Remember to remember

So we're fully into the swing of Autumn now, at least where I am. The clocks have gone back, everything gets dark before we really want it to, and people starting putting the heating on and turning their houses into ovens (it never gets that cold too quickly). Also, as just about everyone knows, the beginning of November brings with it 2 rather memorable dates in the British calendar, one of which is today, remembrance day. It can be a heartwarming experience as at 11am on the 11th November, we are encouraged to be still for two minutes and reflect on all those that have given their lives, or put themselves on the line, in war, to protect others. Anybody who follows good telly will tell you certain cinematic experiences such as Band Of Brothers or The Pacific will certainly leave you in the debt of those that are being portrayed, though it is fair to say that, however well those things are filmed, it is impossible to get a true grasp of the horror of what those people go through in national service. And for that, I think the least people can do is stand and reflect for 2 minutes of their day.
     I opted to sit on my sofa, watching the silent pictures on BBC News and also surveying an extensive view from four floors up in my flat over quite a large space, and rather sadly every now and again, catching a glimpse of someone that was obviously not feeling the need to think about such things. Obviously, everyone is different, but the comparison on a day like today with the other common day in our November calendar does get a little annoying. I can't help but think of all the people that did not take part earlier today, but who possibly planned a large part of last weekend around a fireworks display, traditionally to commemorate a person over 400 years ago who tried to blow up parliament. Call me old fashioned if you like, but I've always thought this, and I believe human tragedy and all thought that surrounds it should always be remembered in the most appropriate way possible.
     Without meaning to be all doom and gloom, as many are aware, we had some pretty terrible news that hit our Boxer camp over the last few weeks. Whilst it's not appropriate for me to go into any more detail than we have previously stated right now, I know I speak for all of us when I say it has been tremendously uplifting to view literally hundreds and hundreds of messages from people all over the world expressing their sympathies and good will. Every single one of them did not go unnoticed. It goes without saying that we are not a band of quitters, and it was with deep regret that we had to pull the dates in America and beyond, but it really was necessary under the circumstances, and a big thank you goes out to all those who sent their best wishes our way.
     We are a positive bunch, and whilst not being the other side of the pond and playing shows right now really is sad, we have used our time at home to good effect. A lot of bands write on the road, but that is less easy for us as a whole, so we make sure we take advantage of some rehearsal time when we can, and whilst The Cold Still is still proudly burning in our musical hearts, we have also unearthed some new beasts, of which we are becoming increasingly proud of. In the mean time, it is onwards and upwards to making sure we end the year on a high. We have been aching to do another show since we played at Shepherd's Bush Empire a few weeks back - and thank you to everyone that made that night so special for us. It really was one of the best nights that we have ever had. We are, in case people didn't know, picking back up on the gigging trail at the beginning of December with a handful of shows in Holland, followed by a whistle stop tour over on the west coast of America, and then finishing with 2 rather splendid nights in Brussels and Paris. I'm sure you will hear from me before then, but if you live near any of those shows, it would be a pleasure to see you there. Thank you again people, you're a cracking bunch of fans to have.

Piers.

