I Am Goliath Strong” and “Rock Like War”. These were the new ones, which were more aggressive and heavy. There are more tracks by these two artists in “Best of Extreme Aggression”. I was a bit confused when they dropped this record. They only featured a couple of the new songs that we had previously recorded. Plus they added a couple of other songs that were only done by me and another singer. I also found out that I could choose the order in which the songs appeared on the CD. This was a major step for this new album. I could finally decide which songs were placed where! We were a bit confused about this at first. We talked to one of the band members about this matter, but they didn’t seem to know anything about it, so I looked on the internet for some answers. I found out that there are 2 ways to mix a CD: it can be done by the person or the label. When you do it by yourself, you can choose the order. When you do it by yourself, it can take a couple of months to complete. When the record company does it, they have to meet the deadline. They have to meet a certain period, and they use what the artist gave them. There was nothing we could do. We had to agree with what they did. We still had some questions, though. * When I talked with the band about this new release, we started talking about the fact that our fans were disappointed with this new record. Why didn’t we bring back some songs from the previous release? What had happened to all those songs that I liked to sing? Wasn’t this CD supposed to be the best of all my records? Why did they add more aggressive songs? Why was there no live album? And how come the new record was so aggressive? We wondered whether the band members had listened to any of our old songs or talked about the old releases with the fans. What were they thinking when they made the decision to drop these songs? They gave us all the songs that they thought were good. The fans didn’t agree with their decision. I believe that it’s because these songs were really good. I think they were in great shape. In a couple of months, there would have been another record with those songs. I hope the fans didn’t spend any money on this new record, because that would make me sad. I tried to understand why this happened. It’s a pity that we can’t have the same songs on a different CD, even if it was just a couple of months after the last release. I also realized that fans don’t have a say in what happens in this band. They were just a number to them, just like a fan might be a number to you in your favorite music group. If I were to explain the situation to you, I wouldn’t sound like a fan. I would sound like the head of a major record label who was putting my songs together in one of his labels. I wouldn’t pretend that they’re my songs and that I want to put them together like this. I just want to explain to you the situation with my band and my new record. There’s nothing else I can do. I realized that there’s no way of saying that you don’t want to release these songs on the same CD as another song that you recorded before. I don’t think that we can force the record company to do anything we want. It was hard to accept that I wouldn’t have all the control in the decisions that are made about my band. But this is the way it is, and we still have to accept the decisions made by the record label and their choice of artists and songs. Maybe if I talk with them about the previous records and how great the new songs are, they will change their mind. Maybe they will think that they made a mistake. I don’t think that the fans have a say in what happens in the industry. I guess they just need to continue listening to the music they love and hoping that it will change. If you’re living in the USA, then I don’t think that you can vote on who you want to be your president. I’m not saying that we have a president in the USA, but it’s the same concept. You have to follow what the company decides. You can’t go and stop the production of these CDs. There’s no way of doing that. If you want to buy our records, then you have to accept what the company is giving you. If you are a fan of our music, then you should be thankful for having good music being released. I think that the record label is doing everything they can do. Why are fans upset about what’s happened? They’re only thinking about themselves. * After all these questions and thinking about the situation, I came to a conclusion: if the record label wants to remove these songs, it’s not up to me to ask them to leave them. The best way to do that is to release all the songs on a live album, since I know that these are good songs and that they sound better live. At first, I was looking for reasons for not releasing these songs. Now I’m considering the fact that it could be a great idea. I talked with the label about this matter. We’re going to try to find a live album that includes all the songs that the fans want. If the label can’t do this, maybe they can release some kind of a double record, one for each album. If we can have a live album and the songs that were on the old CD, then I’m sure we’ll find many more fans who will listen to our records. The thing is that the label will have to spend some money in this, as they have to buy a new record with these songs and a new record with the old songs. Maybe if the label buys the new recording that we are going to make, we can make a special release with the old songs on that album. Then we can sell the new album to the fans, and this way, we can raise some money for the label. This is the only way I can do this. I have to leave my songs where they are in the studio, not in any case because they were recorded in a certain order. I can only add some extra songs to the record, but I don’t think this will be possible. I want to find a way of letting the fans have a say in their favorite songs being released on CDs. * During the past few weeks, I have had some meetings with the band, and we have finally agreed on what we will do with our records. Our album should be called “Best of Extreme Aggression”, because it contains all the songs that were selected from two albums. It will be an old record, but we are considering bringing back a couple of songs from “The End of Extreme Aggression”. To be fair to the fans, I think it’s a good idea to release a new recording with these songs, plus a live album with the other songs and some videos. We are not going to release an all-new album. I’m going to continue with “Rock Hard in Russia” and “Pure Aggression” until the next record is ready. These are the main reasons why we will wait until 2014. After that, the new record will be out, and we will be looking at our new record, which will have the songs that were selected from our albums. I hope that the fans can understand why it was necessary to do this. We are not really ready for a release at this time, and it is impossible to release all the songs on the same CD. The songs from different albums aren’t in the same place, and it’s impossible to make a compilation of all the songs. It’s something that we don’t want to do, but we have to respect what the label wants and what the fans want. Of course I am still sad about these things that have happened in our band. * After all these years of making records, I thought it was going to be a bit easier to choose which songs would be on the next album. But even when I make a list of songs to include in the next album, I don’t know which ones I will use. It doesn’t help that this band and I continue to be at odds. It always happens that new songs are made that we do not want to include in the next album. I can’t explain why it happened that way, but there it is. I cannot write new songs for this band, and the other guys don’t even seem interested in writing new songs for us. We have been on this for some years now, and nothing is