Had to wake up at the crack of dawn today for a Vogue mag shoot with photography by Doug English. The pneumatic drill outside my window was very effective alarm clock!! Spent the rest of the day planning the video for my next single titled ‘White Lies’ which we will be shooting in LA wt. Nabil Elderkin directing.  Living the dream basically.

I’ve also been listening to Jay’Z’s Blueprint 3 album alot which just dropped. Incredible props for Forever Young. Blueprint 3 is HOOODGE!!! can’t process the fact that i’m on it!!! It’s been a long but good day…waited 2 hrs for a table in a restaurant. Feeling a bit foolish. I am exhausted but gotta keep on keepin on!
Yours,

Ben

Check out ALL the pics on the Maxcast Tumblog!

Evening class, & how are we today..?

Busy, busy week it has been for us. We did a live show with our Lego Johnson band on Friday; just a small club show at a place called Juju on the King’s Road here in London. Now obviously, we do quite a few
shows so they don’t usually tend to intrude too heavily on our working week but on this occasion our regular drummer Sam couldn’t make it so we had to train up a dep to do the gig. Believe me, that kept us busy.

As any of you out there in band’s will doubtless attest, a drummer is the backbone of any musical outfit & almost impossible to replace so we went about the task of finding his stand-in with a fairly sizable
anvil of trepidation. Step forward the almost God-like Aicha, whom we borrowed from our friend Kissy Sellout’s live band. She’s an absolute banshee on the drums & she utterly nailed the 6 song set with only one
rehearsal. No mean feat I can assure you. Even so, the gig was still 2 days away &, well, you just never know what’s gonna happen on stage til you’re actually up there, no matter how hard you practice.

I think (& certainly hope) she won’t be offended if I say that, even though she had been great in rehearsal & soundcheck, the band nevertheless approached the show itself with a heightened sense of nervousness. Swapping drummers is like… let’s see… – like going onto the football field with not just a new goalie, but a whole new defensive line, – or turning up to your driving test only to discover the examiner has a left-hand drive car*. You know it could & should be fine but equally it could just as easily be an utter, unmitigated
disaster. In the end though, we needn’t have worried; she totally owned it & all that extra pre-match tension just helped fuel our collective adrenalin rush.

It was a genuinely unique show in the truest sense of the word & whilst the Gallagher Brothers were off in a field somewhere preparing to let a few thousand people down with their last minute no-show, I’d like to think we gave a couple of hundred sweaty, Chelsea ravers a night that exceeded their expectations. Cheers to everyone that was down there & extra special love to Aicha – watch out Kissy, we’ve got our eye on that one!

Gotta send a little love out also to our lovely friend DJ Goldierocks, who threw another one of her fast-becoming-legendary bbq’s up in Dalston on Saturday. I went to one a couple of months back & bumped
into fellow MaxCaster Mr Hudson there. He was tearing the roof off V this weekend so he was not in attendance at Miss Rocks’, but a good time was had by all even so. Catch you at the next one, Mr H.

Saucy

After you guys chose Lovelle as the UK ambassador on the Pepsi-back Akon single “Oh Africa”, the time has finally come!

On Sunday (31st January), the single will be released, and we all hope it gets to number one!

The song, featuring Akon and Keri Hilson (pictured with Lovelle, right) is giving proceeds from the sales to helping underprivileged African youth. Akon’s Konfidence Foundation, (Konfidence.org), will be one of the main charities set to receive a portion of the proceeds.

Check out konfidence.org to download the track, and check back here next week for more information and videos!

Maxcast Team

Hey Pepsi Maxcasters!! We hope you’re dandy and can’t wait to see you all on out upcoming UK tour (check our website for dates www.theenemy.com). We are sure they’ll be lots of crazy moments in the next few weeks but all this talk of touring has got us feeling all misty eyed about past tours! We’ve been looking through some old tour snaps and have complied a little album for you to have a look at and that will hopefully give you a little flavour of what touring with The Enemy is like. The pics include photos from Beachbreak, Glastonbury, Ibiza Rocks (we love IBIZA- want to be there now!!!!) and Summersonic in Japan- mad and wonderful place. Oh and there’s one of some clowns (it’s not us in disguise, honest! We just like clowns) plus check out the pic of two of road crew after Andy and Liam had chucked them in the pool in Ibiza! Hilarious! Adios and see you on the road! Tom, Liam and Andy

Liam from The Enemy’s Tour Essentials

• The most important is mobile phone!
• iPod
• Spare chargers because Andy will steal them!
• Lots of t shirts, socks and boxers
• Flip flops for the venue showers!
• Gold Bond coz someone will have an extreme case of beer bum!
• Fully stocked washbag – tour is a sweaty process
• Immodium tablets – for when your on the motorway, on the bus and get some inevitable stomach problems. Tour bus rule is no solids, even if you think its runny enough!
• DVD’s – Partridge, The Office, Brass Eye and Human Remains!
• Deck of cards and some poker chips – quickest way to lose your PD’s
• Tour itinerary – to stop you pi**ing the tour manager off and asking a million questions!

(All held together in a bag sturdy enough to be abused and thrown around for a month!)

 So, I was on the video shoot with N-Dubz last night until the early hours, all over central London. I didn’t get in until 7am, and N-Dubz are still filming their parts!! 

much love,

Ben.