So, it’s roughly 9 months on from when the walls started to fall in on Kaine, with Chris, Saxon and Stevo departing in quick succession after releasing the A Crisis of Faith album. I thought it would be a good time to update people on exactly where we are now. I had taken then band off the road during April to begin writing the new Kaine record when it all fell apart.
In the months that followed the departures, we put a lot of time into rebuilding the band and getting the new line-up to gel. We have been rehearsing pretty much constantly since the new lineup formed, we had our first gig together in Norwich on May 26th and have played 22 shows together since this band got together. We have gradually eased the A Crisis of Faith material out of the set and have replaced it with new material. When the previous band split up, I decided to start working immediately on a new record and wrote a number of songs that I have been revising since May, and that the band have been rehearsing and playing live. We are now playing sets almost entirely comprised of this new material, we have almost finished the final demos for the new album and we’ll starting to record it at the end of this month.
I said in a previous blog that if I could turn it around and save Kaine after the entire line-up split up earlier this year that would be my greatest achievement in music. I can safely say hat so far it has been, and to be frank it has been nothing short of a miracle. I can honestly say my “retirement” speech was typed out and ready to go live, and I’d already talked to Liam, who joined in April, about the end of the band. My intention was to call it quits and leave music entirely.
Fortunately, we were able to save it. It has been a lot of work, many long rehearsals and naturally we’ve been trying to convince people the band is still as good as it ever was on the road, which many people agree it still is but some I can tell still need to be won over, but this is to be expected with such a radical change. There is a mentality about line-ups that still exists within the minds of many music fans, that somehow the line-up is almost sacred and when that changes so does the band, and in some cases that is right but people will find the new material will sound very much in line with what we have done in the past. Many also didn’t realise that I was the only original member in the past line-up anyway.
I am looking forward to getting this new record out there and hopefully the band can recover and push on from here. We’ll be entering our tenth year come 2019, and it’s been a hell of a ride so far even if we haven’t quite made it yet. We’ll be celebrating the 10th anniversary with a show at Colchester Arts Centre in April, which will be supported by A Bribe for the Ferryman and Osmium Guillotine. Dan and Josh will be joining me on stage for some early Kaine material as well as the final ever performance of the A Crisis of Faith line-up. We’ll be giving away a live album and a t-shirt with every ticket, which can be ordered here.
Alongside writing, rehearsing and preparing for the new Kaine album, I have been doing the washing up in the background of all the follow up releases from A Crisis of Faith. I was able to design and release the new vinyl with the help of Pointy Halo Productions to ensure that sounded top, and I have to say it’s the nicest thing we’ve produced merch wise to this date and of course I had to release A Crisis of Faith live. This was recorded last year early on in Chelmsford at the Asylum by Short Stack Studios but with everything that happened, had to be put on a back burner while I rebuilt the band. Previously Dan and Chris were the bands two audio guys, I never dabbled in mixing or editing, anything like that but with those talents both departing I had to learn and thus the live album is my first ever go at doing any production ever. You can grab a vinyl from here and a live album here, both are limited and once they sell out, we won’t be doing any more.
Finally, the new album is coming and will be released next year – the theme of the album is the re forging of the band, rebirth and moving onto the next stage. There is a lot of optimism and hope with the new line-up that we can in fact turn it around.
As ever, I thank everyone who stuck by me over the last 9 months and offered their love, support and guidance to keep going and I hope sincerely that I haven’t let you down. I really hope you enjoy this new album.
Love, Rage
