All,
Bad news and good news.
European friends: super-bummed to let you all know that, like most bands like us, we’re postponing our spring touring plans until next year. Going back to Europe for the first time in 5 years is something we’d been looking forward to since last fall. Pressure Tour Services has invested a lot in this trip, as have the many promoters, clubs, and friends of ours who’ve set up shows and bought tickets, and we wanted to do right by them and you holding out and letting them make the final call. But at this point we feel it’s more important to show solidarity with hospitals, nursing homes, nurses, paramedics, and doctors who are trying to keep the entire human population safe and well-cared for. Being able to congregate with a lot of strangers and joyfully shout and spit in each others’ faces means as much to us as it does to all of you, we promise. But all that goes away if we’re doing it to the potential detriment of people who are actually vulnerable. We’ll be back in August for Punk Rock Holiday and a handful of other dates in the UK and on the mainland. We’ll make up the dates in April we’re gonna miss same time next year.
American friends: Illinois has already issued stay-at-home orders and closed non-required businesses across their state. Wisconsin did today too. I’m truly humbled and slightly overwhelmed by the number of people who reached out about wanting to make a quarantine record with me, and I had hoped Wisconsin would lax up on those quarantine rules compared to the rest of the country. I was wrong, and that bums me out, but I’m gonna comply because it’s the right thing to do. So let’s figure some shit out later this summer instead.
The good news here is that this means we’ll all be home for the next 1-3 months with nothing to do except write a new record. I have most of one already demoed out in voice memos on my phone. Devon Kay‘s working on some stuff too. Our good friend Maura Weaver will also be helping out this time around. Usually we write new material in fits and spurts over extended periods of time, but I’m excited, for the first time, to see what happens in total isolation, and participate in what is likely to be an unprecedented period of creativity from everyone with a melody or a rhythm or some poetry in their heads. Instead of traveling and partying and hacking through songs like we always do, we’re gonna use this period of forced inactivity to make new stuff in an unfamiliar environment, and I’m really excited, personally, to hear the gigantic pile of new records that’ll be out next fall and winter from everyone who’s doing the same. Maybe we’ll post some weird half-baked shit while we do it? Who knows, we’ll seeeee. Make @directhitband part of your usual ‘Gram routine.
Ok, that’s my motivational/melancholy declaration on the internet. We love you all. Please stay safe,
Nick / DH