forward to that. It's definitely my best lead work I've done.
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Real quick cause I'm running late.
I finished tracking guitars, and Phil Demmer (Eternal spelling) started last night. He finished Bite The Bullet.
Did vocals to Devil Beat ( untitled ) yesterday.
Off-time riffs, full on almost "Forbidden" riff at the end ......funny ....full circle. All heavy vox, no singing, haven't done that in a while.
All guitars today.
Fat Tire Belgium Amber Ale...... WOO-HOO!!!!!!!!!
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Things are going really good. I started on my first passes of vox Saturday, did Descend and the album opener. Yesterday did some "very possible" keeper vox on the song we're temporarily calling Natural Science II ( a tribute to Rush ) One of the more proggish songs we've ever done, lots of off-time tempos. Really cool breakdown, a totally new kind of breakdown for us, kinda Coldplay-ish. And a really emotional build up, it's kind of a sad song, but in a pissed off way. I'm loving this song right now.
Doing some rough mixes today and probably starting guitars on the song we're calling Egypt II tommorow. Egypt II is the first song we wrote with Phil, and it ROCKS!!
Paul Brown locked in to do the package.
Alex Sulca doing photos.
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Finished my guitars on "Natural Science" yesterday, and got most of album opener ( Buh-duh-duh-duh ) completed, finishing up today. Ate salmon yesterday and had excruciatingly noxious death farts throughout all of BDDD, resulting in some pretty sick guitar tracks *ahem*... Ok, that was pretty bad *cough*
Picking up a Baritone acoustic guitar tommorow to record the verses for our Pink Floyd tribute "Descend the shades of night". Probably get to the heavy gits tonight.
Some crazy news yesterday, The Cure singer Robert Smith specifically asked for us to be a part of a tribute record coming out. WOO-HOO!!!!!!!!!!!
Props to the Headbangers Ball guys for giving some love to The Head last weekend, talking up the new record, announcing the release date.
As Keanu Reeves would say....."most excellent.........hwoah!"
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After a day of Tek-ni-kull fuck ups, we're back on, tracking FULL METAL guitars. I've finished 3 songs so far on my guitar tracks, Bite The Bullet, Jun-Jun ( soon to be given a real title ), and Natural Science ( An homage to Rush, and soon to be given a real title as well ). Probably gonna start on the Album opener today... which for now goes by the incredibly clever name "Buh-duh-duh-duh" ( Title coming soon ). Threw down some vox last night on BTB, nothing I want to keep yet, just keeping the throat in shape.
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Dave McClain = A True American Hero
Finished drum tracks yesterday. Start guitars today.
Woo-Hoo!!!!!
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DAMN!!!!
Day 2 had some technical stuff go wrong that didn't yield any keeper drum tracks. Day 3, McClain threw down, and completed a WHOPPING 8 out of 10 songs.
Just absolutely on fire yesterday. He ate his good luck Burger King meal, and wore his lucky 666 shirt, which he plans to eat and wear again today as well.
WOO - HOO!!!!!!
Hella long songs.
1 song 4 minutes.
The rest between 5 and 7 and 1/2 minutes long.
And, nothing your local Clear Channels owned Corporate radio Modern Rock station Program director will want to play, AT ALL.
Rigs
TMTC 5150 ( The one )
My ESP 6 string Baritone for Molten Metal Hot Lava-ness.
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Just got home from the first day of recording. Just getting drum sounds today, Andy Sneap ruled it today, killer drum tones! Start tracking drums tomorrow.
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