In The Empire

Reflect And Respect

I realise that a few of my blogs in the past have contained some rather morbid subject matter, but I suppose blogs exist because something has provoked your thought. I have tried to keep things regular, but I guess on occasion, not an awful lot has provoked my thought enough to warrant making people read it. Last week, I referred to our media circus - the News Of The World phone hacking scandal that seems to have got everyone's goat over the last few weeks. Only 6 days ago, you couldn't move for people talking about shaving foam pies being thrown at Mr Murdoch himself. And now, in a remarkably sad twist of fate, all the attention has suddenly spread elsewhere. When true sadness envelops the media, there really is no other news.
     It has been interesting and sad to see how people have reacted to the deaths of some unknown names in Norway, and the death of the rather more famous name of Amy Winehouse over the weekend. You hear the phrase "get things into perspective" quite often in conversation in every day life, but that is a rather difficult thing to apply here. Quite like the natural disasters of recent times, Friday's news from Norway just beggars belief. How anyone could plan and carry out such attacks on innocent people (and even claim he was not breaking the law), is just beyond understanding, and I have felt sadness for all the victims of the atrocities all weekend. Of that there is no doubt.
     Obviously through no-one's fault, the attention of your average Joe Bloggs has been drawn away from that sad event to the news of the passing away of, let's face it, one of the most talented singers of recent times. I was in my local pub when the news of Amy Winehouse's death broke, and you could literally hear it go round the place. One of the saddest aspects of this weekend, is that these two tragic events happened so close to one another, that people felt the need to compare them, when really, there is no comparison to be made at all. One thing that some people have decided is that it is not possible to be sad about both, largely because (though not proven but mainly accepted) Amy's demise was brought about by herself. The rights or wrongs of those kinds of statements I don't believe are right for me to discuss, but I will say that in both instances, many people are currently suffering grief, in whatever way it came about, and in Amy's case, many of those people have tried very hard, and ultimately in vain, to stop that happening. And the coverage and opinion offered to these events in no way reflects the importance of what has happened either, in terms of comparison. I believe Simon Pegg expressed on twitter just this morning that the closer death is, the more reflective we get. Obviously he was referring to having met and/or known her, but we are talking about someone that has, rightly or wrongly, been afforded some major column inches in the British press. And for that people's interest is naturally going to be high, hence the amount of press coverage it has been given - which I have seen criticised.
     I guess what I am really getting at is that the best thing about the expanse of social networking is that everybody has a voice or an opinion. Unfortunately, that can also be the worst thing about it too, A sense of perspective is not the most important thing for me here, but a sense of respect most certainly is. And for anybody waking up on this Monday with a sense of loss that wasn't there last Monday, for whatever reason, my heart most definitely goes out to them. And that includes the families and friends of Lance Corporal Jabari N. Thompson, and Corporal Mark Anthony Palin.
     Sorry for this not being particularly chirpy, but I suppose you could say I have had many thoughts provoked over the last couple of days. To bring things into a slightly happier context, we, the Boxer boys will be back on a rather long road tomorrow morning, all the way down to Grenoble for a festival on Wednesday evening, the same day that we will be putting out a new product for your listening pleasure - a collection of tracks (a live album, if you will) taken from our gig in Nathan's home town of Maryville, Tennessee last October. It even comes with your choice of artwork - some rather well taken live shots of the four of us. We hope that those of you that choose to buy it have as enjoyable time listening to it as we did making it. Here is a link to more information about it, if you hadn't seen it already.
http://theboxerrebellion.com/news/story/live-in-tennessee-out-july-27/
Thanks for reading.

Piers.

Really Hacked Off.

When I was younger, hacking to me meant just one thing. It meant I wasn't fast enough to catch whoever it was that was faster than me when playing football on the school field at lunch, thus leaving me with one option - take a big swing with the left boot and chop away at their speedy legs. No worries of a yellow/red card. This is lunchtime football we're talking about where the rulebook simply doesn't exist. Another major show of ignorance of a different rule book (let's call this the moral rulebook) has taken place over obviously quite long a period of time that has meant the word "hacking" means a completely different thing to me nowadays. Our news coverage in the UK has been absolutely littered over the last fortnight with continual stories of News International, and specifically one of it's papers, News Of The World, hacking into some very high profile phones indeed. It seems politicians and celebrities were not enough for the greedy paws of some News Of The World journalists, and the stories that have emerged of phones being hacked of murder victims, families of war victims and even 9/11 victims are nothing less than some of the most shocking things I have ever read. And all because they wanted to sell a few more papers. Indeed, when news becomes news, you know that things are not looking good.
     The upshot of it all is really rather blurred. It's a fantastic shot in the arm for anyone with an anti-tabloid stance - and there are many of those - and it is currently dismembering Rupert Murdoch's bloated media empire as we speak, which can only be a good thing. In fact, our political talk of the morning today is taken up with people stating there should be laws on multi-ownership of our media. On a far less important level, this is not allowed in the ownership of football clubs, so how it has carried on for so long in our media circus is quite the joke. The fall guys of course (other than the victims themselves) are the innocent ones. The people in the background of things at News Of The World. The people who do sports reports, arts reviews and all sorts of other jobs that were a million miles away from the disgusting corruption that has gone on, who are now, as a result of the paper ceasing to exist, out of work. The whole thing has left a sour taste in the mouth and has dominated a lot of conversation in these parts, that's for sure.
     One part of the media that is obviously NOT on the downturn is the internet. With us hardly being darlings of the press ourselves, it is on the web that a lot of our support has consistently come. A sign of that this week came from the nice people at http://www.blackcabsessions.com/ and http://www.last.fm/ who got us involved in what they were doing. It started with a rather good black cab session (it does exactly what it says on the tin) which involved a cool rendition of 'No Harm'. I actually have to take people's word for it on this one, as due to a lack of space, I was temporarily ousted from The Boxer Rebellion and they did it as a 3-piece (I'm sure they would all vouch for the fact it was better without me...). These cabs aren't that big you know. There are lots of cool sessions available to view on their website, which is linked 3 lines up. Definitely worth checking out.
     Straight after that, I met the boys out of their cab, right in the heart of London on Carnaby Street, where we performed a short 3-song acoustic set. I don't think we can say that it was spontaneously announced the night before, for obvious reasons, but it was revealed at the last minute, giving it quite a nice pop-up feel. There was a large bunch of people there when we played (including a friend of ours who apologised afterwards for turning up late and "only getting to see the last 3 songs" - quote of the day for me). It was a really fun experience for everybody (other than when Todd's mini amp decided it needed a break), so thank you to anyone who turned up with such late notice, and we hope anyone that was there deemed it worthwhile to give up their lunchbreak for. Or their entire day for a handful. Big kudos must go to the nice chap (never forget, I am terrible with names...) who traveled up from Brighton just for it. Even more must go to the 2 girls we met who traveled all the way up from Southampton especially, and missed the whole thing. I did feel bad about that one - like we should have taken them out for lunch or something.
     I think had we done that, they might have ended up regretting it as I would have to have taken them somewhere that included watching the first round of the British Open (golf, if this is all alien to you). Indeed, I am about to settle down now, with regular cups of tea, to watch the final round, kind of hoping that, after all the fuss of the super-talented and young Rory McIlroy, that actually 42-year-old Darren Clarke, with his self-confessed un-athletic physique and on course smoking habit, can see it through and show them all how it's done. Which is kind of like going to a festival hoping to discover the really exciting next big thing, getting to the end, and then realising that the best thing you saw was Bruce Springsteen. And I say that because it's happened before. Anyway, where did I put those tea bags...
Piers.

