Alex Band UK

HELLO HELLO!!! I want to start right off by saying thank you to everyone for making our last little tour of the year the most fulfilling, flattering, full of tears, emotional, exciting, and beautiful experience ever. I mean, winning two big awards, chilling out with my idols, a vacation in Paris, performing for thousands of you guessed it…screaming girls, and seeing my big stupid head riding around on busses all over one of my favorite cities:)

What more could I ask for? Well, I guess I’ll begin where we left off a while back now when we got home from crazy South America, before the rhythm section of the band disappeared to la la land. There wasn’t too much time to chill when we got home since we did a show right away at the Staples Center in LA for Star Radio. As most of you know now, that night began nice and ended in shit. The quick recap: An acoustic performance with Aaron and I for Star winners (oddly enough, mostly drunk parents) was followed by some funny talks with Ryan Seacrest and his lady and maybe a little wine drinking myself. My like whole family was there for that but more importantly for what I was doing right after…singing the National Anthem….at a Hockey game. Needless to say, things went downhill from there. I kiddingly joked last tour diary about being worried I’d forget the words since I had never really, as most American, known the exact words. But I can assure you after the amount of practicing I did there was no way I’d forget and I didn’t (the words were practically in front of my face anyway when I sang it). The second I walked out there in front of thousands I was already being screamed horrible things at. Mid song after the higher part I took a 1.3 seconds dramatic pause and took a breath and was literally immediately booed at. Everyone thought I forgot the words! How much more stupid and judgmental could these people be? Anyway, I finished the song barely being able to hear myself over the loud booing. I know most of you guys heard it somehow and I’m glad you did so you can see what I’m talking about.

Afterwards I wanted to get the f*ck out of there as quickly as possible. My Dad walked me out because he was worried for my safety and he was right to be. While walking out I was screamed at by passing by people, some really retarded things I can’t even repeat and I almost got in a fight with this one guy. So that sucked. Ironically enough a few days later unrelated and not mentioning me there was an article on the cover of the Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times all about how singers should never do what I did cause it always goes bad…and there were all these horror stories and a quote in particular I liked form Nat King Cole that said, “If you do one thing in your life, make sure you never sing the National Anthem at a ball game”. I guess a hockey game is even worse. Whatever, honestly it was a big deal at the time and made me sad but I got over it pretty quick with all the great stuff that has followed…and I had all your support which always keeps me going:) So bad things always come in three for me and that was just the beginning.

As you all also know during many endless talks to make things work, Billy and Nate quit the band shortly after, but Aaron and I will get to that on a separate letter. So we had to do Regis in the midst of those talks with just Aaron, Dino and I and that went really good as usual. Always nice to go back to New York and see my Orange pumpkin friend Regis:) It’s always a guarantee that on any big TV show in America we do, the host(s) always seem to f*ck up the tittle of our songs and(or) album. What is up with that? This one was the most classic: Kelly said, “And here’s the Calling with they’re new single ‘It could happen to anyone’..uh I mean ‘Could it happen to you’..uh eer…’Could it Be Any Hard…Harder’.” That definitely wins the award. Later that day afterwards we got to go to Diesel and get a hook up with some new duds. I’ve been trying to get them to work with me forever and they finally broke. So needless to say, I got a few things…well, a lot of few things…? We grabbed some famous New York Street roasted nuts and headed back home.

While at home during down time, Aaron and I did some writing for a really big movie. I don’t believe anything is for sure until I see a signed deal in front of me, so until then I won’t say what it is, but let’s just say it would be the biggest thing we’ve ever done. I’m really, really proud of this song and can’t wait for you guys to hear it. So our little break went quick. I caught up on lost time with my bro’s and family, saw Paul McCartney live which was amazing and a whole bunch of other stuff (like try to answer a zillion questions for you guys:)

Then it was off to Europe for the sixth time this year for yet more press and performances and what would be our last tour of the year. Most of it was just me and Aaron stuff so we weren’t worried we didn’t have a band at that time. That trip started in lovely Barcelona, Spain for the MTV Europe awards. I went there feeling flattered that we were even a part of it and happy to just get the chance to be there…when we left I still couldn’t believe what happened. Walking in there I was suprised to see what a huge production the show was. We went to a rehearsal the day before and watched Eminem rehearse for a while and then practiced our presenter yapping. This was my first time in Barcelona and I really fell in love with it. It’s such an amazing architecturally beauteous city with some of the most interested looking cathedrals and building I’ve ever seen by this amazing guy named Gaudi. The night before the awards we were invited to a very small (maybe 50 people) MTV dinner with all the celebs and heads of MTV. I mean, I was pissing in my pants…Bon Jovi sitting on my left, Moby on my right, Marilyn Manson looking very deathly behind me, clouds of marijuana wafting over from Wyclef’s table across the room, P Diddy and his posy of like 100+ looking bad ass, Cold Play sipping some vino, it was already unbelievable…but it got better. Imagine one of your idols for your whole life coming up to you and introducing themselves, telling you that they have your record and really love it, even quoting song tittles and words! Bon Jovi was the coolest guy and we talked for like an hour about everything while my girl was quizzing her favorite artist Moby, behind me. After we walked out of the party I, like the emotional dude I am, began to cry. It was just such an amazing experience and seemed so surreal. I could have gone home a happy man then but things were just getting started.

