Hey. How's it goin? It's nice to see you again. Thanks for joining me in my second entry of this "tour diary"
So I've been sitting here trying to figure out what to fill you in on. I've been trying to decide if anything exciting has happened to me over the last week, enough so, that you'll want to sit there in front of your computer, and read this for the next fifteen minutes. I spent the last three days in Las Vegas, so let me start there:
We had a show at "Rain"@ the Palms Casino, with Staind as part of the Jagermeister Music Tour. It was an absolutely killer show. I was fairly surprised to tell you the truth. For some reason I was expecting the Las Vegas crowd to be kind of quiet, but I was very mistaken. It was one of the best shows we've played on this tour. The place was sold out, and the people who filled the club were screaming so loud, I could barely hear myself singing. A great night.
Let me tell you, the Palms Casino is an okay spot to be if you're in Vegas. There's plenty of decent shops, and of course, it's the home of the famous, "Hart & Huntington Tattoo Shop"....you know the one...it's on T.V, on A&E....you know, the show where it's supposed to be about tattooing, but it's really a cheesy soap opera about all the employees, and how they get treated bad by their bosses, and how the sixteen year old intern has a crush on the overnight cleaning guy, and blah blah blah....I was considering going into H&H to get some ink done, but the place was too busy. Packed full of tourists taking pictures with their favorite, tattoo artist, or should I say...actor, that they see every night on t.v...
So, needless to say, I didn't get any more ink done while I was there.
Actually, just relaxing at the pool, and sitting down at the odd blackjack table was perfect. I should mention that the owner of the Palms, and numerous other casinos in Vegas, set up my good friend Aaron Lewis (Staind) with The Kingpin Suite on the 25th floor of the Palms. Unbelievably, the suite had it's own bowling alley...So of course, after the show, Aaron threw a party. A bowling party basically. Pretty cool.

So yesterday we were in Rapid City, South Dakota. If you've never been there, or don't know anything about it, it's the home of Mt. Rushmore . The mountain that has the faces of four former U.S presidents carved into the side. Me, being a Canadian, am going to test myself at some U.S history here. Stop me at any point if I'm wrong. The four presidents on the mountain are as follows:
Thomas Jefferson , for his ideas on a government by the people., Abraham Lincoln , the Kentucky born president who introduced his ideas of individual and minority rights., George Washington represents the American struggle for independence, and lastly Theodore Roosevelt represents America's role in 20th Century world affairs. Now, I could've easily looked this up on the internet, but I didn't. Just so you know, up in Canada, in school, we learn about American History. More so, than Canadian history. I would assume this is mainly because the United States actually has a long, interesting history, where as Canada's history is pretty simple. Anyway, that's enough of the boring history lesson. Let's get into something else. Music.

It's exactly 25 days, 11 hours, and 35 minutes, until our new record, One-X comes out, and as you could guess, it's pretty exciting. The record that we put so much time into, and the piece of art we all put our hearts and minds into will be surfacing very soon, for all of you to look at, listen to, and make your judgments on. I think in most cases, anyone inviting the world in on their "baby", for lack of a better term, would be nervous and somewhat hesitant. But in this case, I'm pretty confident. These are some of the best songs this band has ever written. It's a step up from our debut record that we released in 2003. We've become better songwriters over the last couple years, and I'm looking forward to seeing if North America agrees with me.
In my last entry, I think I mentioned a song from "One-X", called Never Too Late. This time around I'd like to talk a bit about another song, called "Pain". This song really came to fruition while we were up in Bancroft, Ontario, Canada, at our buddy Art's cottage, on Stiemer's Lake. We were sitting on the deck, with guitars, beers, and a barbeque, when this song came to life. It's a song about feeling like you're constantly numb to things around you, thanks to your own actions, and it's about being sick of that feeling. The main lyric in the chorus, "I'd rather feel pain, than nothing at all", really stands out to me, as one of the strongest lyrics on all of "One-X". But I'll let you be the judge. When you pick up the record, email me back, and let me know what you think about it.

So it's about 11:30am, and we're about an hour away from our destination: Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Barry and I are the only ones that are awake. The rest of the band , and crew, for that matter are still passed out in their bunks, recovering from last night I assume. We've got a day off today, and then we play the U.S Cellular Centre in downtown Cedar Rapids, again with Staind, as part of the Jagermeister Music Tour. Which, by the way, has been a kick ass tour so far. If you haven't had a chance to check out the band "Hurt" yet, do it. To me, they're a mix of Coldplay, A Perfect Circle, and Dave Matthews, with a dash of that Henry Rolling growl thrown on top by Lorne, the band's lead vocalist. They've got a really great dark, heavy vibe going on, so I would definently recommend checking them out. What can I tell you about Staind, that you don't already know? Well, John, the drummer, and Aaron, lead vocalist, are both damn good golfers. On the music side of things, they obviously have written some of the best songs of the 90's, and they put on a killer show. And their new record, Chapter V, is one of my favorite records of the last couple years.

Anyway, I've taken up enough of your time with my rambling, so I'm gonna sign off now. We're just about to park the bus anyhow, so it's a good time to pack up the powerbook. Hopefully this entry was somewhat painless to read, and I hope you were at least, slightly amused with some of the s*** I've talked about.

Thanks for checking in again, and until next time, remember:
Every success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.