Hail to all ye Brethren of the Hammer,
There is one thing that remains constant in the universe and that is that change is inevitable. Well this law of life is no different for Manilla Road either for change is in the wind again for the band. It saddens me to inform you all that Cory Christner and the other members of Manilla Road have come to an impasse on a few topics which has led to a changing of the guard in the percussion department of the band. We had a good eight years with Hardcore playing incredible drums for the Road and we will miss his expertise. But the time has come to make a change and so we in Camp Manilla have endeavored to make what we think is the best choice for the drummer slot in Manilla Road.
I am proud to announce that as of now the new drummer for Manilla Road is the one and only Andreas Neuderth (Neudi) who has become renowned for his drummer skills with bands like Viron, Roxxcalibur, Savage Grace and Griffin. He is also the host and producer of the metal show STRIKE! on Streetclip TV in Germany. I have known Neudi for many years and we became good friends a long time ago. Recently we spent a lot of time with Neudi in Germany and he played with us at the Hammer of Doom Festival this last October. If you saw the show then you can immediately understand why Neudi was the obvious and best choice of drummers for Manilla Road. He totally kicked ass at the HOD and earned his wings with the Road. Change is always awkward and sometimes difficult for the band and for our supporters as well but in this case I think that, with your support, the addition of Neudi to Manilla Road will have a very positive and glorious result. So please welcome Neudi into the realm of Manilla Road with the arms opened wide. There is much to come in the future from MR. We are working on new music for a new Manilla album and there will be touring (for sure) in 2012. We are in the process of confirming dates in Finland and Sweden right now and we will also be making a trip back to the south of Europe to do shows in Greece and Italy among others. So keep an eye out on the tour dates section of manillaroad.net for all the relevant news about our upcoming tour dates. It is an honor to have such a great individual and musician as Neudi joining our ranks.
Up The Hammers & Down The Nails
Mark The Shark Shelton / Manilla Road
Hail all ye Brethren of the Hammer,
First of all I would like to thank each and every one of you, that have checked out this new site and come to support Manilla Road. You have all made the launch of manillaroad.net a great success. Once again I wish to extend a hearty welcome to anyone visiting the site for the first time and remind all of you that this is the true official website for Manilla Road. We are running this site ourselves so you are insured that if you purchase anything from manillaroad.net that the proceeds will be going directly to the running of this site and helping build the Manillan Empire.
Even though we have just released a new album (Playground of the Damned) we are already back in the studio working on new material. As a matter of fact the studio (Midgard Sound Labs) has been just pumping out the tunes for the last month. We are working on several projects at once and it is a really glorious time for us all in the Manilla Camp. I will give you a bit of a run down of what we are working on: First of all I am working on a band project called Miskatonia with ex-Manilla Road members Scott Peters and Mark Anderson. You might remember them from our Atlantis Rising and Spiral Castle releases. Anderson is writing the riffs and some of the lyrics and I am writing the vocal parts and some of the lyric content also. Scott Peters is doing the drums and I am singing all the vocal parts. It is very doom like and does not really sound like MR but it is cool music and I am honored to be working with these guys again on this project. Next I would like to tell you about a new band that I have formed with E.C. Hellwell called Hellwell. I have spoke of this before but would like to let you all know that the first album is completely recorded and mixed and we are now working on the mastering and the artwork for the release. It should be out on High Roller and Shadow Kingdom come the Spring of 2012. This is somewhat like MR but with synthesizer and keyboards added. It is a very heavy and aggressive project and we are all very pumped about this one. It is one of those type of projects that I really love every single cut on the project. Keep an eye out here at manillaroad.net for more details as we approach the release date. We are also working on new songs for the next Manilla Road album as well and so far all the stuff we have come up with is totally cool and I am so excited to be working on new MR music again.
As you have most likely already seen we have some shirts up for sale on the site now and there will be more styles to come in the near future. We are looking to continue to add different styles to the merchandise page as time goes on. Once again rest assured that everything that you get from this site is official MR merch and not bootleg.
I will be continuing to post updates here to let you all know what is going on in the Manilla Camp as time goes on. We are currently working on scheduling tour dates for 2012 and I will let you all know those secured dates as they are confirmed. Thank you all for your undying support of Manilla Road and May The Lords Of Light Be With You!
Up The Hammers & Down The Nails
Mark The Shark Shelton
Hail to all ye Brethren of the Hammer,
Well the Hammer Of Doom festival is behind us now. But not the thundering in my ears that is the ringing still going on from all the great metal I heard at the show. I had a bloody blast at this festival. Congratulations to Oliver for putting on such an event.
For me it was almost like a family reunion. To be sharing the stage with my friends in Doomsword and BattleroaR again. It was glorious for me and my mates in the band. First of all I have to express my thanks to Josh for all the time he has put in with me rehearsing for this show. He just stormed right on through all the songs live like he had been playing them for years. Great Job. Hellroadie as always came through in the pinch. He got sick almost right away when we got to Germany but he battled on like a trooper and did a great job singing at the show. And then comes something near remarkable. Neudi had 3 days of rehearsing with us to get ready for this show. 3 days to figure out 25 songs with most of them being real buggers that were originally played by Randy Thrasher Foxe. No small feat that we have asked of this man. But Neudi came on like an exploding volcano and erupted into a great demonstration of what metal drumming is all about. Man he did a great job. We did 25 songs that lasted slightly over 2.5 hours. It was brutal but the audience kept us going. And that brings me to the audience. By the beard of Zeus they were amazing. This was a true magikal moment for me at this show. I felt so much appreciation and love from the audience that I would sometimes just find myself spinning around in a swirl of music and then I would realize that I was supposed to be at my mic and I’m still 10 feet away…hahah. I felt like I played pretty good and we all had a few mistakes here and there but for the most part they were very minimal and covered up really well. I cannot express enough my emotions about the crowd that was before us and the respect that they gave us. It was a monster moment in my career as a touring musician. And it felt really good to crank out so many of the old songs from Open The Gates, The Deluge and Mystification. If you did not make it to the show then you missed out on one bloody hell of a good gig. If you were there then I must thank you from the bottom of my heart for such a great time. We are currently working on putting together our tour schedule for 2012 so just keep watch here at manillaroad.net and we will announce everything as it unfolds.
Up The Hammers & Down The Nails
Shark
R.I.P.
Mark "The Shark" Shelton
1957-2018
Merchandise
Our Online Store
is now
OPEN
GoldenCore Records / ZYX
"Atlantis Rising" CD
(w/ Bonus Tracks)
"The Circus Maximus" CD
(w/ Live DVD)
"Live At Up The Hammers 2018" LP
(Limited Edition)
"The Courts Of Chaos" CD
(Remastered / Digipack)
"Roadkill Tapes & Rarities" 2CD