After entering the DAC (German Alternative Charts) at #14, Horizon Born (Electric Paradise Club Edit) has climbed up to #11 in its 2nd week.

Go ahead and request it at your favorite club!

Just got an email from Eskil which had this picture from Mexico attached:

Minutes before I had told Eskil about this Blue Demon Fan Store down the road and he came back with this mask and took this picture with his iPhone.

I doubt anyone would pay to see the two of us wrestle, though … *g*

I am really happy to announce the release of my new 5-track EP “Horizon Born” today. These are 5 ballads that I am extremely proud of and I really hope you enjoy listening to them.

Head over to the music section and check out the full EP in the online player. If you like what you hear, you can either download it directly from my site or check out all the other options you have to get CDs or mp3s from all the usual suspects … ehm … I meant retailers! *g*

Please let me know what you think of the EP and if you like it please spread the word! Twitter it, write about it on your blog, Facebook, Myspace or all of the above! These days your word counts much more than advertisements or press articles, so if you enjoy my record, please tell your friends about it!

- FH

L-Tracks sent me a package with the finished product of the Horizon Born EP today. They look good to me. Very happy with the pressing plant this time.

Sale (CDs & digital) starts this Friday and it seems like Horizon Born is already at #2 in the MusicNonStop Salescharts for this week! Wooohoo! :)

I will have the tracks up for listening on Friday on my site!

One week in Mexico compressed into 4 minutes:

Enjoy!
FH

The party at Dada-X on Friday night was a short one, since Björn and I both had stomach problems for the first time on this trip. We took many photos with enthusiastic fans and signed everything they threw at us *g* – still, we went home at 01:30 to rest and recuperate for the show on Saturday.

Saturday morning started much better. My stomach had settled and my new friend Pam helped me shop for a cable that I had left at home. Without her it would have been a hell of a lot harder, considering my crappy spanish *g*

We arrived at the venue exactly as planned at 14:30 and a few minutes later our Mexican sound technician arrived also. My surprise was huge, since I really hadn’t expected him to turn up before 15:30. That was a good omen! He didn’t speak english, but he really knew what he was doing. Björn and I soundchecked for maybe 20 minutes and he quickly put together a great stage/in-ear sound. Thanks again to my man Donovan for organizing this guy!

After that we ate with Arturo, hung out and once again signed tons of autographs or took pictures with fans who were all very nice. I also met my new friend Aminah who’s actually an online friend of my crazy buddy Phil “The Anvil” Symons – the world is getting smaller and smaller by the minute, really! Time flew, really and after vocal warmups and pre-gig vodka, it was time to hit the stage.

As always with an audience that doesn’t know you, this was a work gig. That means, you play for people that have never heard your music and therefore you have to convince them that it is worth staying and listening to your music instead of checking out the merch booth or grabbing another beer at the bar. And apparently we did a good job, because the crowd got bigger every minute and started to party when we brought out “Melt Into Your Eyes” for the first time ever. That track seemed to be the ice breaker, but we still kept putting on the pressure and finished with a strong “Dirtygrrrls/Dirtbois” & “TZDV” combo which really got the crowd going! Victory! *g*

After that the night became a bit of a blur, since we shared the backstage area with Covenant and the vodka flowed freely. Apparently I almost got attacked by a gang of mexican criminals who weren’t happy with the fact that their girlfriends liked me more than them, but my friend Daekk saved my ass by dragging me into the backstage again. I didn’t see much of the Solitary Experiments show, but their crowd was partying and Covenant really put on a great, great show. Eskil gave everything (including jumping into the audience from a 4m high stage!) and the people went crazy! Much respect to an awesome band! A successful evening for all bands involved!

I left the venue with Melissa and Daekk to stay at their place and live through one of the craziest sunday’s I’ve ever experienced. Melissa works for a doctor who hosts his own TV show and who sells nutritional supplements as well as health books. His name is Dr. Abel Cruz, but I named him “Dr. Santo” (in reference to the legendary mexican wrestler “El Santo“). The three of us went to one of Dr. Santo’s “conferences” which basically is a badly executed sales event. Dr. Santo is the cheesiest dude that I’ve ever seen in person but his gullible audience is making him rich while thinking he is some sort of genius/saint/god.

Daekk and I had barely slept at all so we were going nuts making fun of everyone and everything, while laughing for hours straight. I seriously can’t remember having laughed so much for so long. Everyone who saw us probably thought we were stoned out of our minds, but I’ll just say: The DEA guy – Dr. Santo – Mama Killita – The Vengeful Sombrero – The Golden Dragon and last but not least Yoda totally made our day.

After that we went to Chili’s for a meal that was so big that I could hardly finish it and then back to Mexico City. On our way home Daekk took a wrong turn and for a while we got lost in a slum area of the city. We also got stopped by the police because Daekk went over a red light (which is totally normal in Mexico). The officers wanted to give him a ticket for 680 Pesos (approx. 35 Euros) but decided to offer him the possibility to bribe them for 300 Pesos (approx. 15 Euros). The bribe works by handing out a little book which the offender takes to his own car to put the money in. Then he hands the book back to the police officers. Everyday corruption in Mexico City … We ended the day by shopping and playing NBA Live 10 on XBox till 01:00 which was sleeptime.