Home Sweet Home

Time does indeed fly when you've been having fun. Or, if you've just been really busy. My attention has been drawn, from a number of angles, to the fact that I have remained blogless for a little while now. I do enjoy keeping people updated so I won't put it down to laziness, but I am pretty forgetful these days, and days do occasionally pass me by without me realising, so I'd much rather put it down to that.
     Having said that, in band world (and therefore my world) over the last few weeks, we have struck a level of routine not known to us for some time. Solid touring has taken way to a few festivals, and in between that, starting the writing for our 4th album. And in between all that, lots of small things pop up that you have forgotten about, like seeing the same people on the same train on consecutive days, reading the same paper in the same seat (I shall refrain from laying into this in any way, because I am one of those people that sits in the same seat on the way up to town - but then all my cds are alphabetically and chronologically ordered, so I would do that). Other simple things suddenly become nice like actually being able to phone your friends up and asking them down the pub on spec, rather than getting the diaries out. And getting into a habit of remembering when TV shows are on, and actually watching them. Touring is great in so many ways, but there are always things that draw you back, however small. In fact, I often say to people that when you're away, you often want to be at home, and when you're at home you often want to be on tour.
     Now though, I'm quite happy having a bit of routine for a while - probably because I know how much we'll be away come the Autumn (keep your eyes peeled very soon for new tour dates by the way). We are not a 5 day-a-week rehearsal band - that would send us loopy - but we are in a habit of at least a couple of days a week right now, and you might be pleased to know that new material is slowly being bled out of the creative stone. It can be a slow and frustrating process, and anyone who has ever tried to create anything arty from nothing will vouch for that. Some days I can look at my sticks and wonder what the hell I'm going to get out of them. But whilst getting there can be like pulling teeth for me, 'giving birth' to a new song that we're all proud of is one of the best things about being in a band. For that reason, whilst I find it much easier to get myself on stage to play than to rehearsals, I am very much looking forward to the end of the summer, where we can survey the scene and see where album 4 is headed.
     We have also been playing a few festivals this summer too, as some of you may be aware. Apologies to those in the UK who are still waiting around to see us via the red button playing in a field somewhere - we would like nothing more than to be a red button band. We'll get there soon. For the moment, I guess you'll have to be in the know a bit more to catch us at a festival. We have enjoyed our times on stage so far this summer though don't get me wrong. I remember last summer, after we played an acoustic show in the VIP area at V Festival, I shared a main stage Kings Of Leon experience with a friend from another band who shall remain nameless (though they do bigger festival slots than us). The Kings were apparently finding the crowd quite hard, and had to stop to plead with the crowd to get into it a bit more, complaining that "we've come a long way to play in front of you guys". To which my nameless friend turned to me and made the very accurate observation that they were also getting paid an awful lot of money to do so too. Not bemoaning our fee at all, but we got paid considerably less to play at Rockness in Northern Scotland the other week, and I reckon our travel hours were fairly similar - and we did it in the back of a splitter van rather first class air travel (and stayed in travelodge, Perth the night before!). And you don't hear us complaining, I'll tell you that. It was a lovely setting for a festival - possibly the best I've seen - right near the banks of Loch Ness. Just the right size and not overcrowded too, like so many of the main UK festivals. We had a nice Sunday afternoon slot in (just about) nice weather. Then, in contrast to anything Kings Of Leon have probably done in years, packed our stuff up, left the site at 4.45 in our splitter van and drove all the way - to London. This included loading the gear into our lock up in the middle of the night. I got into bed at 3.45am, exactly 12 hours after I was about to go on stage in Scotland! I don't say any of this for any kind of a sympathy vote, I guess more to blow away the rock and roll pretense that so many bands like to keep up, for reasons I know not. It's a job a lot of the time, but it's a job that some people should realise more often that an awful lot of people would also love to do in their place. Which is why you won't see us complaining too much!
     So if you see us at a festival in the UK or Europe over the next few weeks, if you can find yourself a pass, you could probably help us load out if you want. See, I didn't even put an exclamation mark, thus meaning maybe a small percentage of me isn't joking! (I'll put on there though, before I take this too far). Anyway, as I said, we are confirming a whole host of things right now, and in a week or so, there will not only be a load of new tour dates, but we will also have a spangly new line in merchandise for you to purchase, if merch is your kind of thing, so keep your eyes on our sites. And don't forget, if walking around in a Boxer Rebellion bikini is NOT your thing (that's probably not going to happen by the way, so don't be disappointed!), then you can always spend your days glued to our twitter pages:
@piershewitt @nathannicholson @adsharrison and @todd_boxer. We can be funny. Sometimes.
     Or, finally, you can join in with one of my home routines too if you like. If you didn't know, whilst I am home for reasonable periods, I have a radio show on a local station to where I live, which you can find online at: http://www.phoenixfm.com
It's Tuesdays 10pm til midnight (if you live in the UK), if listening to me warble through my music collection appeals to you. In fact, I have to go as I'm on in an hour. Which is probably good anyway as I can see how long this is already. See some of you soon, and others, well, longer...

