My first blog post - Quick summary of the past year
First and most importantly I need to say a big thank you to everyone who has supported and cared for me, everyone that was involved that helped/wished/prayed for me through what has been a very tough year. For me and everyone who is close to me.
That being said, time to break down an outlined short version of what happened over the past year …
As you know the band that I was with back in 2011 ‘Lost In Thought’ were on tour around Europe supporting two bands, those bands were ‘Serenity’ and ‘Delain’ who I must say are great guys and were a lot of fun to be around. About 2 weeks into the tour after our hired driver deciding to leave us, we were travelling north from Budapest towards our next port of call in Warsaw in Poland. Unfortunately, the extremely punishing time schedule that had been forced upon us due to extra driving finally took its toll, while I was driving I collided into the back of a HGV lorry causing severe damage to my right leg and burns to my left foot. I broke my right leg in about 8 places and had extensive flesh wounds and was losing a lot of blood. Thankfully no one else who was on the bus was seriously hurt. Some of the guys had bruising and grazing, one with a bad black eye. Again my deepest apologies to those guys as this is not how I intended the tour to finish. Needless to say the bus didn’t come off too good either! Also i must apologise if any deliveries were late that morning because of the truck I hit :/
I was rushed to Zilina Hospital in Slovakia where the trauma team managed to stop the bleeding and saved my life. My family of course flew straight out to meet me, they were at my bedside within hours. I stayed there for a week whilst they carried out other corrective procedures until I was finally able to fly home. I was sent in a taxi to an Austrian airport, caught an Easy Jet flight to Gatwick, another taxi to Bristol and then my father collected me from there and brought me back to Morriston hospital. Finally an NHS Hospital!!! :)
Morriston hospital rushed me into theater first thing in the morning for another 9 hour marathon operation where they performed a series of procedures. Partially to correct some problems that had been caused by the Slovakian team but also to finish of the plastic surgery required. This included taking muscle from my right calf and moving it the front of my shin to cover the whole and also to skin graft my left foot and right shin. I would spend another 5 weeks in hospital before being allowed home again, the first time in around 2 months!
Over the next 4-6 months I had more operations done to improve future movement and to strengthen my leg. My Consultant Orthopaedic surgeon was absolutely amazing and completely understood how important it was to me given my role behind the kit to get me back to being 100% fit and ready to go!
Up until this point, me and the other LIT guys were decided on them waiting for me to be 100% before me carrying on with my duties within the band. LIT still had shows they were committed to though however. To cover this issue, collectively we decided that it was best to audition a few drummers to cover my place as a ‘fill in’ to make sure the bands commitments were being met. During this time the band would continue writing to make sure the band was still progressing. After a period of time I started playing drums again quite frequently and had also been writing some new material myself. I started speaking to members of the band about getting things moving a bit quicker as I felt I was ready to come back into the fold as I had material and the ability to fulfil my role again. Unfortunately the ‘temporary’ solution of a fill in drummer would turn out not to be so temporary. The rest of LIT decided that they wanted to move on without me and bring in a new full time member. LIT and I go our separate ways.
In the months since then I continued to write more material and practise the skins off my drums!
I then received a very enticing email off a local guitarist who expressed an interest in starting a new project with me after hearing that I was no longer with LIT. This man is Mr Dan Angelo! He sent me an example of his writing and a few examples of who he has worked with and with the music oozing out of my speakers I knew we had to meet up for a pint and talk this through!!! Dan and I have been working together for a couple of months now doing a lot of writing! We’re struggling to make our ideas come out shorter than 10 minutes at the moment but I’m sure we’ll manage some shorter tunes soon :) Both Dan and I have both been into the studio so far to record parts for some demo tracks utilising both of our ideas and they are sounding very promising. A nice mix of intricate, melodic and epic! I must also say that as far as an evening’s entertainment goes, an evening at the Angelo’s is pretty damn funny!
At the moment I’m continuing to enjoy the writing process and will indeed bring you updates as and when!
blakekathryn
pixelskylines
theartofmadeline
vaporwave
gummygunk
gamechangershow
romaincrisis