DragonNinjaDotCom

Lostprophets are set to be in the new Kerrang! Magazine (28th May).

And Ians been testing Quorn with Matt Davies of Funeral For A Friend. You can view the video on op4ams blog, myspace here

For you:

ok, so im not sure why these dates havent been on here, but its better late than never. There may still be tickets left, im not sure, worth a shot though cause these shows are our first shows in a year and it will be a crazy laugh (probably at our expense).

xxx

…do some limited edition prints of some of my work. Just a thought. Also just sitting here thinking about when I should start thinking about packing some stuff to go on tour. Then thought better of it and poured myself a Coke.
It’s been a while since I’ve had my dusty suitcase out and packed for touring. Last time I was in the UK I got stranded there. US gov wouldn’t let me back in to the states. had three weeks with myself sitting in Wales twiddling my thumbs (shivers). I am looking forward to playing some shows again. To be honest I’m more psyched about doing the warm up shows and the European festivals than the higher profile gigs. My arse is going a bit for Download. Kinda can’t wait to be on the other side of that show. I’m sure it will be rad, it’s just (as always) I don’t enjoy being all profession and serious, yet a show of that caliber requires a bit of focus and sensibility. I like the shows where I can have a few bevy’s and go piss about and have fun. Who gives a shit if I cock a part up or sing a bum note…but the big shows are recorded and nothing worse than that flat harmony getting repeated on BBC3 every Sunday night for weeks…….gives me nightmares.
Talking of nightmares, my usual pre-performance bad dreams kicked in last night. It was a dream where Mike Chiplin was still in the band, kinda sad cos I haven’t seen or heard from him in like years, but we were on stage and I didn’t recognise any of the songs the band were playing…not entirely sure if I was fully clothed either. Woke up screaming …”uuur arrgh… WAKE UP WAKE UP!” (boooooooo hissss not funny).

..I don’t know how to follow that now…I’ve kinda upset myself by that god awful pun, I promise it wasn’t pre concieved, it just fell out of my brain onto the keypad. sorta taken the wind out of anything else I was going to say.
um…
so…
yeah…..
Finished another painting today. On the fence right now as to whether I’m stoked on it. I was trying out some new ideas and techniques. bit different for me. It’s not shit by any means, I’m just not as blown away as I thought I might be when I was 3/4’s of the way through. Ah well.
I think maybe its a grower.
Talking of growers, Bought the new Portishead Album, pretty tasty if I do say so. A little off the wall, right up my street. Reminded me of some of the wacky break beat stuff I used to do. I found a track me and Stu make for a skate movie back in 2003. It was crazy awesome crazy! I wish there was a way I could post it up here. I surprised myself with what I did on the scritchy scratchy decks back in the day. (bighead). Most of the break beat stuff I do now is so left field that I have to be intoxicated to even listen to it. I dug out about 30 odd tracks which I had made over the years. There’s no way I could ever release anything like that for 2 very important reasons. Three…three important reasons. 1, most of it is samples from other records…2, some are like 40 second loops, others go on and on for tens of minutes, and 3, they aren’t really all that good. Like, when I was doing them I didn’t really think about making songs (starts, middles, ends etc.) with them so for the most part they are like a handful of loops that go nowhere. A bit like my blogs I guess. Maybe one day, I’ll rework some of them with all this new technology and put it up on the web for free, I’ll still probably get sued.
LETS GET THIS RECORD DONE FIRST THOUGH EH?????
damn it!
Oh, here’s a subject. xbecx asked “how do you think the internet has positively impacted on the music industry???”