Piers.

Britain's Got Talent?

You have probably heard me complain before about one of the things I dislike the most about being on tour. Missing my TV. I am not a guy that spends all day every day on the sofa, demanding someone makes me cheese sandwiches and milkshakes. But when I do sit down, on whatever day that might be, I can certainly remain there, in front of the box, for a lot longer than some. I watch a lot of sport, but rarely get into many series because I like to sit and watch things like that with other people, like my wife. On my own, I watch a lot of throwaway stuff when I get going, which is what makes watching sport easy to do. So with that in mind, being on tour is a massive positive in regard to me getting sucked in to whatever reality/talent show that is running at the time.
     We had a great couple of weeks in Europe prior to last weekend, which meant I came back to the UK at the climax of the ironically named 'Britain's Got Talent'. I'm sure I don't need to patronise you by explaining how it works. Even America's got an equally terrible version of it now. In fact, on a programme I stumbled across the other day, entitled '50 Most Shocking Talent Show Moments', I saw a woman from a previous series of 'America's Got Talent', actually breaking various objects with her massive breasts. Quite how anybody interprets this as a talent is beyond me.
     Anyway, back to last week. So the judges managed to whittle the competition down to a select few, which included a woman who sang with a dog in her arms whilst the dog attempted to make similar noises, a man who tried to make a musical show out of the fact he could pop his eyes in and out, and someone's Grandma playing on old organ like she's about to have a cardiac arrest with a smile on her face. And she made the final. I'll admit it, I'm amused and entertained by all this, which is why I end up watching it. But in a similar way to how people slow down on a motorway to check out a car pile up. Most of the time it's so bad, it's compelling to see how seriously people take things, sometimes, for literally 5 minutes of fame. Occasionally, if they are talented/odd enough, they might make a couple of tours of big venues and then trickle down through the club backwaters until almost everyone has forgotten about them because a new series of the same show has started, and the general public has moved on. It's a cycle so obvious, it still makes me wonder how every year people queue up for hours just for the slimmest chance of it all.
     As an artist, there is a genuinely annoying side to this too though. Joe Bloggs is now subjected to entertainment, or in my thought case, music, that is so watered down, that people start to believe that it is ok to buy albums by people who are effectively creating glorified karaoke. Believe me, as a lot of people have known for years that I play in bands, I have been asked for my opinion on heaps of artists who have come off that type of gravy train. And it's difficult to offer much positivity towards them without sounding arrogant or rude, which is never how I mean to come across. To put it into context, there was a chap who nearly won the whole competition on Saturday who had quite a nice Joe Cocker type voice. It says a lot that I can't remember his name, but through entering an audition, and possibly playing a collection of no more than 3 covers on his acoustic guitar, he has achieved more TV time than we, The Boxer Rebellion, could ever dream of, through the hard working avenues that we have to pursue. I do not begrudge the guy, as it is not his fault at all, but it is frustrating to see people get so excited about someone who can sing a bit of Tracey Chapman quite well.
     The other aspect of this is singles. What is a single these days? That's certainly a difficult question to answer.  Back in 2005 we had the fortune (though we didn't think that way at the time) of being released from our record label in the week of release of our debut album. It was a weird time when it happened, particularly with a perfectly good new album delivered, but we all remember thinking that the writing was on the wall when our last single, 'All You Do Is Talk' was only being given a digital release, instead of physical as well. How times have changed. It's pretty much all digital now. Take a look at the current UK Top 40 singles charts and you will find Tracey Chapman in there at number 28 (incidentally, higher than we have ever had a single placed), not through any kind of campaign, but because this chap performed her song on Britain's Got Talent. And all this time, we're on the independent route, with a new single of our own, busting a gut to see who, if anyone, would like to play our new record. And not necessarily for a chart placing either, just for some album awareness, to continually put us in a more comfortable position to write and record album 4 (which has started by the way - the writing at least). In the process of my being entertained, it is equally enough to make me throw my hands up in the air and think, what's the point? But it's a different beast doing what we're doing. We're way beyond fame ever being important to us - our joke twitter followers count competitions when we're away will tell you that. But making music - our own music - that is credible to us and enough other people, to keep us sustained and growing really is our first priority. And until I lose it and enter The X Factor singing a Phil Collins cover, that is how it shall remain.  
If you haven't seen the video for our new single then you can check it out here. We appreciate it is different for us, and it resulted in a lot of hard debate, but it is beautifully shot, and it's certainly better than 4 guys playing in a white room! We hope you like it.