I am now sitting in First Class again, aboard a Lufthansa 747 on the way back to Frankfurt eating incredible Armandini Cake and Tiramisu. What a great week it has been: met so many new people, saw many new places, had a successful show and found two new real friends in Melissa and Daekk.

If Mexico wants me back – I’ll come back!

Wednesday started nicely with my 2nd workout of the week and I already felt much better in the endurance department. So if this continues, all will be fine on Saturday.

At 13:00 Arturo picked up Solitary Experiments and us with a van to go to Toluca (40 minutes outside of Mexico City) for a radio and TV interview. After half an hour he got a phonecall that another radio station might do an interview with us on thursday if they like the bands. To find that out, they needed CDs of the bands. So Arturo stopped somewhere, bought CDs and burned a compilation of each band to a CD-R to then drive somewhere else and drop them off at the station.

All in all this process took something like 2 hours. And all the time I wondered: why didn’t the radio station guys just go on the web and listen to the songs on the official websites or MySpace or even YouTube?? This was totally ass-backwards, really, and in the end didn’t work out for me at all because the radio station decided they only had enough time for Solitary Experiments (aka they think I suck, haha) …

Drove on to Toluca to do a radio interview at Radio/Television Mexiquense with a very nice host and then head over to the next building for a short TV interview.

Before us were the Mexican Chippendales who had quite a large following of fangirls with them in the studio. The interview was over after 3-4 minutes (as is to be expected with these sorts of quick promos) and everyone there was really professional (which was refreshing).

Back in Mexico City at 20:30 I had to cancel a video shoot that I wanted to do on one of the highest buildings of Mexico City, because we were late again. Had dinner instead with Björn and Aleyda and then met up with Melissa and Daekk for drinks and Nachos at the local Hard Rock Cafe (the only place we could find that was open past 23:00). Admired Prince’s red high heels and a Prince tour poster from Würzburg, Germany. Why that was hung up in Mexico City, I don’t know *g* Bedtime was at 2:30.

Thursday started with gym, shopping and making manly breakfast (eggs, toast, potato roasties, etc.). Then we headed out to the hotel for an interview at 16:00. We arrived 30 minutes late on purpose just to find out that nobody would show up. Daekk and Melissa were nice enough to drive us to a venue where they had a “Dark Expo” – a collection of “dark” artwork. Some of it was good, most of it was pure crap. Then again, who am I to judge it … *g*

(Me at the Dark Expo – interpreting a picture for the videoblog)

After that it was time for Bizarro again! Arrived there at 19:30, had millions of drinks and left a little after 1:30! I like that place. The waitresses are so nice and they gladly played the Horizon Born Electric Paradise Remix. *g*

Today started early with an interview session. Björn and I tried to be deliberately late again, but even though we arrived at 11:10 (40 minutes after the scheduled time) we were still the first people there. So we decided to start the day early with beers. Eskil arrived a little later and we hung out in the sun, drinking beers waiting for the press guys to show up. I think the interviews started around 13:00 and Eskil and I did them together, cause he thought it’s more fun to bounce answers off of each other. I agree with that. After that he left to the anthropological museum while we went back to the apartment to sleep and be lazy.

Up tonight: 1000 vodkas at the official festival pre-party at Dada-X.

On Monday, after hanging out at Starbucks for 2 hours, we went back home to meet Aleyda and eat Pozole which was really nice. Again, I can not stress the value of good food photography enough! If Björn hadn’t told me 5 times that it’s really good, I would have NEVER ordered it, because the pictures in the menu looked pretty disgusting. Glad he convinced me, cause I ate Pozole and a lot of Tortillas. That stuff was good!

Figured out the internet situation at the apartment, so we don’t have to go to Starbucks anymore, and then took a taxi to the radio station (Radio Unam) to do an interview for the “Carpe Noctem” show. Everything went without a hitch and the radio hosts Zanoni (who wore a St. Pauli jacket and knew a lot more about my home soccer team than me) and Zeltzin were very professional. We also found out that Arturo was a good translator and I think he has the right voice for radio.

After that we had planned to chill out at home with a few DVDs, but of course everything went completely the opposite way than we planned it. We took a taxi home after the radio show at 20:30 and were about to pick up some DVDs when Björn’s friend Melissa (a well-known Mexican TV show host) called and asked us if we had any plans. Of course we didn’t really, so we went to a bar called “Bizarro” which I really liked. The place is small, but nicely styled and they played cool music too. We hung out with Melissa and her boyfriend Daekk and really had a lot of fun drinking beer from huge Corona bottles, figuring out our Mexican pornstar names and me learning Mexican colloquial phrases.

At around 23:30 they kicked us out of the bar so we picked up Rhino’s XBox and Rockband guitars, bought tacos at a street booth and drove over to our apartment to play Rockband. I had never played Rockband or Guitar Hero before, so despite my decent guitar skills, I failed a lot – even on easy level, haha! We all had a really good time until we called it a night at 03:30.

