The winners of the No Label Needed contest and series presented by Scion were Minnesota’s Iron Thrones. As the band receive insight and instruction on the music industry from music industry professionals while recording an EP at the Machine Shop, they’re blogging about it every step of the way. Stay tuned to No Label Needed and Metal Insider to get their side of the story.
Last night, I didn’t sleep very well for some reason. The temperature in the room was nice, the bed’s comfortable, and Pete doesn’t snore (unlike me, who sounds like a mixture between coffee percolating and a dying elephant), so I’m not sure what was up. I did have a strange dream in which I’d woken up at 6AM (when breakfast started) and there were dozens of people in line for the continental breakfast, and I didn’t get any.
Fortunately, that was all an elaborate scheme conjured up by my vengeful subconscious, whose world had been completely rocked by many an ill-advised late-evening acid-producing meal in the past 26 years. There was plenty of hotel food, including suspiciously small bacon and powdered eggs, and the room was completely empty with the exception of one nice lady who made me a waffle without even asking. Fortunately, stuff always tastes better when it’s free, and today’s breakfast was no exception. The free apples/oranges/bananas make me happy.
Pete woke up with some sort of cold sore. He’s not sure how it happened (my guess was the cigar last night, but he maintains that’s bullshit). We went and got some sort of medicine for it at WalMart, along with a sick pink XXXL girls’ tweetie bird shirt, some annoying sunglasses, and a pair of non-prescription nerd glasses that look awesome (pictures up on our Twitter of all of these things). After that, we hit up the grocery store (also WalMart) and got a fuck-ton of microwaveable delights; not knowing that the next hotel we’ll be at won’t have a microwave or fridge. Should be fun figuring that one out!
We came back to the hotel and had a conversation about potential album titles and imagery for the album, over a fantastic meal of microwaved pizza and noodles. We ended up with a title we can all stand behind, and emailed what we decided to the art company we’re going through.
Shortly thereafter, I got a call letting me know my check card may have been stolen, and have sent a new card to my address. I called them and got it sorted out, but as my roommate mentioned before I left: you should give your bank a call if you’re going on a trip. They assume it’s stolen and will give you a call letting you know there’s nothing you can do to save your poor personalized VISA you have in your pocket: it’ll be useless within the week. Fortunately, I’m half way across the country and don’t really have much of any way to get the new card over to me. Thanks Wells Fargo…
Later, we met Marc M., our metalinsider/syndicate contact. The first thing he did was hand me some oyster crackers and start talking up this chili someone had made downstairs (at the hotel). I ended up eating some, only to find out he hadn’t even eaten any himself. This is a tricky man, methinks! Good dude for sure.
After the chili, we all hopped in the car and drove 5-10 minutes to the photo studio for our meeting with Shadows Fall. The studio ended up being in a really cool huge abandoned-looking factory building. Humorously, there seemed to be a coffee shop inside (I can’t imagine who would come to this part of town looking for coffee, and deciding to check if this creepy fucking building had a coffee shop, but I’m not from here so who knows? We met up with the video crew, who it turns out are the guys from MetalInjection! Awesome guys, totally laid back and easy to work with. They followed us around for a few minutes as we were going back and forth in front of the building, trying to find the studio entrance, which it turned out was a block down and behind the building. Once we finally found it and walked up a few flights of stairs, we met the Shadows Fall dudes and had a good hour-and-a-half interview/meeting/hang-out session on camera, which I think went really well. They’ve definitely been around the block and know their shit: we learned a lot from them. There were talks of a potential barbecue later this week, we’ll see what happens.
After the interview, us, Marc, the MetalInjection guys, and a couple Shadows Fall dudes went out for chinese food. They had an insane-looking drink called The Scorpion Bowl, which ended up having significantly more bark than bite. Food was pretty good overall, and many good talks were had. Then one of the waitresses apparently temporarily stole a baby from a family sitting on the other side of the restaurant. She eventually brought it back, but I still can’t figure out what the hell could’ve been going through that waitress’s mind to just grab a kid and run. Very strange.
At the end of the night, we ended up having a great and lengthy discussion about metal and music in general with the MetalInjection dudes, and then a bit of a hang out session with Brian and his girlfriend in our hotel room. Overall, it was a great relaxing way to end a really surreal day. I hope it comes off as cool and fun on camera as it did in real life!
Cheers,
-steve.h