And if you want to makes us feel more famous than we actually are, don't forget our twitter handles - @piershewitt, @adsharrison, @todd_boxer and @nathannicholson.  

Piers.

To Holland and back

I leave my blog for 5 minutes (well, a bit more than 2 weeks actually) and I find myself back in the land of ham and cheese. Which, can I just say, is not a bad thing. As far as sandwiches go, you can do a lot worse than ham and cheese. I want that set in stone from the offset.
     It is safe to say that quite a bit has happened since I last sat down to do this. That royal wedding thing happened for a start. I remember that just before I went to bed in some west coast hotel room, I flicked on one of the multiple channels covering it. I was lucky enough to see David Beckham showing his wife up (again), arriving at the wedding, rather stylishly decked out with his OBE medal, whilst she was wearing a hat that went as far down the forehead as possible. I turned over and went to sleep for what was actually quite a full night in American tour terms. When I woke up and turned the telly back on, Bill and Kath STILL hadn't got to the palace. No wonder everyone having street parties and royal wedding pub crawls in Britain got so utterly smashed. As an aside, I am happy to join the bandwagon here and state that Kate's sister, Pippa was indeed looking very hot - and I told my wife that too.
     So, I bet you all thought that was the event of the weekend right? Well, you're wrong. Despite the criminal lack of TV coverage, event of the weekend have to go to our show at The Roxy in LA the following day. We seem to have been to LA loads for one thing or another, but that was only our second time doing our own show there, so to go there, play such a notorious venue and sell it out a week up front was pretty special. And if any of you were there, well, you made it even more special. What a great crowd. And just when any of the crowd were thinking that they were having the best night in ages, we made it even better, and pulled out our never-seen-at-a-Boxer-gig-before joker in pack. Actually, I say that like we had anything to do with this, but other than agreeing to it, we didn't. We had a lovely email from a fan a few days before the show to ask for a very special favour. We had our first first marriage proposal, live on stage. Trust me, standing at the back of the stage, it was like something out of a film. I think it goes without saying that she said yes (she wouldn't have got out of the venue alive otherwise!), and we have a great video of it knocking about that you should check out.
     The American trip finished in a blur of tired goodness, as you can imagine, so our week at home could not have come soon enough (except for Nathan, who had the pleasure of a friend's wedding and a week's holiday in Jamaica, the lucky git). I'm not convinced I've ever suffered jetlag/tiredness as much, which was not helped by me, as best man, having to arrange and be part of my brother's stag do (bachelor party) only 2 1/2 days after getting back home. It was a 15 hour day that set me back a good couple of days I can tell you. I will not lower the standards of this blog such that I will tell you how many times he worshiped the porcelain god, but I can reveal it was more than once.
     So that week was largely spent trying to sleep without waking up at 5am, and then trying not to drop off to sleep in the afternoon. And everyone knows how unpleasant it becomes in the mouth to eat something, fall asleep for an hour and then wake up. Not nice. We were also treated to a week of bitchy politics in the UK as not only did we have local council elections the day after our return but also our first national referendum for decades on a slightly watered down version of the electoral reform that one half of our coalition government wants. Firstly, I shall never understand how low election turnouts generally are, particularly for local elections, which day to day, probably affect people more than general elections. Secondly, our referendum awareness was poor enough that as a country, we have just voted no, and blown the chance of electoral reform for probably more than a generation. The councilor I voted for also lost her seat, so it was a double whammy for me. Elections do suck for the underdogs. The week of news following was not a pretty one for the two parties in our coalition. I am not the first to say that I don't think it's going to last very long.
     So after about probably a day and a half of feeling back to normal, we are back out in Europe. Not all of Europe sadly, but as I'm sure people are aware, there are other areas we will cover just as soon as we can. Fortunately, Holland wanted us back very quickly, and the first few shows this week have been really fun times for us. The first show in Den Haag was part of a festival called Walk The Line, a great festival set in a few venues right in the heart of the town. The show on Friday was great, and Saturday was largely spent drinking some nice local beers in the sunshine, watching a few quality acts. A big 'word up' has to go to The Staves, a set of 3 sisters who put in a stint of some of the finest harmonies you will ever hear. They are friends of ours', but I'm pretty sure it was the first time we have all seen them. If you have the opportunity, you should do the same, and they are recording their debut album in June, under very special circumstances, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
     So after playing our first ever shows in Rotterdam and Utrecht we are now just about to embark on our first show ever in Eindhoven. It is remarkable how far removed these drives are compared to what we just did in America. We drove here last night from Utrecht, which took just under an hour, and now here we all are, with loads of spare time, sat in the lobby (due to the lack of in-room wifi) on our various Apple products, in almost absolute silence. If any of you thought hanging out with the Boxer Rebellion was an exciting experience, right now, you might change your minds. We'll ramp it up for this evening, I promise. Must go. I'm off to study how much of Ireland's money (that they don't have) that the Queen's visit is to cost in security...

