animositysf

FIrst of, I appologize for the complete hault on the tour journal. Updating it during the European tour would have been difficult being that I didnt have a computer or the interest to look at a computer. The tour is over now and went very well. We really thank Converge and Rise and Fall for being such buddies all over Europe.

ON another not, our album ANIMAL comes out October 2nd. Here is the artwork for the cover.

Sooner than later I will be putting up a new track on our myspace page and making some tour announcments. Until then...take care.

we made it to germany after 20 something hourse of traveling. We missed one of the connections because the flight from chicago to the UK was an hour late which seems to have led to a massive baggage blunder. None of our instruments showed up with us in germany and are currently 'lost'. This really sucks but at least we are in a very beautiful little town with some cool dudes. Hopefully they find the bags before the tour starts tomorrow.

Hey all, sorry for the lack of energy directed towards this nonsense. We have been getting ready to make our way to Europe with the converge tour. During our trip I plan to spend as little time as possible on the internet so during the peak of our excitement and outrageous experiences you can expect little to zero updates on this thing. Uuuh, sorry I guess.

See yall in Europe....

For all the americans who read this, we are in the process of locking down the next Us tour in support of our newly recorded album ANIMAL which still does not have a street date. Hang tight

As always, Texas has been off the hook. It is always the the most uncomfortable part of the tour because is is hot and muggy and the drives are long, but the shows have kicked some major butt.

Merch has been flying so I had a bunch of stuff put on an airplaine to pick up at the San Antonio airport. When I got the boxes one of the them was litereally torn to shreds and dripping wet. All the shirt were soaked and the box was not intact at all. The guy working the cargo bay was not amuzed with my response.


I woke up yesterday in the van and Navene had molded a huge black dong out of tootsie rolls that we got from the club in Dallas. We ended up doing a lot of stuff with the mass of tootsie roll on the drive to Odessa and it is still sitting in our van.






...Odessa, WTF? Very small town, next door to Midland TX (home of king bush). The venue we played at was called Dos Amigos and seemed to be straight out of Mexico. There was a fucking Bullring right next tothe stage and there were these two wanabe sherrif cowboy hat dudes walking around with guns keeping people in line. There was a gnarly fight withstanding the entire duration of the song "Holy Shackles" which was beyond entertaining.

We went to this appartment in midland after the show to crash and there were two girls and a guy way too stoned and drunk to even realize we were in their home. None of them were at the show. One girl had a mohawk and fell on the kitchen floor and hit her head on the fridge. This scenario was pretty beat so we went down the street and got a really really shitty hotel which smelled like baby shit.

We are now in El Paso and I am sweating balls. The show seems to be pretty packed out though. I am going to eat tacos...later

So we played in OKC last night...shit was hot as hell. Sold out show, sweating like a madman. After the show, Us, Beneath The Massacre, and the Faceless all went to this girl's appartment to party. We had a great night but things took a turn for the worse. I actually slep in a neighbors appartment so I missed out , but the sotry goes like this. Because the appartment was so small everyone didn't have a place to sleep so a bunch of the animosidudes slept in the brutalivan. Evan woke up in the morning and discreetly took a wiz along side the trailer. An old man driving by, was very offeneded by this and started hollering at Evan. He just appologized and got back in the van and went back to sleep. Minutes later, two police cars pull up, with the old man in the passanger seat. They woke everyone up and searched everyone??? All these dudes are standing there in their underwear being searched from a dead sleep. One mustachiode officer kept talking about public indecency and how Evan was a sex offender. Navene sarcastically asked the officer if taking a leak was a big offense in OK and this was was his resonse...literally. "Exposing your PEEPEE to children, your god damn right thats a big deal round here. I autta take yer friend here down to prison, so I suggest your shut yer goddamn mouth!" He put Evan in the Squad car and started calling neighbors to see if any of them wanted to press charges for sexual harrasment. None of them cared so Evan got off with a 200 dollar ticket....all for taking a piss.

we made it to kansas...its hot. I am physically depressed. I have gnarly scabs on my back from security guards kicking me in michigan, and I have not had a solid nights sleep in days. Sweating nonstop. Ate at denny's...too much food. The local band here in kansas just covered Black Dahlia Murder. We are running out of merch, the tour still rules all! Both of my shins feel broken. I want a cold shower and a massage.





this is elliot from beneath the massacre

tonight we played in Minneapolis...it was kind of boring. I was in a pretty strange mood when I went on stage because I ate way too much, fell asleep in the van and awoke with my feet being rained on out of the doors of the van, and then puked in my mouth as I was walking out on stage. It was a decent show, it just lacked the energy of the previous nights. I think part of it is because we drove through the night and we were all very tired.

