Hey all,

So, somebody just sent me a message asking what touring was like, and how hard it was to keep up with the progress everyone is making on the Studio Access remixes. I guess the truthful answer is; it's tough... but I'm doing my best.  We're currently on tour in the US.  Last night we played in San Diego.  We didn't get back to our hotel until around 3:30am (asleep by 4am or so), and had to be up early this morning to drive to Bakersfield, CA (where we are right now).  Our tour schedule is densely packed.  Usually we wake up around 7 or 8am to do local morning radio or television (which we're doing tomorrow), then we try to squeeze in some lunch before doing afternoon radio interviews (phoners and in-studio acoustic performances).  After that we head to the venue for load-in (between 2 and 4pm), load our gear in and then do an interview or two for the local print press before sound-checking, which is usually around 5.  Doors typically open at 8pm, so we try to squeeze in some dinner after sound-check, and catch a 45-minute nap back at the hotel.  If I have time... this is when I take 15-20minutes to check out what's happening with all of your remixes, and respond to messages. Our set-time is usually around 11:00pm, so we have a 9pm lobby-call and make sure to be back at the venue before 9:30 or 10pm to listen to the other bands, and socialize with them for an hour or so.  At around 10:30 or 10:45 the last opener pulls their gear off the stage and we set up ours.  We hit at 11:00 and play 75-minutes of music with as much intensity as we can muster.  After the show, before tearing down our gear, we proceed to spend anywhere from 45-minutes to 2-hours meeting with fans, signing autographs, having backstage meet-and-greets with retailers, broadcasters, venue staff, etc.  Once everyone's gone, we pack the gear in the van/trailer/bus (depends on how we're traveling that leg) and either go to sleep (in a bus if we're lucky), or drive to our hotel in a van, or sometimes even drive the van to the next town where we check-in to a new hotel early in the morning, when the rest of the world is eating breakfast.  And then it starts all over again for the next day (which is actually THAT day).  Sometimes we don't get to sleep for days.  It's downright grueling travel.  We drink too much alcohol and not enough water, eat crappy fast food, and daydream about having a day off so we can wash our clothes.  That's just the tip of it, and doesn't cover any of the nightmarish air-travel days, or when we all get sick, or have food poisoning, or the venue in Arizona that we've packed has no air-conditioning in the middle of August and the backline is shitty, and the drum hardware was falling apart so we had to spend an hour or two sourcing new gear... etc, etc, etc.  That's the reality.  But... I'm not complaining.  I get to play music with my friends.  I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world.  ;)

- John Wozniak