Piers.

Royally Bored

Here's some useless information for you. My parents are hoarders. They are the kind of people that when they get to the holidays (they're teachers), they sort things. Not clear, but sort them. There's a big difference there. It basically means that every corner of their house is full up of stuff, and sometimes, around holiday time, it looks pretty tidy. If I were to take you there, the first thing I would do is show you is their collection of mugs. It is a ridiculously plentiful collection which takes up space in no less than 4 rooms. I am not even joking. To be fair to them, they do rotate them very regularly, so as to remind them of places they've been etc, but in all honesty (and I have told them this) that is what pictures are for. Tomorrow undoubtedly gives them an opportunity to extend their collection further. If this hasn't happened already, I'm sure it won't be too long before the William and Kate (or Wills and Kath, as I like to call them) wedding mug turns up on the royal mug shelf (oh yes, the royal mugs have their own shelf - the Charles and Di mug is looking a bit sorry for itself I have to say).
     Yes, the royal wedding. I'm on the other side of the world and I still can't get away from it. I've heard some ridiculous things this week. I've heard no less than 5,000 police are going to be on duty for it. I had 2 ushers (Adam and Nathan actually) directing people down a country lane for where to park. I've heard that there are also 1,000 military on duty. I also saw on the news that a 76 year old woman plonked her chair down in Westminster on Tuesday afternoon and wasn't moving until the wedding. What does she think is going to happen? Get a last minute sympathy invite? There are few things that appeal to me less than sitting around for 3 days and nights, outside, purely to catch a glimpse of a woman getting out of a carriage. On the plus side, she probably made it on to last item on News at Ten, and when you've made it there, I guess you can die happy.
     In case you hadn't guessed, this is one wedding that can pass me by thank you very much. Nothing against them, but the fuss is painful to watch. The only positive aspect is that we get an extra public holiday tomorrow in the UK, which, considering I am not only self-employed but also on the other side of the world, is rather useless to me. The royal family get 10 minutes of my time each year - the Queen's Christmas Day message, which is religiously watched in our family. Assuming I haven't missed a year, that's 5 hours and 10 minutes of time I'm never going to get back. So, the wedding won't be getting much of my attention I'm afraid. Luckily, I will be in the best position possible to give it a swerve. Either in bed, or in the back of the van on the way to San Francisco with my equally royally-apathetic bandmates.
     San Francisco will be the 3rd to last show on this tour, which I can assure you has been an excellent time for us, and many memories have been created. And everyone has been holding up pretty well considering that we haven't had a day off on the whole tour. If you look on our itinerary, our tour manager lists our travel days as days off. This label has never seemed so ridiculous as on Sunday just gone. We played a lovely intimate show in Minneapolis on Saturday and then set off at 8am the next morning. If you've followed our whereabouts at all, you'll know the next show we played was in Vancouver. Not exactly down the road. When I turned onto the I-94, I saw something on the sat nav that I will probably never see again. In the bottom corner it said, 'Turn in 950 mls'. If you didn't get the abbreviation there, what that meant was, we were directed to stay on the same road for nine-hundred-and-fifty MILES. You're reading a guy that lives in a country about the size of Florida, so that was quite a shock to me. I'll tell you what it wasn't though. It wasn't a day off. We pounded 1,000 miles on Sunday, got to the hotel at 11.30pm, then the next day we did it all again, leaving at 8am, and arriving at midnight. Needless to say, we were mighty relieved to turn up and find out our hotel was literally on top of the venue for the following day. I had such a gloriously lazy morning, I even had a shave, which believe me, doesn't happen very often.
     In case you hadn't noticed, facial hair has been a hot topic on this tour. Our guitar tech Rob (otherwise known as Eddie Rogert) inexplicably grew out a 5 month beard from our last batch of touring in the Autumn to this, and the first day he turned up in London in March was a shock, I can tell you. I think I may have even talked about it before, which isn't a problem, as it's well worth drawing attention to. Sadly the beard has a limited lifespan, as in a week's time, Nathan and Rob will be sunning their pale bodies in Jamaica at one of their best friend's weddings, and the beard, despite being the very definition of excellent, is not a look to pull off at a wedding. So Rob's beard is going through a nine stage process of getting chopped and we're calling it the Beardstravaganza. We are currently at stage 4, which is called The Gettysburg, for reasons that you will understand when you look at the pictures. They were blogged on our twitter if you fancy a flick through. Also, when checking The Gettysburg, you might want to consider that this guy is a qualified doctor. Without meaning to harp on about Rob too much, he is currently nursing some huge disappointment. His own musical project, Eddie Rogert, is new to facebook, and he has spent quite a while with 37 facebook friends. He has been stuck on 37 for so long, I was considering giving him a new nickname, until this morning, when he discovered his facebook friends had not gone up, but down to 36. This is facebook hurt of the highest order, and if any of you would like to take a minute to check out Eddie Rogert's page and just click on like, then you would make our bearded boy's day.
     Finally, I realise that this blog has been on the good natured side, so I don't want to bring anyone down too much, but bad news seems to have popped up all too commonly lately, which includes this week. Conversation in the van will tell you that our thoughts are with anyone that has been affected by the tornadoes that have hit south-east America. Obviously, having a Tennessee guy in the band makes this quite close to home. Whilst the disaster's scale is much smaller than what happened in Japan, it is no less shocking, and it saddens me to know that families and communities have been torn apart as a result. I hope for a speedy recovery there, that's for sure.
     I'll write off now, but before I do, I just wanted to again say thank you for those that have been turning up on this tour. It really has been a pleasure to meet some of you, and to sell out a lot of these shows aswell has made our job (and the drives in between) so much more enjoyable. And thank you too for the drinks and gifts we have been kindly given by some of you too, though if any of you offer me a William and Kate mug, it WILL go on ebay.

