In life we are often dealt a hand; it’s not always up to our self expectations and more often than not, it makes certain there’s always something to tip the scale off balance. You know… A yin for every yan etc, etc. There’s something great that happens and then a ton of tsunami induced tragedies crash like waves… over and over again. But that’s life. Isn’t it? You tell me.

September was a very rough month; financially, emotionally, spiritually and psychologically.

I handed in my resignation yesterday; and I feel a strange sense of ease coupled with a load of emptiness. At least I think its emptiness, I am not sure. I had to make a decision and it came to a point where I had to stand up for my peers, my own and I did it. I believe in the few people I trust, and I will not stand and watch as they are unfairly accused, charged or penalized for other people’s mistakes. Cowards do like to hide, there was a fuck up, no one owned up… The ball was passed onto the court of the primordial Rockers (like a blind man wouldn’t have seen that coming) and I did what needed to be done.

There’s no animosity or apathy. I was meaning to do this for awhile, just didn’t quite expect it to happen yesterday!

I have plans with Sleepwalker and a few trusted Super Heroes (wink, wink, wank) to start our own little advertising/marketing project; something rebellious but still fascinatingly premium.

You will be kept informed.

Back to the Band now.

We’ve been struggling, (mostly) constructively slave driving ourselves and (steadily) progressing for the past 7 something years, and frankly I can’t remember the last time Stigz took a hiatus away from the music, away from the lifestyle, away from the theatrics and rituals that make us as sharp as razors and as hollow as a bottomless abyss.

'For everything we create… We must sacrifice a part of us.’

I believe that. Creating music is about channeling your deepest, sincerest, palest unknown - painting a face and giving it a name. Some are familiar faces, others are perfect strangers who play a significant role in that hand which is incredulously dealt to us. You can only hope to inspire someone, so they may be able to relate to what you’ve felt, your problems and personal dilemmas left untended and exposed for a cruel, cold world to see. It’s the great old therapy cycle.
You don’t wanna talk about it, but you want to let it all out of your system.

It’s a funny thing; art. Sometimes it’s meant to be a direct reflection of who and what you feel and at other moments it is the therapist muse that digs inside and finds purpose behind our pain, salvation behind our sorrow and legacy behind our struggles.

September was really rough man, ‘cos Andy and Vije (Lead and Bass virtuosos respectively) had gone abroad, and the Band decided to take it easy for 3 weeks or so. Great fucking idea. Our skinsman is a talented chap but an individual who can keep himself occupied with a normal life; it’s his dream you see to get married, have a family and do nothing except wear a sarong and fart the night away till he becomes senile and a myth. I don’t envy him, nor do I blame him. It isn’t easy playing in a Rock Band. It’s even harder playing in a Metal Band. So anyone who finds themselves playing in an Extreme Metal Band hailing from narrow minded paradise SL, more or less etched their own obituaries in stone in the beginning of days. People crave for a normal life and it isn’t something I can understand or relate to, but I do respect.

So Tenny (creative extraordinaire) and Me were lost for 3 whole weeks; we worked on some new tunes; piecing the musical jigsaws into obscure epic puzzles, was naughty in our own subjective ways, consumed more substances than we should have and worked on numerous work/music related things.

Writing a song could take from 5 minutes to 5 months, depending on the individual. You capture a moment in time, you re-live the situation and experience it in your head and you re-create the moment. Writing a story is a lot harder. It’s like doing a soundtrack for a movie except the music has to convey the theme, the mood, the feel and the picture. So we like to create soundtracks for people’s lives, musical landscapes that are therapeutic, soothing, numbing and hypnotic. So it felt weird after all this time, where you rehearse pretty much everyday, play gigs all over the place, fight and argue and can sense what each other is thinking and then a break for 3 weeks that felt like 3 long years. It’s a wonderful marriage; full of soap operatic moments and optimum highs and optimal lows.

Tenny worked on a number of unfinished tunes mainly the crushing ‘Odyssey’ and the evolving mood afflicted ‘Calm’. I picked up an acoustic box guitar after what appeared to be centuries and started fooling around with some basic chord voicings and arrangements. An old tune buried in our past came to mind, (mainly because I am clearly incapable of playing next to anything the guitarists in our band concocts; dudes… It’s like having Vai and Malmsteen in the same band!) and I didn’t have to tie my fingers into knots attempting to play the impossible. So after a few jamming sessions, this tune of old was given a new look and feel, she is titled ‘On the Wings of the Storm’ and what was initially an excuse to mess around with the guitar, turned out to be a tune a lot of people at 891 liked and latched onto. It’s got plenty of hooks, an almost abstractly sedated urgency to it… and the guys dig it, that means something to me. We surround ourselves with a pristine entourage of ladies and gentle-freaks who are experts in all their respective corporate fields of choice, but all know their music inside out. They say what they feel, and if they think something’s got a spark… That means… Well it’s got a friggin’ Spark!

Andrew returned day before yesterday, with a gorgeous Epiphany Gold Plated Gibson Les Paul that he’d bought for a great offer, lots of chocolates and a Bong! A new Bong! Works like a bloody charm I tell you. The Bong…

Vije returned this morning and buzzed me, will be seeing him in the evening as well.

So last night, the studio wasn’t too crowded and there we were at home wrapped in grave disillusion. We got high and started jamming stuff, Tenny played Maiden’s ‘Different World’ and ‘These Colors Don’t Run’ acoustic (which was fun, and you realize what a bitch it is to really sing those two tracks and nail those notes and pitch ‘em spot fucking on) and then Tenny and I worked on…

The sound of trumpets echo in the distance (yes… ok… so I had a bong before coming to work) :crazy:

‘On the Wings of the Storm’. I won’t give anything away, and frankly I can’t ‘cos the song is still in the making. But we tried out some really diverse things and even worked out a nice rhythm section for Tenny to solo on (I am losing sleep wondering what I’d have to play for Andrew to noodle majestically over?!?) and we discussed how we have a track called ‘Calm’ and we could combine both songs. Kind of like call it ‘The Calm Before the Storm’ and have it as a part 1 and part 2, to contrasting pieces flowing into one another. So it’ll be the ‘Calm’ and then ‘On the Wings of the Storm’, will it work? Shouldn’t it? I don’t know. Let’s see what happens.

Things are slowly falling back into place, the empty spaces and voids are being filled. Remember how I told you guys that it was a long time away from it all; the music, the lifestyle etc. But I realized that you can’t really be away from it. I can’t at least. I never can. It’s everywhere I go, it’s everything I bleed, it’s everything that matters. The lifestyle can’t go away… The therapy can never stop… The crazy antics and off (and on) stage theatrics won’t fade into grey…|-|

You wanna know why?

It’s ‘cos none of this is feigned or imagined. It isn’t a personality switch ‘on’ and ‘off’ scenario. Music is my life… I am living the life and learning from all the trials and unpredictable disasters that what breaks you only teaches you to know you’re vulnerable & gullible. Having identified this I can take the necessary steps to ensure that I can’t be broken again. At least for awhile. That’s reality.

This is my lifestyle… This is my therapy… This is my religion… And I can’t run away from who I am.

And so the hand’s been dealt, the muse has been fed and as this pretentious, callous world eclipses love, life and hope – we try to find a balance between triumph and tragedy, reason and doubt, peace and foolishness.

As it was once greatly stated:

‘We are all born mad, but it is a handful who choose to remain so.’

Guess I am fucking insane then.

Welcome to the Show