The Mayor of Sofia, Yordanka Fandakova, met with MANOWAR's Joey DeMaio in a private session to discuss the great Bulgarian fans and their metal scene.

Joey signed the city's Book of Honor with the following text: "To the beautiful city of Sofia and to the most beautiful mayor I have ever met and in the world".

Joey, who is a great fan of Bulgaria had been in Sofia for the last several days, wanted to get acquainted with the Mayor of the city.

"I'm a real fan and this meeting with you makes me really excited", said Fandakova during her conversation with the bassist in the City Hall.

She said that it was important for all cultural happenings in the capital to attract not only visitors from Bulgaria but from other countries as well.

"The Bulgarian fans had to travel abroad in previous years. It will be nice if this changes", said Mrs Fandakova. The Mayor supported Joey's idea to honor the young Bulgarian fan and a friend of the band, Joro Panaiotov, who recently passed away. "I like your country and the people so much, it's a rock-country", said Joey. "Manowar have the greatest fans here", according to his words.

"We are very excited because we can get involved in the cultural activities of Bulgaria", specified the bassist. He promised to take part in future rock festivals in Sofia. The Mayor, Yordanka Fandakova, gave the famous musician a plaque, a disc containing Bulgarian folk songs and an album about the old city of Sofia with pictures by Ober Bauer. While in Sofia, Joey also visited the legendary Nu Boyana film studios where the new film Conan was recently completed and also where The Expendables starring Sylvester Stallone was filmed.

The local newspaper, Standard, published a story on Joey's visit which can be found here.

As previously reported, Manowar are currently re-recording its classic debut album from 1982, Battle Hymns, for a 2011 release.

DeMaio explains why: "This is a history-making moment. We've had a couple of people ask why re-record a record like Battle Hymns when it's perfect - I didn't say it's perfect, but other people have said it's perfect, and we thank you for that. We're not trying to make it better, because it is what it is, but there's a lot of technology now that we didn't have when we made the record and we're gonna take advantage of it to make it as loud as we possibly can. So it won't be better, it will just be different and the songs themselves deserve to be recorded again because they're great songs and the fans have actually requested a lot of this to happen. And also, Donnie Hamzik, our original drummer, is back in the band and he wanted to have another go at it. We're all together and we're gonna have a fuckin' great time. So thanks for staying with us."

Video of DeMaio talking about Manowar's decision to re-record Battle Hymns and laying down bass tracks in the studio can be viewed below:

Battle Hymns featured the following tracklisting:

'Death Tone'

'Metal Daze'

'Fast Taker'

'Shell Shock'

'Manowar'

'Dark Avenger'

'William's Tale'

'Battle Hymn'