(Daekk and me rocking out to “More Than A Feeling” by Boston)

On an interesting note: Daekk and I had a conversation/discussion about Mexican Nazis, White Pride and Right Wing Movements and when I saw them to the door at the front of the apartment complex I noticed that the downstairs neighbor has a huge Nazi German flag pinned to the ceiling of his living room. I wonder if he overheard our conversation and a pack of dark colored, 5’2″ tall, Mexican Aryan Skinheads will break down our door soon, hahaha …

Tuesday started out slow with lots of surfing the web, getting some organizational stuff done and being lazy on the couch.

I went to the gym around the corner and did a nice 1h workout. Found out that I am very out of shape here, due to Mexico City’s high altitude and thin air. So I made the plan to train every day before the show to get used to it.

Went out to the Pericoapa market with Daekk to buy some stuff, shoot the shit and meet some Mexican gang dudes who were really tall and big compared to the average Mexican. Of course I didn’t understand a word they were saying but they seemed to be chilled out.

Spent the evening with concert promoter Donovan and his girlfriend Claudia at Don Asado (a uruguayan specialty restaurant) which had awesome steaks and great cake for dessert. Obviously everything was H U G E and the whole meal for 6 people cost us less than 50 Euro. Prices are insane over here.

Up today: shopping for groceries, gym and then TV interview in Toluca.

Saturday Electra X dropped me off at the airport where we immediately bumped into Mr. Petersen who is my keyboard player for this Mexico trip.

Checked in, hopped onto the plane to Frankfurt and looked for the Lufthansa lounge to chill out for an hour. Got bullied and scoffed at by Hugo Boss shirt wearing dudes with slicked back hair when we entered the LH Senator Lounge looking like 2 scruffy punks. Was twice as good when the lady at the counter looked at our tickets and said “Oh, you should go to the 1st Class Lounge near your gate, then you don’t have to sit in the business class lounge with all the other people here”. Hugo Boss wearing dudes were caught staring in disbelief when we left … haha!

The first class lounge was great. If you got money to burn on flight tickets (thanks again Arturo!), go there. Great atmosphere, very nice staff and everything is free. Obviously I had to do a vodka test since they had Stolichnaya there, which I have not tried so far. No problem: within a minute I had Stolichnaya, Absolut and Grey Goose – and without a doubt the Grey Goose once again destroyed them easily. Only competition for Grey Goose is Alpha Noble.

The 12h flight was great too. Two 3-course menues and very attentive staff – and everything for free in abundance. Edited an overdue video for my buddies from SAM, slept approx. 5 hours and started watching “Cadillac Records” to arrive pretty fresh in Mexico City. We missed the LH lady who would have escorted us straight past all the passport procedures, so we had to wait in line for a while, but that was okay. Met with Arturo (the concert promoter) and the Solitary Experiments guys and headed off to Björn’s apartment, which we are staying at.

Freshened up and headed out to (rather unimpressive) dinner and then to the Depeche Mode concert aftershow party at Dada X, where we fuelled up on Vodka-Redbull until they kicked us out at around 3am. Time to sleep!

Woke up early on Sunday to find that Björn was already awake. Went to the supermarket around the corner, found a gym for me within walking distance and had breakfast at California Buffet where Björn had a genius idea. It will make us rich so we won’t tell you what it is. We already looked at patent websites and so far it’s looking good …

Sunday afternoon was spent at David’s (Arturo’s brother) house for a great, great BBQ. Had beer, whiskey, tequila and lots of great grilled Mexican food. Much, much better than the restaurant last night! Also everyone we met was really nice and I hope to hang out with Eli, Edna, Erica and all the other peeps again soon!

Left around 17:30 to drive to Foro Sol, the baseball stadium where Depeche Mode were playing their 2nd night in Mexico City.

(View from the side of the stage)

The concert was a mixed affair for me. I really didn’t like the first half, but the second half was really good. I guess it’s a clear separation between newer (first half) and older (second half) songs. The crowd loved it and 40.000 Mexicans went crazy.

What surprised me the most really was how well-known Björn is in Mexico! Almost everywhere we went random people would come up to him and ask “Aren’t you Mr. Petersen?” and ask for autographs. Amazing!! Nobody knew me, so I cried myself to sleep that night ;)

On the way back some people in the crowd decided to break through one of the high metal fences to save 10 minutes on their way back to the parking lot and we decided to follow them. Funnily enough, the police was standing right next to the hole in the fence, but instead of arresting everyone they just made sure we could cross the highway road safely … I guess that sums up Mexico for you, haha!

Today is Monday and we are sitting at Starbucks, abusing their free internet. We have to trade the power cable for our MacBooks every 5 minutes because both our batteries are almost empty and we only have one converter plug, hehe. But we managed.

Up today: have Pozole for late lunch and then radio interview around 19:00 – but in Mexican time that probably means 20:30, haha! I already got rid of my watch …

Check back for new updates in the next days!