Yesterday was a quiet day. Only Jetro, Marcelo and I were working in the studio making edits for the songs already recorded by the band.

It’s great to be able to realize that some of the songs are already ready, just missing my vocals…

I was using one microphone that I very much liked in my previous recordings, but when we started asking for it long time ago, we couldn’t find that microphone in Finland at all!

So yesterday we went through quite many microphones that we had here with us and it was very useful. There can be really big differences between microphones and from my experience, the ones that are usually used in vocal recordings, are not so good for my voice.

Some of you were wondering that 17 songs is quite much for an album. Not all the songs are going to end up on the actual album.

We need bonus tracks and b-sides for different territories and singles. In the worldwide release, there are always countries asking for bonuses. On my album you can expect to have around 11-12 songs. I am lucky though to have more than enough material.

Last night Alex finished his guitar parts and today he returned back to Germany in the morning.

We said goodbye to Doug Wimbish in the morning. He finished all the bass parts last night with success.

Including a beautiful solo for “The Crying Moon”.

It’s so funny to read that some of you got nervous because I didn’t write in two days…come on. I am working here !

The photo session went really well and Jens Boldt did magnificent work again. Some of you will love it, others will freak out

Few days ago I needed to say goodbye to lovely Will Calhoun.

Dear friends,

I am having at the moment lots of make up and running around for several clothes changes. We are doing the photos for “What Lies Beneath” album cover and artwork.

Is very nice to rest my ears for a couple of days, though it has been a lot of fan to be in the studio. I will show you some images of the photo shooting, but later on.

We are very busy today still and it will keep us even busier tomorrow  Now I am leaving some words from Mike and some photos that he took in the last days.

Is time to congratulate uncle Mike. He finished his parts yesterday and did a magnificent work.

I guess from now on, he is going to sleep very well

Mike is going to chill out now and have some fun with us. Perhaps enjoining some red wine as well.

The song nailed yesterday by my two drummers is called “Crimson Deep”. Wow! It just sounds exactly like I was expecting it to sound.

I love challenges and since those times are long gone when somebody really was working like that in a daily basis, I thought why not to give it a try. And it worked!

We are having FUN!

The house is getting packed now, since it’s crowded with Americans!!!

Doug Wimbish and Will Calhoun arrived here yesterday night. The lovely lady from the farm went to pick them up from Helsinki airport.

Last night we were late up, so it was a bit tough to get back to work early in the morning. The red wine did it’s “thing” you know…

Max came to the studio to work with us some songs and it was nice to have him around.

I slept like a baby last night. It’s so quiet here that it even feels scary at times. But it’s beautiful to work like this.

After Mike finished recording one song in the morning, we had some guests in the studio visiting us. Pete, our live sound engineer came to talk about next shows.

Alex and Mike were sleeping long this morning and while they were having their beauty sleep, I was working with Jetro in choosing the best keyboard tracks for some songs.

It was not too shiny weather today, nor that cold, but since we are completely surrounded by snow, we still had quite a lot of light, which definitely helps.