the preamble to wwIII
for the river people, the tourists and townspeople alike… this world war III tour is going to be pinnacle of madina lake.
from them, through us, to you…
in the usa, “house of cards” was intended as a set up single. to introduce the band. did better than expected, so they let it go for a surf. ”here i stand” was the main single they were going to take to radio. slated for a july release. we were on project rev at the time, everything was moving on an unexpectedly nice trajectory. a week before add date, the radio department was fired and replaced, the single was shelved. humans need food and oxygen to survive. a new band’s record in america needs radio, marketing and touring. 2 strikes there….so we toured. much like the 2 years prior to projekct rev, couldn’t get on any support tours after it, so we continued to headline for another year. playing for at least 2 bartenders a night, for a collective 120 people.
overseas, we had a quick rise in the uk. we treasured this, as we’ve always wanted to connect with a country we admired so deeply. the challenge was, we brought our award winning haircuts (sarcasm, in case any potential reader has more brain damage than i did).
that’s a dangerous combination. consequently, like most bands do under these circumstances, we decidedly went left, instead of right, and stepped directly into a nice pile of shit. the one where you make a reactionary record to shed the impression that was branded to your name. a token rookie mistake, wherein the ego edges out the spirit, just by a hair. ”yeah well your senior photo is ridiculous too, can’t we laugh about it yet? we’re not emo.” and admittedly, we didn’t safeguard ourselves enough from the brand. someone roofied us and slipped some guyliner on our lids. you live and you learn..
attics to eden
interestingly, in our case, you’ve got another cook or two in the kitchen. a label who wants to grab hold of the wheel, to ensure it stays their course. the pedal gets a cinder block drop so da car don’t stop, so it can gobble up every dashed line on the road, pacman style, until the car goes cliff diving. big budget + big hit producer + uncompromising, band who insists on writing and recording every note = “attics to eden”
**disclaimers; david bendeth is incredibly talented. and truthfully, i adore that record. i think we botched the sequencing. never walk alone was written to open the record (label disagreed), oblivion should have been in first 3, and should have been the first single (label didn’t), and criminals and through the pain should have been deep. we basically chose the 5 most extreme stylistically incongruent songs and put them in the first 5 slots. at least that way, we’ve demonstrated we’re a rock band, devoid of genre.
didn’t matter what we did, the jury had already handed down the verdict on us when the prosecution produced exhibit “blond twins, one black streak” and “kerrang cover photo 2.” kerrang and the uk RR office are the whole reason we were successful over there. it was just one coerced ‘smiling’ shot that snuck its way to the printing room. who cares. it’s not like we’re foreign to being called “fags,” we live in chicago for F’s sake. the nice part is, we were assembling a small sub culture of friends/fans, the River People, to share our world with. that’s all we wanted in the first place. no spot light, just enough cheddar to turn the lights on between tours.
end of 2009, and all of 2010
then, as if one of us were pol pot in a past life, dropping from the womb with a karmic debt akin to my medical bills, we took a nice long plunge into a whole different type of shit pile. no dramatics necessary. did it and does it still suck? yeah. do i hate it when people talk or write by asking themselves a question and then answering it? yeah.
minus some annoying features, we’re back on track. we’re lucky as hell.. and we just released the third and final chapter in our overly ambitious mythology, “world war III.”
all of this being said…. i can’t believe you’re still reading btw, thank you. we had some, almost recklessly, huge ideas for Madina. For how the unseeable path turns, expectation and regret are futile. passion, hard work and honesty are paramount to any endeavor you choose. we’ve fulfilled that, subsequently, fulfilling ourselves.
world war III
we made 100% by ourselves. in the interest of dodging a cliche in this mine field, i’ll only remark that this is the record we are most proud of, holds the most importance to us, and we’re happy to have any appellate court serve us their verdict. when you truly don’t care about how your creation is perceived by any entity, outside of your realm, that’s when it’s something you can be proud of. and it’s also very liberating. as luck would have it, so far the words have been delightful.
for any and all who’ve had so much as an interest, in what madina is about, this tour is the epitome of us. the pinnacle of our career. join us if you’d like to see the wonderful world we’ve been lucky enough to live in for the last six years.
starts in UK november 1st
xoxo
