Back from tour...

Our most recent UK tour was pretty eventful with plenty of excitement thrown in between the long drives that took the us up and down the country. We had some fantastic shows but unfortunately also a real low point in Blackpool when we had to cancel a show for the first time ever. Chris suddenly came down with a nasty bout of stomach flu about an hour before we were due to go on stage and there was absolutely no way he could play. We were totally gutted we could not play in front of such a great crowd but we hope to reschedule a Blackpool show for another time!

On another occasion we turned up at a venue just to find out that the stage had gone missing as it had been “lent out” to someone who had not returned it in time for the show. The mind boggles as to how large it would have been, had it actually been there! And there was of course the obligatory tour bus breakdown on the M1 – after all if you drive a 35 year old tour bus some part or other has to come loose in the middle of the motorway or else it wouldn’t be a historic vehicle, right? Right!

But on the other hand, we also had some absolutely amazing nights, with my favourite probably being Sheffield because it was as perfect an evening as it could be: a great promoter, a fantastic support band, a lovely and enthusiastic crowd, a fabulous aftershow party and – most importantly – what felt to us like one of our best performances ever!

I would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who came to one of our shows. It means a lot to us and we appreciate your continued support more than we can say. So – thanks a million! Another massive thanks also goes to the promoters who put us on, the people who helped publicise the show and the great bands who played alongside us.

We've uploaded some photos from the last tour into our gallery in case you want to take a look, along with pictures from the September dates in Germany.

We'll soon be starting with the planning of our live dates for 2009. If you want us to play in your city, let us know by demanding us via the Eventful widget we've put up on our Myspace and Facebook pages. If enough of you ask us to play in a particular city, we'll try our darndest to make it there!

Lots of love and see you soon!
Lahannya
x

LAHANNYA featured in Dark Spy (Germany)

The current issue of German goth-fetish magazine Dark Spy not only has a 2-page feature article on us, but also published a photograph from the recent shoot I did with Martin Black from Art-in-Black as centrefold poster. It is also the first time we got a photo insert on the cover. As you can imagine, we're chuffed to bits!

Mathilde vs The Countess

I don't know if you're aware of the introduction of low emission zones for vehicles in cities throughout Europe. I wasn't until about six months ago. Unfortunately, it turns out that our beloved tour bus - The Countess, a converted mobile bank (yes, you read correctly, she is a former mobile financial institution!) - was no longer allowed into London from July 2008, and she's equally barred from entering the German cities Berlin, Stuttgart, Munich, Bochum and many more...

In the UK at least you are able to retrofit your vehicle, but in Germany any retrofitting - even if it results in the vehicle passing the emissions test - is not officially accepted, so you still aren't able to enter any low emission zones. That left us with two options: buy a much newer and obviously more expensive bus (that kind of seems to be the real motivation behind at least the German low emission zones) or buy a much much older one, that is even worse in terms of emissions, but as a historic vehicle is excluded from the new regulations and can stink as much as it likes...

We decided on the latter option and started looking... I had absolutely no idea how many online forums are dedicated to old buses and lorries until we did! Unfortunately, because everyone was affected by the new regulations equally the prices for the kind of bus we needed shot through the roof... At the same time the price for buses like our Countess - perfect in every way but no longer wanted in inner cities - dropped big time. But we kept looking...

...and eventually, in a very specialist hippy forum we found an ad for a little old bus at a price we could just about afford. Lutz travelled up to Berlin to take a look and while it wasn't exactly love at first sight, we thought it was worth a go - despite the brown and orange butterfly wallpaper on the inside of the driver's door and the flowery wallpaper in the driver's cab. So Mathilde got a little facelift, a few new bits and bobs and also a completely revamped interior: 7 beds and a bathroom area. It was bloody hard work, but it was so worth it: Mathilde turned out to be a beautiful and cosy old lady and we were very happy when she took us safe and sound to all destinations of our mini tour of Germany in September.

While we love Mathilde we really wish we could also keep the Countess. She's been agreat companion for many years and we'd hate to give her away for a pittance to someone who might not really appreciate her. I keep crossing my fingers that we find a way to keep them both...

X-tra-X photoshoot for new catalogue

Yours truly has recently done a photoshoot with X-tra-X owner Monaco and I'm now introducing the latest X-tra-X designs in the new catalogue. Here's a little sneak preview of the results, more are in the Gallery on our Web site and obviously also in the new X-tra-X catalogue...

Facebook, here we come...

Since Facebook seems to have become the new Myspace we've finally caved in and got ourselves a Facebook page. I've no idea how many of you are on Facebook, but if you happen to be, feel free to "become a fan"... You'll find the page here:

www.facebook.com/pages/Lahannya/17677552327

Touring, touring and more touring....

These last three months I've done more touring than ever before and despite all the stress and hard work it's definitely what I want to do every for the rest of my life. Naturally, being stuck in small spaces with the same people every day, and especially people who are very unique and have their quirks means tempers do flare occasionally - it's no surprise really when you actually drive the tour bus, run the merch stall, load and unload the gear as well as perform and soundcheck every night. But still, I'd jump at the chance to do it again!

Our touring started off on 7 March in Newcastle. We didn't really know what to expect, but we'd been warned that most of the time the bands at Legends have less than 10 people in the audience. When we had a really enthusiastic audience of about 100 people, some of which could sing along to almost every single one of our songs, we were over the moon! What a fabulous start to our spring tour!