The scene back stage was very entertaining the next day. All the stars running around yelling at people for things, Wyclef riding up on his motorcycle, it was mayhem. We said hi to Christina Aguilera, I hadn’t seen her in a while, and I got to meet Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters who apparently later in an interview said he wanted to “do” my girlfriend:( He’s a really funny guy. Those stupid frikkin moron TATU girls we presented with were driving Aaron and I crazy! They didn’t understand English at all so we could say funny slightly bad things quickly to them without them really getting it. It was good fun. Marilyn Manson was a super cool guy. I was definitely not expecting that. It was funny cause he kept saying dirty stuff to those TATU girls too in the pressroom but like way worse than what we were saying earlier. We did the red carpet, which was like a river do to the heavy raining all day. So by the time we got to the end of it all our shoes were completely soaked.

So the show started and we got to sit in the nominee area with all the celebs. Kylie Minogue was right in front of us and she kept winning awards so I was like, “hey we’re going to be on TV a lot in the background…that’s cool.” Not in a million, billion years did I think we were going to win and I didn’t for one-second think of what I would say if we did. I mean we were up against frikkin Shakira (who by the way I’ve never said anything bad about) and Avril Lavigne and The Strokes…I mean how many times did you guys vote?

I really can’t put into words what it was like to hear our name be called and try to compute what that meant. Because it was an arena there was a slight delay and echo and my girl read the lips of the lady who announced us milliseconds before anyone heard and my girlie said, “Holy sh*t, you won.” My jaw dropped literally (I watched it back and that was one seriously surprised expression!) and the walk up there felt like an eternity. I gave Aaron a cheesy handshake on the way up while what I really wanted to do was just fucking cry. Aaron and my speech was so frikkin funny. Our voices were all shaky, our eyes filling up with tears, and our minds blank:) No one was thanking the fans, and you guys are the reason we were there and the reason we made it on the stage, so of course I thanked the fans first. But somewhere in my pea brain when I tried to move from the “I want to thank all my fans” sentence to “I want to thank my girlfriend” sentence I somehow blurted out “I want to thank all my girlfriends!!!!” What an idiot. I’ll tell you, it took a while repairing that one:( Anyway, it was just incredible. I felt like such a little bitch when we walked off stage cause there I was again crying due to such a full heart.

They gave us champagne and we had 10 minutes to kill back stage before having to go back out and present an award with those little brats:) Yah, we drank maybe sometime all the time maybe. I never drink cause I’m such a light weight but in this case I went as far as to walk back out stage forgetting that I had a frikking champagne bottle in my hand! I swear I was in such a dazed dreamy zone of excitement and love and it wasn’t from the booze…It was from realizing I’ve achieved my dreams, what a feeling.

Man, those silly girls were supposed to kiss each other when we presented and Aaron said, “Do something Rock and Roll for my Grandpa.” Instead they just shouted “F*ck your Grandpa” or something of that nature in Russian. So needless to say, they cut out that section. Kylie won that award and it was cool to give it to her when she came up. We were then thrown in the circus pit of media whore frenzy afterwards where we did lots of press because we won. I was on a role of saying the wrong thing and making a fool of myself cause I was still so nervous. I even thought these two guys I’ve hung with before that host The Fridge on MTV were in a band called Kent. I was like, “Hey nice to see you again…did you guys win your award tonight?” And they said, “We work at MTV dumb sh*t.” Doh!

So after all that we went to the MTV after party to schmooze with BMG folks. We ended up getting lost trying to leave that party for no sh*t almost an hour. It was held in this Olympic coliseum that just never ended…just kept walking in circles for some reason…kind of like “the ring”. We went and checked out Eminem’s party where he came out and sang with Marilyn Manson…that’s a weird duo. So it was pretty much a completely insane night of a plethora of emotions and a huge, huge achievement. We are the first band on RCA ever to win an MTV Europe Music Award. Thank you guys again so much, I know you worked hard for it.

So the next day we did some press in Barcelona and radio too. We went and saw Coldplay perform in the same club Eminem had his party at the night before. Aaron became chummy with the lead singer of Coldplay…they still have what I think is the best record of this year, I can’t get enough of it.

After that it was mini vacation time and I wanted to go to nowhere else but Paris, France. I spent four glorious days there sightseeing, eating, and most importantly…I’m not even going to say it, you guys know me:) I also became obsessed with crepes. They have stands everywhere all over the city where they make them fresh and roll them up into a little funnel like holder with jam. I swear to God I had like a crepe an hour for four days, I wouldn’t be surprised if I just dropped dead from CO (crepe overdose) any day now. We rented a shity little scooter and blended in with the locals, all bundled up, riding throughout the city freezing our arses of. Every time we’d enter one of those big roundabouts it was like “HOLY SHIT!! WATCH OUT FOR THE CARS!!! AAAAAH!” How do they drive over there with no stop signs and practically no streetlights? I swear they just rely on ESP. We took boats down the river and went to the Eiffel Tower and Versa and all the coolest restaurants. It was so nice.

