Jen: Ooooooops!! & Reflection

"Sorry Franko".. I blamed Frank for turning off the comments options and know what? My dumb ass made the all links the same color as the background!!! ooooOOOOPS! hehe.. bet he's not laughing...

OK so we jammed on Saturday. It was not as long as we usually go because Frank had to get sticks and run other errands.. BUT it was extremely productive. We're having flashes of brilliance where you feel the earth align with the stars.. blah blah. We went through New Sun Rising, Switchblade, and Ignore Everything over and over to tighten them up and work Dave's vocals, then we worked on one of the newest jams. We had been referring to it as "Fire in Your Mouth". We agreed on a permanent name now... *drumroll*..

"FIRST STRIKE". Perfect name.. it represents the music well.

After all that conditioning, we pieced together 3/4 of another new song! Jared's big contribution.. Frank and I were jammin on this one beat and he writes this arpeggiated part based on the downbeat of a riff Dave was playing. THEN Dave comes up with another part based off Jared's part. Frank and I were keepin things solid.. it's too damn catchy!! That was the verse and everything flew from there. And it's a refreshing taste after all the hard, fast Lamb of Slayer-esque music we've been cranking out. Anyways, you'll get to hear all this shit at our first show back.

So this is a bit off topic, but I was reflecting today. We got asked all the time about what the hell happened to ANGERKILL the past two years. Well, to put it in a simple, non shit-flinging way, we fuckin' ran outta gas. Things will happen to try to pull you down.. and a NUMBER of things were pulling us down. We ultimately gave up and let them win. Some negative influences were much stronger than others, but overall, it was a combination of negativity from all different. We couldn't write anything worth a shit. Hell, we couldn't even get together to practice! We went from five practices a week, eight to ten shows a month to two and a half months of cancelled practices for different excuses. We decided to call at that time. On a personal level, we didn't talk to Frank for 4 months! That's hard to do when you're brothers.. and a sister-in-law.

Dave gave himself a break to get his mentality back to the basics of what he loves about this, then started looking for a fresh project and knew he wanted to jam with Jared. They looked for like a year and a half (although not that feverishly). They wrote a couple of songs together, tried out drummers, but nothing ever came to be. They put the ad in the Edge and got calls ranging from "Hey Bro, i'm really good - compare myself to Bostaph.. but I don't have drums at the moment" and "some of my influences? Eagles.. ya know.. classic rock". He even got "Dude, you want to play what? that doesn't pay." Dave's picky, man.. if someone called with no job or no car, shitty drums, he wanted nothing to do with that. After you've tried for almost ten years to get a tight band going, you just don't want to deal with that crap anymore.

So then Frank calls in July. Again, we hadn't spoken to him in months. He comes over one night and the three of us talk things out. Not even about the band, but about our relationships with eachother. What we like, dislike, but most importantly, what we expect. Not ten minutes after the conversation, they rushed into the garage to play.

Jared leaves soon after to San Diego for some personal business. Inopportune timing, but that's life.. I mean, he waited around all this time, things get together, and he's gotta leave. He has his Dad come over to pick up his equipment and ship it to San Diego. He practices his ass off over there to stay limber. During this time, Dave and Frank are writing like madmen. Everytime they get together, music flows like a fat lady with the shits. Jared came back a couple of weeks ago with a brand new cab and rack equipment, and that's where we're at now. He bought this really nice Ibanez this last weekend.. I don't know the model. It's the Shadows Fall one.

SO now we're "jelling". Practices are spent getting transitions down, making sure we have the riffs precise, physical conditioning and most importantly, we're having fun. Every practice has been an emotional experience that I hadn't felt since 2000. It's been FUN and it feels great.

We booked our comeback show for January. We'll be fine tuned well before then if we keep the same momentum. We've booked our promo pictures for a couple of weeks from now, we're exploring studio options and we've hired an established artist who's already begun the artwork for it.

I suppose I'm explaining all this because the fact that we're coming back is such a major part of all of our lives right now. Each new piece of music is more than just a piece of a CD, but it's important healing and birth. I'm not trying to be sappy, but trying to explain to those of you that care where we've been and what direction we're now headed (not even we will know where we're going until we get there).

Notice I said "those of you that care." That's who we're playing for. For ourselves and "those of you that care" - those who motivated us during our trying times. You know you who are.. individuals and bands alike. Each of you that shows up to the show at Bonds in January will not see a band up there wanting to simply entertain you, but we're presenting you with *ALL* the emotions we've experienced in the past five years and the outcome of it all in an artform. I won't even tell you it's gonna be a good show, but I can promise it's going to be soulful, emotional and heartfelt from each of us. It's our trophy for getting past it all - it will be a show we'll hold dear always. There are plenty of opportunities after that Friday the 13th to simply entertain and win new fans.

For AK, the only thing more exciting than this evening will be our new CD.