After Newcastle we played two UK shows with one of Germany's top goth-rock bands: ASP. We returned to the same venues we already played with Emilie Autumn 9 months earlier, so it almost felt like coming home and boy, do we love the food at the Corporation in Sheffield! The first two shows with ASP gave us a little taste of things to come... a large number of their fanclub had travelled to the UK to support their favourite band on their first UK shows. Their presence and enthusiasm has been very noticeable at every show we've played with ASP and we consider ourselves very very lucky indeed that they embraced us in the way they did. Their support and appreciation at every show was wonderful and really made us feel welcome.

Next came the German, Austrian and Swiss dates. Now that was something else: every single night was a homeplay for ASP and it was amazing to be a part of that. I couldn't possibly talk about every single show now - I'd be writing away all night - but while every show was great in its own way and carries its own particular memories, I have to say that there were definitely a few shows that did stand out for me and Magdeburg probably stands out the most of those. The reception we got there was just mind-blowing and will remain hard to top...

After the ASP tour we all returned to our everyday lives for a while. Well, kinda anyway. I wouldn't say that the following 6 weeks ressembled anything close to my everyday life, but that's another story. I actually went on tour again, but this time not in the limelight, but in the background of another, much more famous, recording artist. But more I won't divulge... :)

Anyway, June approached quickly and the next UK tour dates were approaching rapidly. 2 1/2 weeks before our first show in Leeds I got word that Chris, our guitarist was in a coma in hospital and the doctors weren't sure whether he'd pull through or not. I almost couldn't believe my ears, it seemed so surreal. Luckily after a couple of days the doctors were a lot more positive, but we were told that it would take some time for him to recover. With the UK dates looming we took the decision to ask Sascha Dannenberger to learn the songs, so we wouldn't have to cancel any shows. We knew we'd have only one rehearsal together as a band before the Leeds show, so naturally I was quite nervous as to how this would work out, but I needn't have worried. Sascha was amazing and had not just learned the songs inside out, but also added his own little touches to them. And so the Leeds show was a complete success. Also, Paul - the promoter - had been advertising it heavily in the preceding weeks, so we had a great turnout on the night.

Chris recovered faster than we could have possibly hoped for and so he was able to join us for the remaining tour dates in Weston-super-Mare, Newcastle and London, where again we met some wonderful fans, promoters and other bands!

So now it's all over for a couple of months. Actually, by now it's only another 6 weeks before we next hit the stage. And I can't wait. We'll be back in Germany for 3 very different shows: one in a tiny little club near Lutz' studio in Karlsruhe, the second takes us back to the Matrix in Bochum - which seems to have become the spiritual home of ASP and may very well become ours as well - and then we're off to Sachsen for our first festival performance as a band: the Nocturnal Culture Night III. And one month after that we'll be back on the road in the UK.

No rest for the wicked as they say and I've been so very, very wicked...

Touring with Moon Kana and recording a new EP

Dear all,

We've just finished most of the recording for our new EP and I've finally managed to hide away for 5 minutes to write this little update.

The shows we played with Moon Kana were fabulous. We didn't really know what to expect beforehand as we only knew of her what's up on her Web site and myspace. She turned out to be an extremely charming young Japanese lady who is quite shy off stage but turns into a veritable whirlwind in front of an audience. Her French live band - Guillaume, Christophe and Marco - are very good musicians as well as great fun to hang around with as were the rest of her entourage, her European manager Renaud, her producer Yamamoto and her assistant and merchandiser Mayumi.

Kana inspires an incredible amount of enthusiasm from her fans, a bit like we already witnessed when touring with Emilie Autumn, and many of Kana's fans had been in touch with us via myspace beforehand and knew our songs. While the show in London was relatively subdued in comparison, the audiences in France were totally up for a party and already lining up outside the venue by the time we arrived at 3pm. We could hardly believe the enthusiasm we were greeted with when we entered the stage, throughout the show and later on when people asked us for autographs and photos at the merch stand.

We definitely had a great time and hope to come back to France again very soon. And we will definitely be back in the Underworld in March 2008!

At this point I'd also like to express a huge thank you to everyone at the Underworld London (Jon, Brian, Sploote, Peter...), the Maroquinerie Paris (Vince, Stephane, the nice man who did such beautiful lighting - sorry I forgot your name!) and La Laiterie in Strasbourg (Christian, Serge, Fabrice, Bertrand and again the nice man who did equally beautiful lighting whose name I never knew..) as well as Renaud from JV Store for taking us on tour with Kana.

After the tour we went straight away into the studio to start recording our new EP. It was the first time that Belle and Chris were there with us and over the last 4 days we've managed to put down all the drums and guitars for all tracks on the new EP. We'll all be going home for Christmas now, then I'll be back in the studio at the end of December to put down all the vocals and Lutz will record the bass. January will be spent with mixing and mastering so that we can take the new EP on tour with us in March.

But now it's time to get ready to go out and have some fun after all this time locked away in the studio....

Have a great weekend and hopefully see you very soon!

Much love,

Lahannya

PS: If you were at any of the shows and got some photos please post your links on my myspace blog or email the best ones to info(at)lahannya(dot)com