Ages ago, I posted up some photos of the moulds I had taken of my ears for my new in-ear monitors on stage. Here's how it works: it doesn't matter what you can hear in the crowd, the band hear something totally different. We're standing next to drum kits and amplifiers and we are behind the main speakers that you're all hearing. A lot of times, we have speakers on the floor pointing up at us, but these aren't perfect as they have to be really loud to get through our earplugs and be heard over the sound of everything on stage. So we have a special mix of the sound set up and played back to us through a wireless pack that we wear (Dan keeps his in his back pocket, and I tape mine to my belt - see if you can spot them when we're playing).

As it's all so loud, we want to protect our hearing (it sounds a little dumb, being in a loud place and putting even louder sounds in your ear) so we want headphones that block out as much of the stage sound as possible. That's where these come in. They fill my ear up, and block out loads of sound, then they play me the sounds I want right next to my eardrum. Perfect.




As they are made from moulds of my ears, they won't fit anyone else, and they have to sit perfectly in my ears or they feel a little uncomfortable, but when they're in you can barely feel them. The only problem i've found is they are a little tricky to get out, but I'm sure I'll get used to that.

In other news, I've finished the new version of Brand New Enemy which will be up on the site for download soon, and a new song called "Take This Flight".

The new mixes I am working on are called "The Girl Who Stole The World" (working title, I am re-writing the lyrics so it'll definitely change), "Life, Stuck On Repeat" and "Get It On". We just upgraded the studio so it's now a pleasure to mix which means we'll be putting out new music on a much more regular basis...everyone wins.

I also found the sessions we did for a song called "It's not doing it, it's living it down that's the problem". It never got finished as I wasn't happy that I could make the chorus work, but the new gear means I can work harder and smarter on vocal sounds than ever before so I'm pretty sure I can make it sound awesome, and the song rocks from start to finish (I LOVE the middle-8). It also features some backing vocals from my ex-girlfriend which I had totally forgotten about, so when I lifted the fader on the channel it was a total shock to hear her voice...in a good way, don't panic - we're still cool...this isn't like the BV's on Brand New Enemy or anything.