When on the Road, often days off can be incredibly boring, it’s just one of the many things bands on the Road have to deal with. Sure days off can be nice, sometimes useful to fix gear or catch up on sleep, but for the most part its just 4 bored guys in a bus hanging out in some strange city. 

However this time it was no strange city. The last couple days we have been hanging out in Joey’s home town of Nanaimo, doing our best to fend off the insidious forces of boredom and for the most part I would say we have been successful. A big thanks to Joey’s family and friends for putting us up and more importantly putting up with us!

Big shout out to the Nanaimo Buccaneers for sponsoring our upcoming Charity event at the Cavallotti Hall (Feb 26) benefiting the Nanaimo Hospice Society. Thanks for letting us catch a game and best of luck in the post season!

The last 3 days have been filled with hi-jinx and shenanigans aplenty. One highlight being the hilarious live radio interview on CHLY 101.7 FM with Raymond “Razer” Albert that covered everything from Joey’s shoe fetish to Chris’ apparent love of “older” women and very many points in-between. If you missed it, it was probably for the best! 😛 Thanks for having us on Razer, you make the best pop corn I’ve ever had!

Killing time until the interview Joey took us to a local jam space where we debuted our new line up: Chris on drums, Joey on bass, Kenny on guitar and myself on keyboards. No vocals of course because instrumental bands are just so much more kvlt. If you thought we were good before, this line up will take us to the top for sure! 

Not everything over the last couple days has been all fun and games unfortunately. It was during this time it was discovered that Joey was in serious need of an emergency Caneal Shortening surgery. I am happy to report that the surgery went off without a hitch and we expect joey will make a full recovery by show time in Esquimalt on Thursday Feb 25th. A very big thanks to the super professional Dr. Cowstein for fitting us into his busy schedule on such short notice! 

 

Today its back to Victoria for us as we will be appearing on both Broken Neck Radio as well as Two Hours to Midnight on CFUV 101.9 FM UVic’s radio station. 

You can find Broken Neck Radio at http://www.brokenneckradio.com, tune in around 9pm to catch us!

Two Hours to Midnight can be found at 101.9 FM on your radio dial and at http://www.cfuv.uvic.ca for the live stream. The show starts at 10pm!

Can’t wait to get back up on the stage in Esquimalt!

Keep the Faith, 

Leighton Holmes

(Bass Guitar)

http://www.facebook.com/ironkingdom

http://www.iron-kingdom.com

Holy shit Victoria! Last night was an absolute blast!! It was a great turn out, a wicked way to kick off our Island tour. The scene in Victoria surpassed all of our expectations and threw the fuck down! It’s always really sweet seeing people mosh for us, especially the first time we come through town! It was a pleasure meeting everyone, and playing with Tribune and Scimitar finally, it seems like we have been so close to crossing paths for years. Of course, its always a blast playing with Maiden BC. Thanks for everything boys we will be back to Vic for sure, don’t know what took us so long to get here in the first place. 

Tonight we do it all again with Maiden BC in beautiful Courtenay at The Mex. If this show is even half of last night it’s going to be righteous! \m/

So here’s the challenge Courtenay: Victoria set the bar high, lets see you top it! 

We are stoked to keep this train rolling, see you tonight Courtenay!! 

Keep the Faith,

Leighton Holmes

(Bass Guitar)

http://www.facebook.com/ironkingdom

http://www.iron-kingdom.com

Hails from the Kingdom! Today we embark on our maiden voyage to Vancouver Island! For three of us this trip marks a venture into uncharted waters, for the fourth it is a triumphant return home.  Our newest comrade-in-arms, drummer Joey Paul, is originally from Nanaimo having moved to the mainland only recently. We thought it fitting that our first tour together should be a place we have been trying to get to for a while, Vancouver Island. Due to certain events last year we finally have a tour set up that makes it more economic to take the ridiculously expensive ferry (always have to look on the bright side folks!) and now we get a chance to take a dip into a new market so close to home. (For those of you already sick of the nautical themed puns, I’m sorry but as I’m writing this on the ferry it seems I just can’t resist :P)

Personally it feels like one of the roughest parts of being in a touring band is the down time between tours, so I am very happy to be hitting the road (even if it is only for a short time) and travelling once more with my brothers bringing our brand of metal to the masses (or at least a couple people :P). I have only been to the Island 3 or 4 times in the decade plus that I’ve lived on the Wet Coast and even then only for very short periods of time so i am very excited to see more of what the Island has to offer and to play with some of the rad bands that call it home. 

This trip will serve as a learning experience and warm up for the longer North American tour we are doing in a couple months and open the way for more return trips in the future. We all have very high hopes for this string of shows as we get more used to a new tour set up as well as grow more tightly as a band. you can find a full list of our dates here: 

https://www.facebook.com/events/521922607984320/

The future seems bright and clear, even if the weather doesn’t, and we look forward to meeting friends both old and new!

Keep the Faith, 

Leighton Holmes 

(Bass Guitar)

http://www.facebook.com/ironkingdom

http://www.iron-kingdom.com