Hail to all ye Brethren of the Hammer,

Shark here with another report from the Road on the road. Don’t you just love those puns. We just returned from Canada where we played at the Noctis Festival in Calgary, Alberta. Man what a blast we had. This was one of the most organized festivals that I have ever played at. The promoter and all of the crew were just incredible. Definitely as well run as the great festivals in Europe that we have played before. My hat is off to everyone in the Noctis crew and promotion staff for all they did for us. Simply an incredible experience for all of us in Manilla Road.

We played on Friday night at The Distillery which is a fairly large club holding about 600 people or so. It was a sold out show. We did 75 minutes of mostly heavy stuff that we thought would be songs that were maybe known in Canada. We had no clue as to if anyone there really knew of MR or was familiar with our releases. Well it turned out that the crowd knew all the stuff that we played and sang along with most of it. The audience was totally the killer stuff. I was amazed at the high level of intensity of their response to us. Man I just had no idea that they knew us so well that far north of us. It turned out to be a ripping night of epic metal mayhem and I just loved it. We played Cage of Mirrors for the first time with Neudi at this show. I was surprised that we did not screw it up but we managed to play it perfectly first time out. Whew! But what was really amazing about that song to me was the fact that the audience new the song well enough to sing along with me. Man what a night it was. I will go back to Canada to play anytime. The stage was cool. The crew were excellent. The sound was great. They had 2 full stacks of Marshalls for me to use on both sides of the stage. It sounded really good to me even on the stage so it was easy to dial in and do a good show. Thank the gods Bryan and I both had good vocal form so the whole night went really well along with Josh and Neudi blowing the roof off themselves. What a great time. I will not soon forget the Noctis and would suggest that everyone go to this really great festival next year and every year after.

I also want to tell you about a couple of the bands that we hooked up with or saw performing at the Noctis. First of all the two bands that played before us have to be mentioned here. First it was Psychostick and their crazy antics. These guys are really good musicians and they have invented a style they call Humorcore. It’s sort of like a more crude version of Weird Al and the Chili Peppers. Their humor is totally intense and funny and their song Girl Directions reminds me of my daughter. Sounds just like her on the recording too…how did you guys get my daughter on your song anyway? Oh well, I will figure that one out later. We ended up befriending the guys in Pstick and I had such a blast partying with them. So thanks Josh, Rob, Alex and Matty it was an honor to hang with you guys and lots of fun. Now comes the band that played before us Midnight. I only had a few brief words with these guys at the show and we did not get to hang out together but their show impressed me so much that I have to mention them here. Midnight are like Motorhead in the Iron Fist days but with a bit of a Death Metal approach to their material. They really put on an energetic and powerful show. I was really impressed with the style and performance of this really good 3 piece. Excellent show gentlemen. The next day after the show we did a press conference at the hotel and then it was party time. So I went all through the hotel inviting anyone I ran into up to my suite and then everyone around the pool. Now mind you almost everyone staying at the hotel had something to do with the festival so it’s not like I was just bringing in people off the street. Well it ended up being a really cool terrace party on my balcony until we all decided it was time to go to the show that evening. The last night of the festival was at a hall at the University of Calgary which held about 1000 people and it was also sold out. I spent a lot of time just wandering around talking to people but when Grand Magus took the stage I had to attend in the hall. These guys are just way too cool for me man. I am so jealous of this band. They looked and sounded really great and was so glad to be able to witness another performance from these masters of metal. Great show mates. And of course they are always fun to hang out with. I missed the next band in favor of partying on the patio outside for awhile but then it was time to catch the performance of the mighty Venom. Now I must be honest with you all I have not been a huge fan of Venom in the past but I have a great amount of respect for Cronos and his accomplishments in metal. Most of the Manilla camp are big fans of Venom so we were all excited to see the band for our first time. They delivered up songs like Black Metal and Antichrist within the first half of the show and I was pretty impressed. Unfortunately I had to head back to the hotel with the rest of the band at that point so I did not get to see the last half of their show but it was going pretty good when I left. I later ran into Cronos briefly at the hotel and we exchanged pleasantries. So I even got to meet the mighty master of Venom to top off a really great tour stop. Now it’s on to Athens for the Up The Hammers festival and one hell of an epic festival. By the gods I love my job.

Up The Hammers & Down The Nails,

Shark

All hail ye brethren of the Hammer,

It has been an exciting time for the Road lately. Where to start? Well first of all there are going to be some new additions to the merchandise page soon that you will want to check out. New reissue stuff coming out and more shirts will be coming also. Our travels took us to the Warriors of Metal festival just outside of Columbus Ohio and wouldn’t you know it 10 minutes after we arrived at the festival the place was rocked by a huge storm that left the festival grounds looking like a battle zone. It was sort of like a tornado so all us felt right at home haha. That is all of us except for Neudi. They just don’t have storms like that in Germany. It was quite the experience for him. Welcome to America mate. They finally made enough repairs to the area that the show went on later that night. It was only Exxplorer and us that ended up playing after about 5 hours or so. But we did get to play for about an hour and we just went ahead and ripped it up. It was an honor to play for all of those fans that had come from far away to see us and for everyone that braved the elements and still held their hammers high. It actually turned out to be a pretty good show and definitely an experience that will not be soon forgotten. After the festival we flew back to Wichita Kansas to 100 plus degree weather with Neudi wondering why anyone would want to live in the states I think hahaha. He got used to it and I do believe eventually he had a great time with us. We worked in the studio for a few days and laid down all the drum tracks for the new Manilla Road album. I think everyone is really going to like this one. We are now just finishing up on a few guitar and bass tracks and cleaning up the vocal tracks as well. It should only be a few weeks and we will have all the recording finished. Then it will be onto the mix. After we finished with the drum tracks we showed Neudi how Americans celebrate our Independence Day by taking him out to a place where lots of people go to blow up stuff. And blow up stuff we did. It was like WWIII out there and I’m not sure Neudi knew what to think of that either. Introduced him to Chicken Fried Steak and we both decided it’s a lot like schnitzel. We played a show at the Port Of Wichita in our hometown that was a rip roaring night. Thanks to all of you that came out and made that night the cool party that it was. We did a BBQ Kansas style courtesy of Rick Fisher and his family out on his farm so Neudi got to see first hand what a hay bale and cows looked like haha. It was a great time and the food was great. We also met up with Randy Foxe for a brunch and it was great to see him and talk with him again. We should have done that years ago. Anyway it turned out to be such a great time for all of us. Mark Anderson was around also so it was like a Manilla Road reunion sort of. Man it was good to hang out with those guys again. We did a bunch of photos and filming of interviews and the likes. Neudi and I did an interview at Bacon Rock Radio Studios which was just as fun as it gets when it comes to being on the radio. We finally took the chains off of Neudi and let him return to the Fatherland. But we will be hitting the road with him again soon at the Noctis Festival in Calgary Alberta Canada in late September and then it will be on to Athens Greece and the Up The Hammers festival. The new Hellwell album Beyond the Boundaries of Sin is in my greedy little paws as we speak and the packaging is remarkable. It looks good and sounds good also. It will be officially released in Europe August 17th on High Roller Records and in mid September on Shadow Kingdom Records in the States. Check it out there are a couple of songs that you can hear from the project on the sidebar of this page. Thanks to all of you who have been attending our shows and for making this little tour really cool for us. A lot of good things are happening and it appears that we will have an even bigger announcement to make very soon so don’t change that channel and stay tuned for more information on how to rid your cellar of zombies.

Up The Hammers & Down The Nails

Shark