L.I.T.R.

Image: Some things from LITR Music Video.

"It’s been a few days here in Grygar canyon, it's not looking like we'll arrive for All-Hallows night as first intended... me and Ezra have have following a strange light through the notch. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. At first I thought it to be a simple illusion… as though perhaps my eyes were just seeing things. Two nights ago it entered our campsite… we were sleeping and I awoke to see it hovering over Ezra as she slept… it was then I realized this was no play of lights … a magic trick perhaps… I think it’s alive, it vibrates and can seem to change color and size.. I do believe it’s investigating us. For what reason, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem dangerous. I get the sense it’s leading us somewhere… it seems to stay in the forest just far enough away from our camp. Each day as we start moving again, I see it keeping ahead of us… Ezra is well aware of it as well… she lifts her nose and smells the air in the direction of it and occasionally gives me a look as if to say “I see it too”. At first I felt perhaps it was following us but at some point it seems we’re following it. It’s leading us to the mouth of the red river basin.. the gateway to great white mountain overpass. We all seem to be traveling to the same place. Why? Hmmm… what is the reason for all this? I thought it best I write this little mention of this orb in the event things go horribly wrong… or wonderfully right. Tomorrow we’ll start to climb and who knows… maybe there’s something up there I need to find or see. Ezra seems a little on edge… we can both see White mountain in the distance… it looks cold up there.

Well, I best put this away and get moving. It’s a long road ahead and Ezra is currently grumbling impatiently at my slow pace.

“Well… I hear you over there, I’m coming”

“grumble grumble”.

I suppose we have a new friend with us on this journey. Farewell for now.

-Diamonds Hadder

Grasslandian Tree Bark Tea: Deaf Forever

Image: No, I didn't make the cover, but here's a little image I put together to celebrate my recent interview in the German Deaf Forever magazine. @deaf.forever

Good morning, it’s Friday in Golliak canyon.. a beautiful campfire crackle is all I hear over the faint hum of the western winds that are crossing through this canyon notch. I awoke early to the morning hum of Warmoth songs in the distance. Ezra is sleeping although she wakes frequently at each crackle and pop of the burning hazel wood fire. I’m close to her because she’s quite warm and dare I say cuddly.. although I wont say that to her.. she likes to think she’s fierce and scary. We're on the move again… plotting a meeting with an ancient moon on white mountain. It’s a culmination of a lot of things… the pinnacle of what I’ve been working on. I hope I can get there in time. Winter is nipping on these first days of autumn… soon the clocks will change and the darkness of 2024 will slowly creep over this fateful year of highs and lows. There’s a real poetry to time… one season connected to each before and after… like a lonely word that needs others to survive and have meaning. A phrase before and a phrase after that in harmony describe our existence. I’m writing a story and I’m almost done with the first chapter. The “Breakers” are almost complete. A little update today:

To Germany with love: On August 5th I was contacted by Micheal Kohsiek regarding an interview for a German heavy metal magazine called “Deaf Forever”. And so this week the magazine article came out along with a very flattering review of my “Beyond the Breakers” record. I posted it below. Ya know, I’ve been around in my life… I’ve had a lot of bad reviews on projects I’ve done over the years. I’ve done everything I possibly could to succeed as a song writer and musician in my former life.. I worked relentlessly… throwing caution to the wind… sleeping in rehearsal rooms… sacrificed many a relationship with many a people because of my ambitions and will… I’ve quit… I’ve given up… been lost… been counted out more times than I can remember… told I wasn’t good enough… many many times… even by my closest of friends… but, I always seem to find that fire again. It never really dies. Life is funny, the hardships over time really do mold us into something. In truth we all do suck… and we all really are amazingly awesome at the same time. I think in order to cross the bridge… you really must understand that. It’s easy to turn around and make friends with the doubters and naysayers of your dreams.. to question yourself and succumb to the keg of ale in a drunken midnight stupor and gossip your life away over what could of beens and what could bees. Or… you can just keep walking with proper blinders on… inside those blinders is the vision you know and feel in your heart… it’s different for everyone. There are small victories in life and harsh defeats.. it’s inevitable… as long as you’re not dead yet, rise again I say and look to that next hill… and turn off the noise around you. Just listen to the wind and the low rumble of the streams that flow from the mountain tops. Obey your dream as silly as it may be. Your dream is as real and as unpredictable as that mountain stream. It’s amazing and all that stands before you and it… is time. Not your enemies… not your shortcomings, not any obstacles, no, you’ve been designed already good enough for dream hunting, we all have been. Time is your greatest ally as you drift down the river. Use it my friend.

Anyway, sorry, I lost myself there a moment. I do that. I think I’ve been drinking too much Grasslandian tree bark tea. Ezra thinks it makes me crazy. She often “grumbles” when I reach for it. But I love it so.