We were then off to Strasbourg for NRJ’s big radio show for like 9,000 yelping French girlies. We hired these two English guys to pretend and play bass and drums for the next few days which was easy since everything is to track in Europe:(blah! They turned out to be super cool guys and I’m sure we’ll have them audition when we really start looking for the real goods.

My Mom came that day and brought my three little brothers from Germany that I hadn’t seen in like 8 or 9 years so that was a trip. They were so sweet and excited that I really existed and I wasn’t just a singing dude on TV that happens to be their brother. Aaron bonded with them (cause they’re 11 and by trashing our dressing room and smashing cups against their heads all night, screaming Shytza and shvatz (-spelling?) which means shit and dick in German, their language….what a good influence we are:) I had so much fun with them, it was really cool to hang after all these years. Life’s too short to hold grudges and I have to much love to give.

That gig of merely two songs was a breeze and really fun. The crowd was so enthusiastic it was almost creepy. I got a white sweat wristband like the one I wear but someone had stitched a red Kokopellli on it. I’m wearing it right now. I also got a letter from a fan’s cat to my cat Parigi!?! I guess this fan’s cat hurt it’s leg and was in a cast and wrote to say how he understands how my cat feels about losing his leg. This fan even went as far as to put ink footprints of her cat on the letter…it was really cute but slightly strange. So after sleeping for like an hour we flew out stupid early to London. Karima, our 1st French fan and leader of the French Streetteam was there to see us off and gave us cool gifts including a video she made of a tour of Paris for Aaron and I and cologne that I’ll actually wear…thanks Karima!

So LONDON, London, London, why do you rain so? Why is everyone on strike everywhere every time I come there? This time, no firefighters, no subway, no tunnel, and a possible strike at the airport, which would not let me, come home. Putting that all aside I love London rain or shine, strike or…strike. I kept seeing my Gap add all over the place like you guys were talking about…on the bus, at the bus stop, on a billboard, but wait….what’s this? In the stores it’s MY body exactly with some random dudes head pasted over mine?..sort of oddly funny.

Anyway, these last two days of the tour were spent in bloody London doing what started out to be really, f*cking lame but what ended up as a really positive experience. We played and were up for an award at a show called Smash Hits Poll Party. I’d never heard of it nor had I heard of one single act that was there with us. It became painfully obvious very quickly that we had walked into a show cheesier and faker than the Teen Choice Awards with categories like ‘BEST FLOP TOP MOP” and “BIGGEST PARTY ANIMAL” or something. I think I was the only performer who actually sang. All to track of course. We did lots of press and interviews with Radio1 and BBC types, a bunch of pics and a lot of hurry up and waiting. They told us we didn’t win the day before and then changed their minds the day of the show. So we did end up winning best rock band of the year but it was conveniently an award that isn’t given out during the show…whatever, I’ve already thanked all my girlfriends:) So not too shabby, two awards in two weeks thanks to you guys! So even though I felt a little out of place at that show I’m still flattered to receive an award over bands like Linkin Park and Nicklecrap…I mean Nickleback sorry. So it was fun.

That night was our final night of the tour and we were invited to go out to dinner with our buddy Prince Azim, the Sultan of Brunei’s son. I’ve never laughed so hard as I did at that dinner. The stories him and his crew told us about all the crazy artists they’ve had come to Brunei to perform are outrageous. Bobby Brown falling drunk out of the plane on arrival, Michael Jackson bringing a nine year old boy dressed identical to him, mask over the face and all riding the same rollercoaster over and over all day. Then this restaurant had desserts like “Spotted Dick” and “Woodcock” and Aaron kept asking the snooty waiters questions like, “Does the Spotted Dick come with creme?” and “Which is a bigger portion, the Dick or the cock?” Everyone was dying with tears of laughter. They’re good people. Wow, what an amazing place their country sounds like, especially the ridiculous surroundings the prince grew up in…at least two or three of every sports car in the world, movie theater, private arena, tropical beaches, and even a McDonalds! McDonalds really is frikkin everywhere.

So I’m on the plane home now…everything going smoothly, so far. No flying horror stories this trip, we got a break. So now it’s the holiday time coming up…I’m going to be hanging around, maybe ski some, record this secret song for this secret movie, and keep writing our next record with the A man. Next year is going to be even more amazing for us I can feel it. We’ve come a long way in the last year and with the support of our fans we’re going to keep going farther. There’s a little Christmas presents for you guys from Aaron and I that I though you’d get a kick out of hearing. I’ll send it to you all shortly. Well, I’ll be dropping by before the end of the year to say hi but I wish everyone the best holiday and all the love! Thanks again for the awards and a f*cking incredible year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With lots of awards,

The Sultan of Toomuchcry