As for any question of this caliber there are always positives and negatives. This is my opinion and not representative of the band in any way before we start.
It is obvious these days what the downsides are to sharing music on the Internet. In order to get some perspective I shall name only a few. Smaller signed bands used to survive not on record sales but on selling merch and touring. In the past these things were out of the reach of the record labels greedy fingers, but since music was being shared and record companies were taking losses, they decided to dip their hands into the touring and merchandise rights of the new bands they were signing, hence making it even more difficult for upcoming bands to survive. Ironically, most people think that sharing/stealing music only hurts the “man” but as you can see, these companies bandage their wounds with the very cloth that used to keep smaller bands afloat. This circle gets worse, as the number of record sales reduce the more bands need to tour, the harder it is to tour when the pie is being cut into smaller and smaller pieces. Also, with this heightened frenzy for bands to tour in order to survive, the touring circuited gets flooded with show after show, the venues are booking band after band, however the scene eventually gets diluted, and with so much available, the apathy grows in the people who usually attend shows and venues get emptier and emptier. I’ve had experience and heard first hand how much more difficult it has become to tear people from their xbox’s and reality shows to step out and dip in pockets to attend shows.
As for a positive angle. The ease of access and presentation of music, levels the playing field so that quality can rise to the surface. Gone are the days where a label has the power to force feed their weak bands down the throats of the buying public. Gone are the days where money dictates the artistic fashions, where once quality was thrown aside and kept in the dark in order that the next dumbest most sugary obvious band can come and clean up only because he/she had the tallest most expensive pedestal to stand on.
Now, music and art can speak for its self, it doesn’t require a sugar daddy to push it into the spotlight. It goes straight to the source. The most important source, the listener. And he/she dictates whether something is good or bad. The power has moved from the press and the money lenders who try in vain to tell you who you should like and who you should hate, because they can no longer censor music. It makes no difference whether you have been around for decades or weeks, you can still present your art and if it has quality, it will be recognised and heard. So, even though, the survival of artist is becoming more and more difficult, It seems that the balance is being readdressed and the priority is has moved back to where it should be. Only Quality will survive the test. Music is being seen and heard for what it is. If your music has quality, and this quality can be recognised and appreciated you have a chance of survival. If you’re crap, tough shit..no amount of money will make you any less crap (unless you still live in a place where there is no freedom to individually source your information e.g. the Internet, where you can make up your own minds about things, and shit still gets rammed down your throat….believe me, these places still exist) And don’t moan about it. It’s not the reviews or the record labels or the press (who get your cd’s&mp3’s for free anyway) that will let you know how good or bad you are. It’s the real people would want to or don’t want to listen to your art. If you are an honest artist, and you do what you believe in, and this is of your highest standard, people may see the truth, quality and value in your art. This is how it should always be (my opinion). Believe in what you do, cross your fingers and hope that you aren’t so different from everyone else and prepare to weather the storm.

disclaimer: I only feel like this today, tomorrow I reserve the right to feel completely different. Please don’t bother to comment in opposition to what I have written. It has been my opinion, not a forum and it isn’t up for discussion. I will simple block my ears, close my eyes and sing “bla, bla, bla can’t hear you, bla” if you do. thanks

…………………..

been busy in t’studio innit.
t’is all going hunky dory!
Don’t worry yurselves about pictures of my new blondness, I’m sure when kerrang comes out y’all have plenty to rip into me about, that I am sure of. It was my decision to enter into the world of public property so feel free to tell me how shit it looks as I have no real feelings of my own. (ooooh meeow, check me out! claw trimming time me thinks)kidding.
msannieannie:”is that where you come from? why is this one big building in the middle the center of interest in the painting? what is that? because besides this and the street next to it, all the other buildings create a chaos..”
That’s my primary school. I think it started on Aug 15th 1887 (the school of course not my painting of it). It was literally across the road from where I grew up. The reason I painted it the way I did was because as a child the building seemed huge and ominous. The exterior was very dark (maybe due to coal dust) and the windows always reflected the grey clouds above. I tried to give the buildings and streets that I painted personality and character. Ive never really separated my approach to painting portraits and landscapes, and for the most part I have always considered the environment as an equal to the people, as I believe they are one in the same.