Well, thank you to Micheal for the interview and for caring enough to ask me questions. He’s one of the first people to hear my record and reach out to me offering to help spread the word about it in Europe and for that I’m somewhat indebted to him. Him and some others. Metal music has a way of connecting people. It’s a strange unseen power really. I know it all too well myself. I’ve now become of wielder of such power, so to say. I’m humbled by it.

All Hallows: On Halloween night I planned to release the first of the 2 music videos I’ve been working on. The first video will be for the song called “Long is the Road” That was the plan. However, some things behind the scenes have been happening that could shift the release back so that it coincides with a physical release of the “Beyond the Breakers” vinyl . I don’t know yet if that’s going to happen, but I will say, the videos will be something special to me and a direct reflection of the “Breakers” record. For now I’ll say “All-Hallows” night, but if things change, I’ll be sure and update the timeline. The first video takes me back to New England during the hey day of American Heavy Metal. We’ll get to see Hadder on his Bokonian hillsides and hear from an old mage who was the original creator, the real east coast memory maker, seer and appointed voice of heavy metal in Rhode Island. The “Rabbit” video will show the aftermath of my life and the hill and ashes I once called home. I’m hoping that video finally puts old ghosts to bed for me. Life is but wishful thinking.

Well, that’s all for today. My tea is cold and my morning fire is but a smoldering ember of it’s former self. Time for some new wood. I’ve included my interview in “Deaf Forever” below, feel free to send me the translation, I haven’t a clue what it says.

Just a little more time, it’s almost done, Farewell friends

-j

The House of Hadder

Image: A video still on White Mountain from one of the guitar shoots for the LITR music video. This is truly Bat country.

Good morning, it’s autumn. For me, well, it might as well be Christmas. Me and Ezra are in the valley, just between Remrod and the red river. We’re camping here for a few days as the weather forecast is not exactly favorable for traveling over the hilltops of BOK. Generally, we like to move in stormy weather. Sounds strange, you might thing a nice deep blue sky would be best for walkabouts, but we prefer the cover of fog and clouds. It’s just safer that way. On a clear day you can see all the way to the black forest, so me and Ezra are fairly easy pickings for whygoths and rouge bizzmers. It’s ok we’ll stay by the fire till the next storm. I suppose an autumn update would be nice.

The coming of Vinyl: Well it would appear that the “breakers” vinyl may be around the corner after all. In July I released the record digitally and since then, it’s been a nice little grind into autumn. I didn’t do any promotion on the release as my plan all along was to start promotion after I completed the first music video. While I was filming the video, somehow the record drifted across the pond to Europe and then some interviews happened and soon after that some offers for distribution showed up in my inbox. And so I may have some help with the pressing and distribution and marketing of my little “breakers” record while I’m busy filming the music videos for “LITR” and “Ballad of the Dead Rabbit”. With the Hadder project, I’ve always been focused on the thing I’m creating and not so much the outcome. I do believe these are the best of times, now, while I’m traveling with Ezra.. dreaming and creating. I’m so very grateful that my waves are finding new shorelines. Occasionally I find a letter in a bottle, from someone who stumbled upon my writings and noises and it warms my heart to think something I did moves them enough to send me a little message. This first record was very important but it’s really just the cement in the ground, I haven’t even started putting walls up yet. I suppose the new videos might be the beginnings of the frame of what I’m building. I’ve been working underground so long, shoring up these polls on this Bokonian hillside that I forget sometimes what life might be like looking out my 2nd story tower someday. You see, in my head, I’m rebuilding my deck… the one that burned to the ground… the one where my full moon was. The place where I left my heart. This is the dream… I’m using Hadder to get me there. There was a tidal wave once in my life, it leveled everything…. And now I’m hell bent on returning to my mountain. I’m starting to see that that really is what this is all about. I miss my land, my home, myself… and I suppose some things are worth fighting for. How you fight, well… we all have our ways. I’m doing what I know and what I love… singing and writing my way back to the hill I called home. One little mountain at a time.

Time: Let me talk about time and the philosophy of perusing a dream. I see before me, a huge mountain. With every plateau I reach, I instantly switch gears and maps and focus to the next plateau. I’m a grinder and so I don’t sit an enjoy the plateaus as much as I celebrate the climbing. Time is all we have. From now until 2024 I’ll be quietly climbing the second of the two large mountains I needed to traverse in 2023. The first was the record, the second is the music videos for the record. In my head I see a few other distant mountains on this Breakers climb, rehearsals, the show, lights synced to programmed tracking of the record, allies and travel companion. These distant mountains might be the last mountains I cross before I write the next record…. but for now, today, in this precious remaining few autumn months of 2023… in this time… I’ll be traveling and filming. I have a few new tricks up my sleeve and this frame I’m building needs to weather the next fires and floods. If I could impart a few simple words of wisdom today, they would be “Perusing dreams is time well spent”. It’s ok to rest a bit and gather wood for the fire, as the days will be hard and the nights long and cold. Save your strength, you’ll need it. I will say, some good company does help pass the time nicely.

“Grumble, grumble…”

I heard that.

Farewell out there.

-The Dead Rabbit