Piers.

Blood, Sweat and Tears

I'll get this out of the way early. I have really stretched things in order to use that title. Before you get worried, our sound man, James, turned up at the venue yesterday complaining that, basically, he'd bitten himself, and his gum was bleeding. A bit. Not strictly taking blood for the team, but I saw some claret all the same. I am not aware that anyone else has shed any blood on this tour, so far. As for the sweat thing, well that's pretty obvious. Anyone who has checked us out at our merch table after a show will know, categorically, that you are catching me at my most disgusting point of the day. I pride myself on always showering, every day, sometimes twice or even 3 times, so I guess you could call it a necessary evil of the job that a lot of pictures of myself that land up on the internet have me standing there with sweat dripping down my face, or even worse, in a t-shirt drenched in the stuff. As for the tears, we shall come onto that later.
     I think we had a feeling that this tour would start well before we left home, if only because we were aware of how many more of you had bought tickets for this tour than last time. I will choose to forget the massive American guy sat next to me on the plane, with bigger shoulders than myself who, in no uncertain terms, dominated my armrest for the whole flight (resulting in me sitting at a weird angle for 7 hours, and giving myself a strange back pain the next morning). So that aside, we were correct in our predictions. It all started, strangely enough, with us bumping into 2 of the guys from Elbow at the check in desk. Guy Garvey, in typically lovely fashion, later left the comfort of the Virgin lounge (it was their first bump up ever apparently - I told him I didn't believe him), to come down to the cattle lounge that is the waiting area in Terminal 3 in Heathrow to buy us a round of drinks. Monday afternoon isn't my usual London Pride tipple time, but I'm never one to turn down a freebie. Anyway, it's a fine example of what a top chap he is, and he followed that through the next day by bigging us up in some of his radio promo enough to make the station themselves get us in for an interview the following day.
     As a result, Wednesday morning was an early, bleary eyed start - which is a shame as I'd like to have seen more of Boston. For the second time we swung by for a few hours, I never went further than a block from the venue, we had a fantastic show full of welcoming people, and then sadly we had to get straight out of town. Maybe next time. And a big thank you goes to various people (some friends, some fans) who were the reason none of us paid for dinner on Tuesday. These things don't get forgotten.
     And then New York. We have been lucky enough to visit New York quite a number of times the last couple of years, as some of you may know, and it is definitely a city I just never tire of. I always look forward to going there, not least because we are also lucky enough to have quite a few special chums from there too. And there come the tears. These are not sad tears I refer to. These are tears from sitting in a bar and laughing too much. The best kind of tears, obviously. We meet a remarkable amount of great people on our travels, and often very creative people with great personalities. This, quite often, results in beer-assisted conversation of the highest order. So here is a little question I will put to you. If you feel the desire to respond, that may well brighten up our tour travels. This stemmed from a friend of ours' declaring that Sting had been in her office that afternoon. Which made me think - and put to the group - that if you were to name yourself after a word, what would be? When thinking about this, consider that the reason you would do this is because you would be famous enough for the world's media to want to refer to you as a single word. This should not work if you are a hot dog seller. Also, I/we decided that it was to be a one syllable affair. If you were to ask me who has the better name out of Sting and Bono, I'm afraid Sting wins it by a massive stretch. So, here are our names:

