Arriving in Germany, Day 1 & 2 Recording

Hallo aus Deutschland (Hello from Germany)!

Tribe members, we have a lot to share with you, so lets dive right in. We arrived in Cologne, Germany, on September 2nd around 9am, German time, which is 6 hours ahead of Orlando, Florida, in the USA. The flight from Orlando to Cologne was amazing. The plane was huge, about 3 seats on each side and then 4 seats in the middle, so it was a very wide plane. We all ended up having a row to ourselves, except for Meka, who randomly sat with whoever was awake during the flight, and were able to lay down and rest, which was totally awesome considering the length of the flight. The flight attendants (gorgeous, sternly kind, mostly blonde, and perfectly prim personalities including a male attendant in grey suit and female attendants in brilliant torquoise suits with fuchsia scarves)were so accommodating and showered us with free beer, gluten-free brownies, apples and Jagermeister. We made some friends with our enthusiastic horn throwing blasts of rock spirit to the small crowd and charming flight attendants. Once we landed, we had a connecting flight to Hamburg where we spent the day driving around in our huge Mercedes van rental, at comic book stores and catching some lunch. Meka and Chris had Japanese comfort food. Bobby had jagerschnitzel because he thought there would be Jager in it. We were delirious and sleep deprived, randomly trying to figure out what dimension we were in and what language to speak. (Only Jay studied properly for the past few months on Duolingo,and Meka with a few phrases to get by and at least ask politely if we could use English to communicate, or Jarret's tactic of yelling "English" at people worked pretty well, too. lol) Lasse met us in Hamburg and took us to a huge music store for drums heads, an Irish pub for a welcoming Guiness toast and then an Australian pub for wings, Thai soup for Meka, ice cream crepes and well, hamburgers (in Hamburg, get it? lol). Some interesting points about German restaurants 1. They do not serve water automatically, you have to order and pay for it, no free refills, no ice in drinks because there are no free refills, and the beer is not cold, it's not warm, but it's not ice cold either. 2. There is no tipping, but actually there is tipping, still not clear on this. 3. There is American pop music played in the restaurants and everywhere. Let's work on making that Meka Nism played everywhere! Yeahhh!!!

So, the first night was a complete party night in downtown Hamburg where we caught a show at a venue called the Logo. There was a band called Syndemic that Lasse had worked with previously that was playing and he wanted us to experience some local german metal. One thing is for sure, the metal fans here are die hards and the place was completely packed. It was so nice to see a sea of black band shirts and experience what the local scene was like, and most importantly, drink some german beer. We were welcomed with open arms and it was an incredible feeling to experience metal in a completely different country. It's almost like metal really is a universal language. We didn't stay out too late though, as we were all extremely tired and jet lagged, plus recording started the next day in the studio.

We headed on our way to Lubeck, where Lasse Lammert's studio is located. Germany is such an amazing country! Beautiful architecture, amazing food, and the friendliest people in the world. Everyone here has been very nice, and to our surprise, a lot of english is spoken here.

Fast forward to Recording Day #1 at Lasse's studio. We all woke up around 12pm, German time, drank some Meka Nism Shaman Blend coffee, ate a light breakfast, and headed into the studio. Usually when a band starts recording, for everyone who doesn't know, drums are almost always first up on the recording block. We started off setting up the drums with all new heads, tuned them, set the kit up to Chris' liking and mic'd everything. Lasse was able to dial in a "Kong" like drum tone right away, and let us tell you now, they are crushing!

Recording Day #2 was the official start of drum tracking. Right now, there are five total songs going on the new ep, "The War Inside". Working titles right now are Belladonna, The War Inside (title track), Ghost Whisperer, Trailblazer, and 5. Each song has a very unique sound and story behind it. We plan on expanding more on the story behind each track while we are hear in Germany with all of you in upcoming posts. So stay tuned! Chris knocked out 3 of the 5 songs and everything sounds amazing. We are very excited about the drum tone and production of this EP. It's going to be massive. Lasse is extremely talented and amazing to work with. The studio is full of equipment, and guitars galore. Lasse Lammert is a widely respected producer here in Germany and has worked with some major artists like Alestorm, Thy Art is Murder, and the list just keeps going.

As a final note, we want to take a moment to thank all of our friends, family, and fans! Even before we left on our journey, the amount of love and support has been tremendous, absolutely tremendous. We cannot thank each and every one of you enough, because this would not have been possible without all of you. Although there were a lot of notable donors, we would like to acknowledge one particular couple; Lance Perdue and Renee Lane-Rowe. Renee just recently kicked cancer's ass and is continuing to kick ass on a daily basis. Lance has been one of the biggest sole contributors to our GoFundMe Campaign for this EP, and honestly, we don't think there is anything we could really ever do to repay the both of them. We want to let them know that we love them with all of our hearts and are forever grateful. This EP is going to be dedicated to you two, and know you both were a huge contributing factor in making this happen!