Anyhow, check out this pictures I took...

Brutalitour officially takes the cake. In every way this is already the best tour of our lives. Last night we played Chicago (arlington heights) in a Knights of Columbus hall and it was the most intense show we have ever played. No stage, no security, no bullshit. Thanks a lot to all the dudes in IL who always make it a memorable night.

Somehow everytime we play in michigan, some weird shit happens. Last night we played in some huge roller rink with the Black Dahlia Murder. It was disgustingly hot inside the whole time and there were about 1500 dudes there. The show was wild and everything seemed to be going smoothly but as soon as we get to the stage, the security puts up a barricade and decides to start kicked out stage divers. I don't know why this always happens when we play, but it is really aggravating. Long story short, I ended up inside of a merch been crowd surfing around atop people's heads during the middle of our set. Suddenly I got put in a choke hold and was being dragged all the way out to the front of the club. Although I could barely breath, I was just laughing thinking about the rest of my band on stage for the rest of the set without me. Quickly Chase and a few of the BDM dudes came to my rescue and I escaped the guard's monstruous clutches and went sprinting back towards the stage. I performed a pretty amazing leap over the barricade on the side of the stage but unfortunately I landed with a few more of the security guards kicking me in the face. This all seemed pretty unecessary to everyone given the cirucmstance. At this point everyone has put down their guitars and shit is a mess. Black Dahlia kind of took over the struggle for me while I got back on stage and finished the set. I don't actually really care about any of that stuff because the show was amazing and we had a blast. After the show we went to Denny's and slept over at Trevor's (BDM) house. I drive now....bye

Someone stole my Wayne's World hat from the philly show...this is a huge bummer. It's a 1991 original SNL hat and I feel totally naked without it. Following the set in philly this dude who I was supposed to play basketball with at the philly show had a gnarly siezure which was pretty scary. I have recieved word from him that he is Ok though. If you see someone with my hat in the philly area, please snatch it! Nevertheless, it was a great show. The next night in Waretown NJ was at a firehall. At first I was bummed out on the fact that everyone at the show was 8 years younger than me and most likely had little of an understanding of our band. It seemed like the crowd didn't care at all about the extremely amazing musicianship of Beneath the Massacre and The Faceless and instead of watching them, people were violently pummeling those around them. However, most of those people left before we played and we had a great show. Dinner just got here, so I am going to eat...later

Alrighty, so we finished up the album and it fucking kills! After we were done tracking, we had a lot of time to kill so we played a lot of candlepin "cosmic" bowling. This was pretty much the funnest thing we could do in Salem (there is not much of a nightlife in the town).

We found this funny place...


After the record was done, Navene and his brother Sean and myself took a bus ride into NYC for a Lightning Bolt show. This was hands down the coolest show I have ever been to and I really mean that. We had a blast walking around the city and ended up on an over night bus back to Boston so that we could make the New England Metalfest. Along the way, we found this funny place...



We made it to the metalfest and actually got to play an impromptu set on the first day as well as our scheduled set the next day. We caught up with some old friends and hung out all day.




Frank got drunk and fell flat on his face...I have some great photos, but this photo upload thing isn't really working. Ill be back with more pics and stories soon. OUr headlining tour has kicked off to a great start with tons of people at all the shows so far. We are at Paul Romano's house right now about to take some photos for the album. Paul is an amazing host and has cooked us some of the best meals of our lives. Check back shortly for pics of Frank's busted ass face.

We are nearly done tracking the album. I have one more song to do vocally and then we are just finishing up guitar leads and full on mixing and production. In the meantime I have been making these great ethnic and futuristic band photos. check it out.

aZn PrydE DooOdZ LolZ fo ReAlZZ roflZ


Soul Band


old dudes

Upon Leaving the tudio last night it was storming hail and rain. I was in pretty bad mood from being sick for days on end and not being able to do any vocals yet. To brighten up our day, somehow the trailer ball on the hitch of our van got hooked underneat the bumper of U-Haul truck that was parked behind us. If we moved forward at all, we would have torn the bumper off. All of a sudden, all these old school Irish Massachusetts type dudes start coming out of the woodworks with "idiers" of how we are going to "get dis wacky shit straightened out". One guy in peticular was really amusing and seemed to be far too drunk for 4 pm. He decided that he should deflate our tires to get the thing unhooked...no thanks. We ended up getting out of there after I had to lay down in a puddle of slushy ice underneath the van trying to pry the bumper off with some peice of wood I found on the sidewalk.