Adam - ICE. This has little meaning, admittedly, but rather brilliantly, arose from his wife having an option to enter an 'In Case of Emergency' contact on her phone. Obviously, he's the man, but for some reason, it came up as ICE on the phone, when any contact was made. I believe she even calls him it every now and again, which is obviously real-life excellence.
Piers (or me, I suppose...never a fan of referring to myself in the 3rd person) - DICE. I realise this is very close to Adam's name, but I assure you they are unconnected. I have a phrase to go with this name. "You never know what you're gonna get - Roll Me". This has become more popular as a result of Adam revealing that I am possibly the most predictable person he's ever met. Everyone loves a bit of irony.
Todd - LIX. Given he was not there for the original conversation, his thinking time when asked about this was rather more limited than ours'. A few average names were thrown about, but I think he's stuck with this. I'm guessing it might have something to do with his guitar playing, but I fear it may have more to do with the fact that when he says it he can stick his tongue out, kind of like he's playing in Kiss.
Nathan - SEX. No-one's massively sure of this, not even the man himself. But it certainly raised a few laughs. Not one for a kid's cartoon, obviously, but if he ever released solo records under that name, I'd be intrigued as to how far he'd actually get.

     Feel free to add your own, but it must be one syllable, and you must explain at least a little as to why. And the funnier the better. I promise you they will be read out whilst on the road, as we are experiencing a glorious new dawn - wifi in the van. Which is exactly where I'm sat right now, whilst traveling through the driving rain to Washington DC.
     I may talk about these shows at a later date, but if you were at The Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday or at Music Hall of Williamsburg last night, thank you for being part of two of our best shows. We obviously had a great time last time we were here, but to come over here this time, and to sell out (and in possibly my 2 favourite venues we've ever played) is an absolute pleasure. I know we will be coming back again, and maybe in bigger venues (who knows), but there is a special something about the size of those places (550-700), and it's still possible to feel very much part of he crowd that comes down. I think what I'm trying to say if, in the massively unlikely event we might headline Madison Square Gardens (!), or whatever happens, I'll never forget these shows. And I'm sure the others would agree.
     Finally, if you ventured onto our facebook/blog page yesterday, you would have experienced a rather odd update entitled "A Little Coke Before The Show". We have a series of pictures, which will be added to, of me picking up various coke receptacals, in different places around the world. Yesterday's picture was wonderful, which was taken just in front of Manhattan bridge. So, the title of the update was very suitable, you might think. Only, as you may know, when technology is involved, everything I touch turns to crap, so I managed to update it without easy access to the actual picture itself. So if you've spent the last day imagining that we spend our days swimming around in packets of the Devil's Dandruff, then I'm afraid you've been mistaken. Mountain Dew is about as hardcore as we will go today. And just about every day. Boring aren't we? Anyway, let's sign off. If I'm not careful I'll have to get on stage in a minute. See you tonight if I see you tonight, if you get what I mean.

Aid For Japan

Just a quick note to draw your attentions to something that you probably already know about.
Just because the awful scenes in Japan haven't filled our news channels in the last week or two definitely doesn't mean that their problems have gone away. In fact, I heard on Newsnight the other day that just economically, it could take Japan at least 5 or 6 years to recover from what happened in the last few weeks. But before the economy comes help on a human level. And that is why we jumped at the chance to get involved with a rather special aid effort while we were at SXSW the other week. If you've been under a rock, also involved were Ben Folds, Hanson, and Michael Stipe, amongst others. Please check out this link, access the videos, and donate anything you can. It's a massive global effort, admittedly, but small things, in turn, make a big difference.
Thankyou.
Piers.

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