Alex Band UK

Happy New Year! Belated Happy Valentine’s Day! What’s up everyone? This is Alex writing to you all from Dallas, TX. It feels so good to be on the road and playing shows again. Our year 2001 ended great back home in LA with our families. January was full of all kinds of exciting TV appearances as some of you might have seen. We did Conan O Brien, Jay Leno, an Olympics show, Rosie O Donnell, and I even got to host TRL! The Jay Leno show was one of the coolest for me. Here’s this show I’ve been watching my whole life that is filmed in my home town and we actually got to be a part of it. Aaron and I, being sports car fans, always would follow the most amazing cars to see what LA rich guy/girl was driving…and they’d always end up being Jay Leno! He was so nice and would let us sit in the cars (never drive them though..jerk). Anyway, when I was about 12 years old Jay Leno went to my local Blockbuster store and looked up the most delinquent account. Of course my family and I never returned videos on time and I was notorious for renting the most bizarre horror movies with my friends. Jay asked why I was the only person at Blockbuster to ever rent the movie “Cannibal Women and the Avocado Jungle of Death”. I told him my Dad had made that movie (along with other cult classics like “Puppet Master” and “Reanimator”). To make a long story short, Jay pulled up the old clip after we played. It was really a great moment. The trip to Salt Lake for the Olympic Tribute Salute was very cool. We learned a lot about the Mormon culture and got to meet some of the world’s best skaters. Scott Hamilton was a really nice guy. It was pretty crazy to be a part of the Olympics…I mean how much better could this all get? Wow, hosting TRL was a trip! You can’t hear @$%^ over all those girls screaming…I definitely feel for Carson. I had like all these people talking in my in ears while the show was happening as I was trying to read cue cards that were constantly changing while everything keptgoing wrong! But to my surprise, when I watched it later that night it all seemed pretty smooth. Thanks to all of you who came from all over to support Aaron and I that day. It was great to see familiar faces from places like North Carolina and New Jersey. You guys rock…I swear we have the coolest fans. I read the Forum all the time and love to see you guys not just loving this band but also making friends with each other. For those of you who do use the Forum, I would like to say a few things about a guy named “Isaac Cox”. I’m sorry to read that some low life would spend hours of his life creating poems all about how we’re gay and blah blah blah. Just so you know we’ve located his whereabouts and he will burn in hell (just kidding…kind of). Anyway another guy in a local band that I’m familiar with called “Void” and another band called “Nice” were posting on how upset they were that The Calling wouldn’t let them play our Santa Ana show. I assure you all, that the band and I had absolutely no knowledge of any of this. I do however apologize deeply to the bands that are upset because I too was in they’re place for years and know how it feels to struggle. I also want to say that these are great bands and it would be our pleasure to play with them in the future. So enough of that. We just started our first headlining tour in Santa Ana, CA. What a difference headlining is from being the opening act forever. I still don’t believe that the huge lines outside these shows are for us…it’s crazy. It also feels so good to play a full hour plus set every night. We get to play practically the whole record and then some. Phoenix was a blast. The club was small but packed with the greatest fans a band could ask for. It unfortunately is getting harder and harder to sign after shows, but we will continue to do our best. It’s so cool, we have real T shirts this time that we designed ourselves with Kokopelli on it. They seemed to go over well with you all. It’s weird getting recognized a lot now. Whether we’re walking through a mall or eating lunch, people are coming up to us all the time. The other day in Arizona this one guy was like…”I love that song you play, (singing badly-> I’m falling even more in Love with you)”. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him he was thinking of another band. The other night in Denver there were these cute girls in the front row that had made they’re own calling T shirts. Each was wearing one word (We-Love-The-Calling-?) and the back of each had one of our names. If you guys are reading this, thanks, that was really sweet of you all. We luckily stepped up to a really nice tour bus this time around, so those long hours of traveling are like living in (very crowded) luxury. There’s even little fold down flat screen TV’s in all the bunks! And our bus driver hasn’t crashed yet which is a plus. Those of you who were sending their love to my cat, thank you. His name is actually Parige (Pareegy), but now with three legs my girlfriend and I call him Tripodige. I know, I’m sick. Anyway, it’s good to have Aaron back. He’s doing great. We’re looking forward to the upcoming month of shows and seeing you all. Thanks so much for your continued support with TRL. I can’t believe we’ve been on there almost everyday this year! Let’s keep it up. Hope all of you are doing well and all the best in love, health, and happiness. Thanks for reading and we’ll see you all soon! BYE!