16th of January 2004

Slightly Askew

LA is one of those places I had billions of pre-conceptions about. Unlike New York I hadn't volutarily researched it or taken an interest in the place. I was wrong about lots of things. This place is great fun. I have been catapulted back onto my life on the road with a bang here in Los Angeles and left, once again trying to take it all in - this time from a hotel room in West Hollywood.

I know it has been a while since I've written this, but the impetus is always so much greater on the road. I am always wrestling with the excitement of being away, seeing new places and a degree of homesickness which makes writing this journal a kind of comforting factor. Well this month, I will try and update a crazy session of travelling which will see myself, the band, tour manager and manager take on a tour of LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Miami, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and......er Japan - Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka. All this, just in January - there will not be a lot of sight-seeing.

Having said that, I arrived in Los Angeles on Monday morning and took in a trip to the Hollywood sign pretty soon. It looms over the city as a reminder that this town is all about grand gestures like that but I soon realise there is far more meat to it than this. There is a very relaxed feeling amongst the people which I wasn't expecting. There is none of the claustrophobia, very thing being so spaced out and the weather (which has been amazing all week) being so consistently life enhancing. My hotel is big and well appointed and has a particularly attractive roof-top pool and hot-tub which I have made serious use of.

But of course, we are here to begin the long process of making a name for ourselves here in the US of A. So the interviews start pretty soon getting there background stories straight etc etc. The first gig isn't till tuesday, so I have a day to adjust and try and get some sleep. This of course didn't happen. After a huge Italian meal with all of us and our American management team we head out to a bar down on Melrose which is suitably dingy and showing baseball where I rediscovered the delights of Sam Adams beer and peanuts - a devastating combination. I take my passport everywhere as I'm constantly asked for ID. Geoff and Sebastiaan were particularly pleased of having the same done to them.

Tuesday was gig day and I could feel a little pressure starting to mount. Very little sleeping was achieved and the jet-lag kicks in seriously in the afternoon. Noone has heard the record over here - it isn't even out till May. We have to treat it as a fresh entity and that is hard for something which for me personally is nearly a year old. There are many important people coming to a groovy little bar which holds about 80 people, to see us do our thing. They are mostly industry so this can makes the gigs a little dry. I spend the day doing interviews and have a great lunch, a swim and a sleep. The gig, I think, goes really well, and the audience were much cooler than I had anticipated, lots of yelling and singing and clapping - just how I like it. A great deal of that pressure seems to disappear for the time being. I hang around at the club to watch the band after us. It is a singer-songwriter call Gabriel Mann who turns out to perform one of the most entertaining set of original, live, piano-based, singer-songwriter stuff I 've heard in ages. It reminded me, very healthily, of the glut of serious, unsigned talent that there is out there. It is such a humbling feeling to see someone like this when you, yourself are signed and see a talent like this clearly deserving the benefits of having a big corporation behind them. We exchange numbers and realise we will both be in Texas in March and agree to hang out then.

Somehow despite jet-lag, we make it to the 'Whisky-bar' in the Sunset Marquis Hotel. I haven't given up trying to get my bearings in this place as you drive eveywhere and it all seems to be just 20 minutes away. This bar is quite the place it would seem as Ant and Dec are spotted, followed by the great Jimmy Page. I also discover that a least one of LA's cliches are totally true - everyone I meet in this bar are actors or musicians! At precisely 1am I develop the worst bout of hiccups in living memory and spend a good 45 minutes trying to get rid of them while 10 different people discuss remedies involving cups of water and various yoga positions. I hold my breath till I'm blue and decide to go home.

Still waking up at 5am - damn!

Over the next few days I do a photo shoot with the Hollywood sign amongst other things and make an appearance on the exceptionally cool Craig Kilborn TV show. I feel a sense of deja-vu in the way events are unfolding though with everything slightly alien, slightly askew.

We have late-night mexican food (very, very good), I spot Fred Durst having sushi, I continue to wake up ridiculously early, the salads are all amazing but enough to fill eleven people, I fall asleep whilst talking to someone and I do my first interview of my short career, sitting in a jacuzzi - now how LA is that!