ritchie:”PLEASE ANSWER!i know your over turntables but will we ever hear you scratching again????? (on future albums)”
Its not cos I’m over turntables. I was never really into scratching so much, I always wanted to find new more creative ways to use vinyl. I went forward more with sampling off of records and using sounds to compliment the music, and it turned out to be more effective and flexible to play the sounds through a cdj and an akai sampler. Ive basically moved from hardware to software but essentially I do the same thing in the band. I’m not a keyboard player as some imagine. my keyboard is a midi controller that plays the samples which I have made. I had to move up from a 16 pad akai to a 66 key midi because I was participating way more in the songs and I am playing way more than I used to, also that’s why I’m pretty much anchored to the ground because unlike before I’m always adding to the sound scape in most songs. I still use vinyl loads when recording but more as samples and less as scritchy scratch. make sense? If it were my band I’d scratch over everything and have no vocalist! ha ha.
Hikari yamino:”And i have been meaning to ask,are all the Lost Prophets album cover designed by you and Ian?” yes..pretty much.
anonymous German:”But honestly, why do Lostprophets booklets, designs and all suck that much? Your pictures and paintings have class, so why not the visual side of your band. Anyway. Just some well-meant criticism.”
aaaaah…mmmm. this is awkward….yeah well kinda answered that already….I guess that when I try and do stuff for the band it sucks. Maybe because I’m not used to having to run my images through the filtering machine and have everyone else rip it to shreds. Maybe its because I like to take my time over my art and produce quality, however in the world of design things have to be now!now!now! and for that reason people change their minds every few seconds and its impossible to commit to a painting that could take weeks when people I work with have Attention Deficit Disorder! Maybe. or Maybe what I do in my art doesn’t suit the personality of the band. Maybe your wrong. Or as Shania Twain once said “Maybe, just maybe, he’ll want to be my baby”. Maybe not.
Beth said…:”your blonde hair actually looks ok, I heard about it and was a bit unsure”
Jamie said…. thanks a bunch. I have heard about your hair too but I haven’t seen it. I’m sure it actually looks ****, but what does my opinion matter anyway! lol!
x.jay:”Whats the latest TV show you cried at?Random question brought on by me bawling my eyes out at Doctor Who tonight.” golden compass…crying because it was sooo shit.
Supertwigg:” am impatiently awaiting your next blog, come on even Ian is doing better than you haha” Ian’s doing 3 word blogs. Ian isn’t funny. Ian said he’d do them everyday and then went back on his word. I doubt very much that He’s doing better than me. Ian gets more comments because he’s a hunky dory front man. that’s all he has on me!!! everything else is mine! MINE I TELL YOU!
ha.
As you can see I have replied to comments this time. It’s not because I haven’t anything of my own to be writing. It’s because I’m nice.
now piss off!
x

You may be experiencing some hiccups (such as our curiously missing logo up there and the gallery seeming a bit…empty) but I can assure you it will be fixed up soon. We are in the process of moving servers so things will seem a little screwy! Hopefully have it all back and healthy and happy soon!

