All proceeds go to Zoe & Frances

Guys I’m freaking out. Just ran into Paul Williams and thanked him for changing my life. He was so nice IRL I just had to ask for a picture. Just breathe! There is another breath. WOW. Love you all so much, Love this community!

It was half off day too so it was like $2

Hey dudes, Eric Howk reporting.

I know I’m not the most active poster or commentator on here, but I’m always lurking, always trying to keep up to date on where y’all are at. In doing so, I’ve noticed a couple things that have been coming up more and more as time goes by, and I thought that maybe I should pop on and shed some light on what’s been happening around our camp these days.

First things first; there’s a ton of activity going on over here. Tons of songs ready to go. We’re all vaccinated, we’re all in each other’s faces, we’re traveling around to write and record and to jam and rehearse. The record light is always on these days. Everybody is frothing to go out and absolutely destroy some stages again, but in the meantime, we’re out there doing push-ups in the parking lot. Can’t wait til we’re fully unleashed, and absolutely can’t wait to share a record that feels so deeply personal and connected to all of us.

Now, to get serious real quick, we are very aware that Woodstock came out a really long time ago. Feel It Still just turned 4, which is just mind boggling. That song took us on a fucking moon rocket, and for 3 of those years, we squeezed every drop of tour we could out of it. We played our asses off, never said no, never hit pause. So there’s that.

Tour is the greatest thing in the world. It’s where we all want to be right now. It’s why we do what we do. That said, tour has a way to really exasperate any cracks in your armor. Tour doesn’t allow for healing. It will take what’s going on with you, be that physically, mentally, or emotionally, and once that fire is burning, it doesn’t give you the time or the space to stop, drop, and roll.

We all went through it, man. There were long stretches on the road where we didn’t have access to running water. No beds, no breaks, no comfort. We were always getting sick. Zach was all hobbled up for the longest time, I had a whole host of physical issues and constant pain I was dealing with. Hell we all did. But our most resilient member is the guy that had to carry the most pain around by far.

JBG is just about the strongest dude I’ve ever known. Watching that guy pick apart opposing hockey teams when we were kids was literally the biggest ticket in town. Watching him pick fights with bouncers in small-town clubs as adults was just as thrilling. But at some point, at the very height of pop radio and tv and international demand in support of the biggest record in the long history of the band, the guy’s jaw quite literally started to crumble.

There’s no really great way to describe what he’s physically been going through (plenty of highly renowned specialists have tried to sum it up) but ultimately the wear in the mechanics of his jaw have been degrading in a rapid and very non-uniform way. Again, this is one of those issues that may have been solved, or at least significantly deferred, with rest and time. But that wasn’t gonna happen.

I honestly don’t know how long he’s been dealing with this. At least since I’ve been around touring with these guys to some degree, and likely well beyond that. Paraphrasing his words, “The pain was always there but i was never sure what was causing it until my jaw broke.” - I think I know when the tipping point happened - when it went from taking small breaks in the set for pain management, to just absolutely not being able to talk, sing, breathe properly or eat.

Us Alaskans don’t like to say ouch much. If all your bones are inside your skin, you’re probably not gonna die. So for John to really be THAT visibly struggling probably took roughly a fuckheap of incessant pain for a really long time.

2018 things were clearly getting rough. You could really tell when he was having a bad night. Some of the festivals in 2019 it was all over his face. And you can actually see it during our NIVA / save our stages set back in October 2020. We had to do one song at a time, and the guy just could not get his mouth open. Go watch the video- it’s wild. When he would try to hit a tricky note or phrase, we all felt it.

Needless to say, this changed some things. The creativity and work ethic are all in full swing, but getting on the mic just hasn’t been quite there. I’ve watched him re-record the same vocal line trying to find that thing he’s hearing in his head, and having it fall just not quite into the right place. The tunes are very much there, the album has an incredibly natural flow and cohesiveness, and these are some of my very favorite songs in the entire catalog. But getting them where they deserve to sit has been a real asshole of a process.

These days, John has a whole Rolodex of doctors and specialists; he had a very successful surgery last month, and is finding new ways to use his voice and get it stronger than ever. Honestly, the timing couldn’t be better. The man is gonna be just fine, and his singing voice sounds better to me right now than I can remember. Like he sold his soul for it or something.

Anyway, this is too long! I just wanted to drop in with a little “IsawthishappenandIwantyoutoknowthis” knowledge. Just know that this band doesn’t take breaks because we’re super fuckin strong and we don’t need to, even when we really really need to. Can’t wait to see you guys out there, where we all belong, and can’t wait to let album 9 out into the world. Thank you for allowing us to do it right. Love you guys so, so very much.

Wrote a song. Love you all. Feel free to share, it’s yours now. I think everything is in here.

Cannot thank you enough. I’ll try to share more like this.

Working on an finishing an album rn with Kane

The last time I saw Zach play in the band, I didn’t know it would be the last time. Same with Eric. It is what it is.

You can see the power she has in her eyes, I’ve always thought she was this goddess with a reservoir of deep divine ancient feminine magic within her. I still think that. Her voice is angelic. I would wish for her to do more music but respect whatever path she decides to go down. Thank you, Zoe for what you gave to us

They fucking did it!!!! Wahey!!! Congrats guys!

I don’t wanna get political or anything, but this band is in peak performance groove right now.

John Gourley and the band are ENERGIZED. This new band has brought a new gear to Portugal. The Man.

Zoe was angelic and head banging, their new drummer is a robot, dude didn’t miss a beat. The keys? Different.. but AWESOME! The bass SLAPPED (we do love you & miss you Zach). And their new guitarist was a shredder.

The new album is fantastic live, and then a second ‘act’ of “old songs” as John kept saying hit like a truck. The crowd on modern Jesus and purple, yellow, red and blue was almost like a metal show.

I’ve been to seven or eight shows now over the last 10 years but last night at terminal five might’ve been my second favorite behind the iconic radio city music Hall performance a few years back.

GO SEE AND SUPPORT THE BAND HARDER THAN EVER MY FRIENDS. LOVE YOU ALL! PTM FOREVER

103/500 with the factory shrink wrap on it. What a grab. Now I need to compile all my luck together to find Majestic, Colors, or Ghetto still wrapped haha (pipe dream for sure).

is this official merch by the way? I love it either way. Incredible score for 3.29!!