Home

It's been awhile since I've updated everyone on what has been happening, in part because of this wretched case of influenza that is not breaking up, and in part because, well, we as a band have been busy. And with home comes changes. I spent a few days in Paris at my own house that I purchased after our Grammy win in 2016. It was good to be there, and with the flight and driving time it's about two hours from the studio in Geneva. Hannya was there too, as of course as an almost final act in the US, we got married. We're now at our home in Geneva where I've been resting up and trying to get better. Swiss chocolate helps.

We've been back and forth too. We first landed in Geneva separately, with Trish and Gabe coming first with our EU executive producers Lysander Kjell and Jonathan Hope. Hannya then went on his own; I was going to go with but last minute stayed to support Erik at a final performance in the US. I was going to perform but with the flu, I was barely doing anything. So Erik and I flew back with our new international manager, Daniel Delaney.

The band and Lysander Kjell (back middle) at Ace Productions in Geneva.

And as much as Lysander promised us two weeks rest... we still worked. As our largest fanbase is in Finland, we had a surprise concert, both for us and for the fans. We flew up to Helsinki and played a short set from our upcoming album, followed by a Q&A with the audience. We played the rough tracks for Lys at the studio and have already made several changes, going from two albums to one long one instead, and bringing half of The B-Sides in with the rest of Phoenix and adding in a few more songs that are being written as I type. Well, not as I type as I am composing them.

Three of us on stage in Helsinki.

It was fun to play in Helsinki again. I love the venue there, huge stage, great lighting, and great people working at it. Plus, we have our regular crew back in full, and our sound engineers, everyone. And it was very much a surprise; we were told we were going for a press conference at the venue, and our crew was there unloading our gear into the green room and setting up the stage. Plus, it was fun having Trish playing again; Ryujin couldn't make it so he stepped in last minute. Then again, as he and Gabe founded the band, it was more like old times. Only we all were sober.

But, now we bunker down and finish this album. Because of the last minute, not fully planned move back to Europe, we had planned on recording in Colorado, sending to Geneva, and letting them do the rest, but seems that as we are in Geneva, they'll be running the show, which is more than welcome. It's good to be home. Hopefully in a couple weeks we'll have the final track list down for the album and can announce a release date. And before that, well, we are going to tomorrow already start working on recording it. I have in an envelope a copy of Guitar magazine, and should once I get to said piece of mail, be able to post it for everyone to read and drool over too. They gave me permission to post it here too. Like this post, I will link this to Twitter where most of you come from anyway.