Drummer Bobby Jarzombek (FATES WARNING, SEBASTIAN BACH, HALFORD) has issued the following update:

"Back home in SA after spending five days out in L.A. laying down drum tracks for the forthcoming Sebastian Bach album! What can I say other than it was exciting, stressful (at times), but ultimately rewarding. Glad it’s all in the can!

As was the case with Kicking & Screaming, Bob Marlette is at the helm producing Sebastian’s new CD. Also on board assisting for my drum tracking was his son, Chris Marlette. A couple weeks before flying out to L.A., I received demos for 9 of the 12 songs, and a few of those nine were incomplete or still needed to be arranged. Chris had programmed basic drum patterns for the demos as the songs were being written. And Chris (being a drummer himself) had good ideas and this was a good guide for me to build upon.

As I was learning the songs during the two weeks before the studio date, I worked out a lot of embellishments to the drum programming parts. I also completely changed some other things. And as usual, I write everything out ‘note for note’ and practice it all before the studio date. In a nutshell, in the studio it’s all about me being totally prepared before and playing my best during the session. But, I’ve recorded a couple studio CDs with Sebastian now and I know (on various sections) sometimes he wants me to stick closely to the demo programming, sometimes he wants me to embellish it, and sometimes he prefers me to play something completely and creatively different. I just don’t know which of these three pertain to which sections.

The studio process works like this: I would play my first take of each song just so Sebastian, Bob, and new guitarist Devin Bronson could listen to the sections and tell me their thoughts on what they thought worked and what didn’t. I would take it all in and make notes (literally) of their suggestions. It came together pretty quickly on most of the songs but on a few I was writing, erasing, and re-writing until the parts felt right. And on some other songs that I didn’t have demos previous to the session, I just sat with my pencil and blank manuscript paper writing down patterns that I thought would work for some sections and on others I just wrote down the rhythmic figure of the guitar, and I basically played patterns that I felt would work with those rhythms.

I know, creating in the studio is nothing new, but (because I usually have everything worked out prior) this was a bit of a stretch for me to improvise in the studio, especially on a couple songs that had huge dynamic changes. I’m really happy about the way everything turned out. To me, my playing on this album has some very thought out and nicely executed drumming and also some very spontaneous and inspiring drumming. Thanks Sebastian, Bob, Chris, and Devin for all your creative ideas!

On another note, I’m leaving on Tuesday for South America which kicks off a very busy fall touring schedule for me. I’ve got three shows with Sebastian in Brazil, including Rock In Rio (hell yeah!), and only a couple of weeks later the Fates Warning European tour starts in Holland. The new Fates album, Darkness In A Different Light, will be out by then – street dates are September 30th in Europe and October 1st in North America. I’ve put together some video footage from the studio with various excerpts and a breakdown of the kit I used. Check it out...

Last but certainly not least, we’ll be touring the US and Canada starting in mid-November – my first tour with the band stateside so I’m looking forward to that, especially playing San Antonio. Finally!"