Trust the Process.

 

One could say that a lot has happened in the past 10 days. The truth is that it happened before that, but we decided to keep the full story for later. We continue the same strategy for now, but some parts we'll share.

The photo is our last group photo before we heard the biggest news of our history so far... Kalo decided that it's time to focus on things more important than the band. And there's many of those. We understand and respect this move unconditionally as hurtful as it is. First and foremost emotionally. 

But it also means that we needed to get to work on an issue we never faced before. We had people leave the band, but we never had to introduce a new band member. Turns out - it's not easy! For obvious reasons, we cannot share too many details - but it's a non-professional musician, who fits into our family/office day job rhythm (anything else would be frustrating) and can play some mean bass. These are our core criteria, but only time will tell how everything fits - in both directions. And more time for this will be necessary, especially as we're still ironing Kalo's offboarding (bass was probably 30% of what he contributed to the band). We're also talking to a producer (having a meeting next Wednesday) - again someone who we feel is the right fit in more ways than one, but cannot comment at this point. The piano parts, for now, we're going for... Tony! Most of you didn't know this, even some of us didn't, but there you go. Lucky coincidence (or is it?!) comes to the rescue once again. And then there's a significant percentage of things we'll never be able to fill just because Kalo is Kalo. We're retiring his jersey, but also keeping it fresh and clean for him if he ever chooses to return - he's earned this.

Talking about lucky coincidences - they've been our nitro fuel from the start. How we all met up and having the opportunity to play together. Sending our first ready singles to Deni who exactly at that time was considering a career change and helped us. Meeting Stefo, our live sound engineer, at a gig and his enthusiastic buy-in at a time when finding any help in the area was close to impossible. Same with Mitko who showed up as a stand-in at our album promo and stayed as our lighting engineer - and so much more. Countless shots in our videos where things just aligned. Mistakes at rehearsals turning into song parts. Holes in the calendar. Self-fixing cable issues. Etc. Etc. I don't believe in fate - and still don't. But I do believe that creating the right conditions under our control and being open to opportunity at all times - makes lucky coincidences more likely. Most of all, it's about learning to recognize the value in people even when things aren't ideal.

Meanwhile, we are planning the release of the Toaster video. We got the stills this morning. Expect to share a video teaser early next week and the full video end of the same week. Again, it's a beautiful and warm story which we love and hope others do, toо. The team behind the video has been working incredibly hard for a very long time. We'll do what's within our power to repay them. Meanwhile, the fingers are itchy to share more, but... temperance, my friends. Moderation in all things.

And! We still have a showcase festival to prepare for. On Oct 17th, shortly after midnight, we'll be playing our first showcase set in front of some (hopefully many) journalists, agents, festival organizers, etc. Collectively known as ""delegates"". From what we hear, what can happen as a result of this ranges from zero to infinity and beyond. Our job is to prepare as well as we can. And yes - Kalo will be playing at the show. We're still friends, if anyone was wondering. Anyhow, we'll do some analysis of the delegates list (with the help of the AI - pffft, of course), set our goals and invest time and effort to get the delegates with the right fit to our gig - then what happens, happens.

Some of us were at the Robbie W concert. But all of us feel vicarious embarrassment about the traffic control inspector incident. If you didn't know - they asked for a bribe from Robbie's truck drivers using Google Translate and giving them directions to the ATM. All of this 100% true and confirmed from a reliable source. The question is again - what can we do that is in our control? I guess as band we continue talking about self-awareness and taking responsibility to better yourself for your own and everyone else's sake. Culture isn't changed with money or in a day, it changes with widespread, continuous, and sometimes seemingly hopelessly idealistic efforts. As a civilization, despite all that's happening and constant hiccups, we're becoming more and more progressive. A mind that's grown doesn't shrink back. Trust the process - it works.

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