EUROPE keyboardist Mic Michaeli has issued the following update from the second leg of the band's European tour for their new album, Sick Society, which wraped up on February 15th in Birmingham, UK:

"After a fantastic final German show in Bochum it was time for us to set sails for the United Kingdom.

As most of you already know Ian (Haugland/drums) often works as a DJ at a rock radio station in Stockholm when not touring or being in the studio with the band. What most of you don’t know (but will not be suprised to hear) is that Ian has a habit of becoming very drunk whenever finding himself on a vessel (ship/ferry/boat/raft… call it what ever you want, if Ian’s on one, he will be drunk).

Anyway, well on board this proud ship of Her Majesty’s fleet, taking us across the English Channel, Ian got extremely drunk (his natural state on boats, as we know) and decided this was the perfect time to call his radio station up and for his colleagues to do a live interview with the mad drummer. Well, not all of us agreed and couldn’t really share his enthusiasm. But it was too late to stop him, he was already on air.

This fine drummer boy was determined to complete his mission and wasn’t satisfied until he had sung a song (a duet with yours truly) and revealed all private details about his behavior on tour for all the listeners to hear. Including what he’s up to at night in his bunk at the bus, using all foul words known in the Swedish dictionary and even inventing some new ones.

Finally we felt it was time for us to release the listeners from Ian’s chatter and managed to get the phone off his hands. Ian however was laughing with tears in his eyes. So happy, his mission completed.

For the rest of the trip we had to keep him in a leash until he was back in his bunk. And God knows what he did when he was back between the sheets."

/mic