From Monday 27th February, Steve will be releasing weekly videos of him performing the debut Hamerex album, Rites of Passage in its entirety.
Steve had this to say regarding the album. “Rites of Passage is an album of ours that I have been somewhat openly critical about over the years, but I’ve also maintained that the songs we’re strong and had a lot of potential for that recording. It was a case of half the band having one vision for the album and the other having another so it clashed. The initial stages of recording the album was very quick and efficient, taking around 2 months for half of the guitars, drums and bass, and for what was left, the remaining guitars and all of the vocals took around 6 months and the mixing and mastering took another 4 or 5. There was a lot of mounting frustration in the band at the time over it, and I think the album overall just suffered for it. Then the label that released it added to the frustrations for a number of reasons, and the night before the album released, my dog had to be put to sleep, ironically a rite of passage as such, but it collectively just left bitter feelings and a dark cloud over the whole thing, which was why we were very quick to move on from it and started rehearsing our second album within a month or two since its release.”
The Rites of Passage sessions will be premiered every Monday at 6pm GMT on YouTube starting on the anniversary, day and date of its release on the 27th February. On the last day, 1st May, the full 10 track will be made available to stream and download for subscribers on Steve’s Bandcamp. You can find the schedule below with links to both YouTube and Bandcamp pages.
Steve Blower 