Happy New Year everybody!

Well, it kills me realizing that I haven’t been reaching out to you guys lately. Those last three years haven’t been the end of my rainbow, really. It was tough. For all of us, I guess. 2020 could have been MY year – with my first solo record and novel being published, some TV show appearances and press about me. I thought everything would work out well, everything I ever dreamed of achieving would start becoming reality. Well, it didn’t. Turned out we had to face a pandemic, I didn’t get the opportunity to promote my work properly and besides of that, I had to face the bitter truth: NOBODY cares about you or your genius! (Lol). At the same time, I had to deal with personal issues and accept what I call the fourth blow in my „suffering-history“. But this is a story for another day … What matters is: I survived. As did most of us.

And I for my part came back stronger than I have ever been. How about you, friend?

After almost giving up for the first time in my life, two years ago, around New Year’s Eve 2020 I think it was, TRAVELER – a project I had in mind for „someday in the future“ – started knocking at my back door. My partner, close friends and family members were pushing me towards this project. Something I thought I was SO not ready for, yet. I was about to do two more medieval records in German, but I had those „other“ songs also … You see, it all started back in 2016 during my magical-maniac time in New York City. I knew I wanted to start out with my German troubadour songs since those had been my old songs and I felt like I somehow owed it to them. But there always had been those … other songs. As a good neurotic I stored EVERYTHING. Every little voice note and piece of sheet music I’d come up with over the course of 2016 until 2020. And then, January 2021 I opened the shelf and took a closer look at everything. And hell, it was good! I organized all those little pieces and wrote 24 songs in 6 months, arranged them, and orchestrated them in another 6 months. January 2022 (one year later / one year ago) I reached out to the band I was watching every Wednesday on Greek national television, asking them if they’d be willing to play those songs for the record that was about to come. It worked out pretty damn well. For my part, the entirety of 2022 was dedicated to the production of TRAVELER with pre-production, 16 days in the studio in April, post-production and some corrections and overdubs later in 2022. What a ride! Right now, the project – in the hands of MLI productions, Marios Laz Ioannidis, a man I couldn’t be more thankful to have met – is about to make its way to mastering.

Shit is getting real. Those songs will be released over the course of 24 months as singles, starting April 2023. Until then I will keep you up to date and when the time comes share a lot more about my own story and the story of TRAVELER. A record made for you and me. A record for ALL OF US. A record that became reality because I stepped out of my comfort zone and faced my fears and feelings of shame and guilt. That’s good! And if I could do it, you can do it too!

So, this is my promise to you guys: I will not disappear again. I will share my story, my life, my music, and some of the best songs I have ever written with you. You are going to love them. This I promise.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I have to get outta here. Thanks, if you made it until the end of this post. I appreciate it. May 2023 embrace you with all you have ever wished for, or at least good health, love, and beautiful people around you. Sometimes this is a pretty damn good deal also.

Cheers

P.S. I am launching a little guitar challenge on Instagram and TikTok today: “100 Guitar Covers in 90 days”. Let’s see how those Spotify Hits sound with nylon strings and shredding. Sounds like fun? Well, it is! See ya in the social media jungle!

P.P.S. The blog post image is taken from one of the photo shootings I did for TRAVELER. This is a shot by Gerasimos Stathopoulos. I will keep you up to date on how those next three months progress towards the end goal in April: the release of TRAVELER.