to photoshop me as Dolph Lundgren in Masters of the Universe. I wish! Msannieannie, ITS NOT REAL!!! Chill your boots! I’m still the old pudgy me.
yeah, though the blonde hair is real. I was thinking more along the lines of Patrick Swayze-Point Break.
Its so cool that this blog reaches people all across the globe, makes the world a small place doesn’t it? Lee’s hair is its natural colour, suits him. I’m afraid we don’t have any plans to to visit Sweden this summer. Thanks to Angie for your kind comments on my mural I did up at the Rhondda Heritage park. It was an interesting period of my life. I was pretty broke and had long, long hours on a scaffolding in the freezing cold painting that Mural. It was also hard because the viewer has to be so close to the painting so it had to cater for that. I’m not overly pleased with how it turned out, and neither was the Park I don’t think. Basically, I think they were hoping for some bright uplifting image like the rest of my work, but I was so moved by the mining disaster it portrayed, that I was forced to express the pain and loss that it caused. The irony is that, my own village suffered one of the worst mining disasters in Britain on the 23 June 1894 which killed 281 men and boys. The Albion Colliery disaster in Cilfynydd. A young man named Timothy Jones who was 26 when he died in the accident lived at the very house I was born in. My village was a little pissed that I painted a mural about another disaster at Tynewydd where 5 men died, but I stand by it because of the heroism of the rescue involved needed to be recognised. Had I been asked to paint about the Albion I would have.
History lesson over…back to hair……..not.
I hope we will come to Australia on this next touring cycle. I’m determined to surf in Brisbane, some of the sharkiest water in the world. The first time I ever surfed was in Australia, little known and pointless fact. Me, Mike and Stu if my memory serves me.
Thomas, yes I have been to Cork many times. I am an avid fly fisherman (catch and release whenever possible) and have fished the South West of Ireland on a number of occasions. For your information the air speed velocity of a swallow, a European swallow (since I am Welsh) I have determined to be in the region of roughly 16 meters per second (15 beats per second * 1.1 meters per beat). The cruising speed, that is. Come over to England cos I don’t know when we are going to be back in Ireland as a band and normal toast.
If it were down to me to book lostprophets shows, I’d for sure want to tour Argentina and Mexico. In fact, there’s very few places I wouldn’t want to visit and play. I hear the weather is good in Afghanistan and Somalia this time of year. And our cd’s are flying of the shelves in the western region of Darfur (Sudan). Scary!
Juditta, I haven’t forgot Italy. I love Italy. Probably my favourite place on earth that I have visited is Venice. Of course, My love for Venetian art draws me back there time and time again.
Thank you Jessica, Its awesome that you lean on our art to help you through Grad school. It always makes me smile to hear that our music can influence people in a positive way.
I am making an effort to reply to comments now and again, since you guys thought it was cool that I did it in the last blog. I’m sorry in advance if I don’t reply to all of your comments. My excuse is that if I did, there wouldn’t be enough room for me to talk my usual non cohesive nonsense talk, which is why I started doing this in the first place.
(IDEA!) what I may do is different types of blogs…ones that respond to comments and others that are just me talking balls….Nah, that’s way too organised. Lets just keep it fun.
Note to self..”Today is a good day”.
Tracks are shaping up nicely here in the studio. Very nicely indeed. today so far has been a day of unkempt excitement and enthusiasm. and a flurry of inspiration and creativity. A brilliant ray of sunshine in and overcast few months. (no storms or rain, just a bit dull). Hopefully more sunshine and warm weather on its way……
That was by far one of the shittiest metaphors I have come up with. And that’s saying something from a guy renowned for shit ass metaphors. For those that know me, I’m the king of crap metaphors…Yeah..I know….stick to the day job!
out.

Long over due and no real point putting them up now since it was last weeks news but hey, a promise is a promise. I should take this opportunity to address some of the question some of you guys have posted as comments. In order of comments, top to bottom… “thanks, drunk is good..I agree. I thought Ironman was awesome but have yet to decide if it is better than Batman begins. As for exams..I’m afraid I’ve already done my fair share of exams so no real sympathy, in fact I am on permanent hiatus with my Masters degree so I’ve still got exams to look forward too. Ciao. I truly doubt your beans on toast could top mine, I’ve made it at every given opportunity for the past 25 years, at times more than once a day. I tried to change Donington to Derbyshire on myspace, but the powers that be over ruled, not seeing the fun in it. ah well. Your welcome to Ilan where ever whenever. It is a real machine gun. Ilan discovery of radiohead is a recent thing and in his usual obsessive compulsive way, he bought and listened to the whole back catalogue religiously. so gay. Thanks for the tips on adjusting the border..I’m over it already though. but cheers nevertheless. My camera is a Canon rebel xti, and a variety of lenses depending.” Thank you all for commenting, a big shout out to my new friends in Chile, Argentina, Derbyshire, Scotland, Japan. I love reading your comments, and I will promise to respond accordingly.
Thanks Guys.

In the studio right now battling with technological issues. Lots of waiting around. Not the start I had hoped. 1 single cable brings the whole ship to a grinding halt. What was going to be a day to remember is swiftly working its way into one to forget. Ilan has played every radio head song to death for the past 8 hours….my brain is fried, and the conversation is into its 3 phase of repeat. Our biggest mission right now is finding tickets to Ironman…..that’s as good as it gets.
well here’s a couple of pictures of what a today looks like. Add to this, the smell of dust, constant tinkering of 30 second clips of every song by Ilan, and Ian talking in his sleep….wowzers!
roll on school bell and straight to the pub me thinks. zzzzzzzzzzzzz!

(4 hours later)
typical…..the photo’s i sent to myself from my phone, as described about, never arrived…balls. I’ll put them up when they do.

this qualifies as the worlds most boring and pointless blog.

shit aSS!

p.s. does it piss anyone else off as it does me…the photo of me with a big machine gun doesn’t fit within the thin grey lined border. obsessive compulsive…maybe..but its just fricking annoying. grumpy having a knobend of a day. arse off!