Things are going wonderfully. We tracked all the drums already and are just finishing up the guitars today. We couldn't be happier with Kurt, our engineer. He is creative and great to work with and is really getting us the sounds that we want. Last night we had our buddy Travis Ryan of Cattle D come in a do some guest vocals on the song "Plunder Incorporated". I (Leo) am suffering from a cold that has so far prevented me from getting on the mic. At any rate, this album is going to be a crusher!

drumset


control room


tracking geeetars

Two days in at godcity and things are going great. We spent almost the entire first day just setting up drums and drum mics and finding the right tones. Kurt, our engineer is really fun and easy to work withas well as the drum tech Alex that he brought in. After the first day we went and saw Grindhouse with Guy (red chord)...pure entertainment. While navene recorded 4 songs yesterday, I went out with Guy and got a mini tour of Salem and we talked about burning witches. The old witch grave yard from the 1600's is only a block away from the studio. There are also like 12 dunkin donuts in a 2 mile radius. I still have to write lyrics for the last song, but I am having a hard time finding any sort of inspiration. Unfortunately, I usually have to be pretty outraged by something to sit down and write lyrics. Feeling horribly ill is not really conducive to doing anything creative nor really anything at all. I'll post some pics from the studio tomorrow.

we are in massachusetts...start recording tomorrow. ANIMAL is going to rip!

Off to an interesting start here on our way out east. I haven't been able to get on the nerd for the past few days so this will have to serve as a update for the last week. Starting off in California, we had a great time at the metalfest. Testament fucking killed it. This show served as a trial run for our confetti/feather/leaf blower assault. It worked out pretty well and will be in full effect on Brutalitour. We promptly took off after the show to drop my brother off at the amtrack station and get on the road to Utah. I woke up in Las Vegas, immediately lost 20 bucks playing black jack, ate breakfast in a dank little casino called Ellis Island, and then hit the black jack table again to win my money back. I got a call from the dude putting on the house show in Utah that night and he told me that it was a no-go on the house and that if we wanted to play we were going to have to do a desert show. That's exactly what happened...we played in the middle of the fucking desert on the Utah, Arizona border and had a huge bonfire.


It was an interesting contrast compared to playing the sold out metalfest in california the night before. The next night in denver...canceled. No big deal for us though because for some reason we do horrible in denver. We drove on through the night for an early morning arrival at our Budy James King's (Origin/Unmerciful) house in Topeka KS. Frank and Navene finished writing the last song of the album at James' house while I drove around Topeka looking for a basketball court (I found one and played...it was tight). The show that night was pretty rad, not too many folks there but as always it was good to hang with our friends from Diskreet, Origin and unmerciful. We drove through the night again heading towards Louisville KY. I get the feeling that Frank didn't even go to sleep at all that night because when I woke up in the morning to drive he wasn't in the van and I found him in some boot store at a truck stop. Later on in the day I am driving while Evan is sitting shotgun...everyone else is dead asleep and then out of nowhere Frank wakes up and put both of his feet through the side window, glass shatters everywhere. He looks up at the window, barely realizing what happened and just fell right back to sleep. That made for a interesting morning for me today here in Nashville TN sitting in the lobby room of a auto glass repair place for about two hours. Kind of a strange and confusing bummer. We played last night with Norma Jean and A Life Once Lost and the show was surprising amazing. I was a little unsure how we would go over with the Norma Jean/Chariot crowd, but it worked out well. This really drunk redneck dude was trying to sell our merch all night which at first was extremely entertaining but then quickly to a turn for the annoying.

Welcome to our new on-line journal...I will be writing in here as often as possible so check back frequently for daily updates. We have had a pretty grueling last two weeks, practicing everyday (with the exception of the last 2 days which has been a drug induced disaster). Evan, our bass player has been living with me while we have been preparing the new album ANIMAL. Our plan is to leave San Francisco early tomorrow morning to get down to LA for the california metalfest, play a week of shows heading out east to the recording studio in Massachusetts where and record the album. I think it's pretty funny that the day after we are playing some huge theater in california with thrash legends TESTAMENT, we are supposed to play the laundry room of an apartment complex in Utah. It should be a blast though. I'll be back when we are on tour with some recounts and stories...thanks for checking in.