An end of year message

An end of year message from Powderburn

(Austin, Texas - January 11, 2009)

Hello Powderburn fans and friends,

We in Powderburn hope you had a wonderful holiday season - got all the gifts you wanted, ate until you gained twenty pounds, broke at least three laws, set off $500 worth of fireworks, and had sex with someone you probably shouldn't have! But seriously, as we get ready to take '09 by storm, we're feeling a bit nostalgic and just want to take the time to look back over what we've done over the past year.

2008 was a tumultous, eventful, and amazing year for Powderburn, but it started off with mixed feelings. Lead guitarist and founding member Josh Klayman left the band to focus on an audio/sound engineer career. Taking his place in January was Houston native Eric Smith, whom many of you have had the dubious pleasure of meeting by now. He brought with him fresh song ideas, a crazy haircut, and the fastest fingers this side of the Rockies. We are certainly glad to have him around.

Eric's first real taste of the spotlight with the band came in March, when Powderburn took the stage for KLBJ's Local Licks program. We rocked out the stage at the since-closed (and sorely-missed) Rock City Icehouse, and KLBJ broadcasted the show live over the airwaves. We have the tapes, and there might be a live song put up on our MySpace in the near future, if Ken didn't spill Jager on them and ruin the whole thing.

We closed out the month of March in our usual fashion, by not playing Austin's stroke-fest SXSW, and instead playing three shows at the very artist-friendly and recession-proof Heart of Texas Festival. We played three places in three days, including the Guitar Hero outdoor stage in downtown Austin, where Patrick took place in a tournament briefly - long enough to be vanquished in the first round by an 8 year-old. Seriously.

After an April spent mostly writing new material, the time came to test it live, namely at the Jagermeister Spring Tour, featuring Hatebreed, Type O Negative, and 3 Inches of Blood! Good times, good times.

June was spent on the road and playing the afterparty for the Monster Rock Sing-Along done by the Alamo Drafthouse.We know that we were there and we played, but in the haze of alcohol and free cigarettes we only remember singing along to "Talk Dirty to Me" and shredding on plastic inflatable guitars.

After that drunken nonsense, it was good to get back to the controlled chaos of the Jagermeister Mayhem Festival in July, which was by far the finest moment in our lives. There was Slipknot, Disturbed, Dragonforce, Mastodon, Machine Head - you name a metal band that you love right down to your taint, and they were there, and we played with 'em! We hung out with our friend John Moyer from Disturbed, watched the Metal Mulisha throw down some Motorcross craziness, and even saw our buddy Jacob from 101X in Austin wheelchair-surf on the crowd. It's on YouTube. Go check it out, and check out us rocking in front of many thousands of sunburned, mosh-crazy San Antonians.

After that, the band settled down to the business of pre-production on the upcoming record, which is tentatively titled ONE FIX. Basically, we've spent the rest of the year finishing up the tunes, putting the tracks down, and working and re-working each one until it is a dose of metal perfection, all under the Jim Beam-addled ramblings. . . I mean . . .the expert direction of producer and ProTools ninja Paul Soroski.

We took a break long enough to accept Jagermeister's invitation to be VIP guests at the one-off Ozzfest show this year in Frisco, Texas, in August. We watched Metallica play a song off Death Magnetic for the first time, saw Zakk Wylde solo for like an hour during Ozzy Osbourne's set, and almost partied with Sevendust . (Good story, there.)

Since then, we've been busy little beavers in the studio and preparing to unleash ONE FIX sometime in early 2009. We in Powderburn would like to take this time to thank all of you for all your support during the last year, both live and online. We hope last year was as good to you as it was to us, and we hope to see you in the front row this year at our CD release party!

- Ken, Patrick, Greg, and Eric