The Heat is On

Hello gang

Sorry it has been so long since our last update, we have all been lazing on our super yachts sipping champagne and cavorting with lingere models...oh no, hang on, that was last night's dream. In fact we have just been a bit busy, no excuses. It won't happen again, we promise.

It is now firmly summer time in the UAE and the heat is well and truly on, but while many are gearing up for their summer holidays in far flung locations, JD is hard at work writing new material. We were interviewed for READ magazine the other day and they expressed surprise that we were already writing new material so soon after the release of Empires but the truth is that it is a process that never really stops. So far this year, we have been focussing on the album release and the various gigs and press events that come with it but now attention is definately on the new songs that are coming through.

It probably wont come as a surprise to hear that some of the material on Empires has been around for a while, so even though the album is new we are very familiar with those songs. We still love playing them live but there comes a time when you want to get your teeth into some new stuff and that time is now. We are setting ourselves some targets for completing a certain amount of new material by the end of the year and so far it is going well. We are writing both individually and collectively. Lionel has been whirring away in his workshop/science lab and we are all excitied to see what emerges from that. Andrew has got some great tunes, Sari is always a mine of decent riffs and me and Dia have got some ideas coming through. The great thing about the JD process is that all of these ideas will jump on the bus to the rehearsal studio and pretty quickly they will either take shape (not always the shape you were expecting) or they will collapse in a heap on the floor and will be removed by the heavies. We are pretty harsh on ourselves when it comes to the quality of the songs we expect to produce and if a song starts to resemble the last kid to be picked for the football team, it gets clubbed to death.

We have just announced 2 new shows for September, the first is on the 2nd, if that makes sense, at Cheers@ The Lodge in Dubai. The second is on the 23rd at the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai, this is a teen event sponsered by virgin radio and should be fun. There may be other gigs in September and October as we look to gear up for the party season towards the end of the year. I am sure that some of the new songs will get their first outings at these shows so watch out for that. As usual we will be announcing the setlist on this website on the day of the gig.

We are also pursuing opportunities overseas with a view to getting JD heard in Europe and America. This is, of course, easier said than done but we have some good people helping us so we'll see what comes of that.  

If  you want to keep up to date with the band, you can follow us on Twitter; twitter.com/julianadown and facebook; facebook.com/julianadown.

That's it for now. For those of you going away on your holidays, have fun. If you are in the UAE for August then Ramadan Kareem from us and see you all in September.

James