Former HANOI ROCKS singer MICHAEL MONROE has issued the following update:

"So the beautiful summer has come to an end, at least here in Finland. That's ok, it was a really nice one and I do love the fall as well.

The two Japanese Summer Sonic Festival gigs went great and we had a really good time in Japan as expected. However, as most of you probably know, a little injury occurred during my guest appearance with SLASH in Osaka. I sang one song with him, 'We're All Gonna Die'. During the guitar solo, I ran along the aisle all the way to the mixing board, which I had already done a couple of times during my own show, but this time on my way back I slipped and fell, hitting my back on the metal barricade breaking two ribs.

I've never had a broken a rib before, so I didn't know how it would feel. I just figured I had banged my back up real hard, so I just kept putting ice on it, but realized that I could only sleep laying on my back due to the pain.

The next day we took the Bullet Train straight to the festival in Tokyo, where I had interviews and stuff to do up until our showtime. This show was very important and I did the best I could despite the pain. After the show my level of physical discomfort told me it's time to see the doctor. I went to the local hospital for exams and to have an x-ray taken. And sure enough, two ribs were not only fractured... but actually broken. In a way I'm glad I didn't know this before the gig, since the knowledge of this might have slowed me down a bit. Anyway, everyone said the Tokyo show was even better than our great show in Osaka, so I must've succeeded in pulling it off pretty good.

After we got back to Finland, we spent the following week writing and recording demos at the Seawolf Studios on the Suomenlinna Island, about a 15 minute ferry ride from the Helsinki harbour. We chose about 16 out of over 20 songs we had written for the record. The newest stuff sounds especially great, and we now have a pretty clear picture of what our new studio album will sound like. We sent the demos to our producer, the legendary Jack Douglas, who also loved the material and can't wait to start digging into it with us. Needless to say, we're all really excited about the recording sessions. We're flying to LA this Sunday to get started and will record through September.

Our Ankkarock show on August 15th turned out pretty cool, against most odds. Apart from my broken ribs, we had another obstacle to overcome - Steve Conte's wife had a serious medical emergency and Steve absolutely needed to be there for her and their kid. So, naturally the first guy we thought of to stand in for Steve was none other than our dear friend Nasty Suicide. Luckily, Nasty was able and willing to do this and it actually turned out to be quite an event, especially since me, Sami and Nasty had not played an entire show together on stage for about 15 years. It was a lot of fun for everyone. Ginger was excited too, saying that this is probably the closest he'll get to playing a show with almost all the original members of Hanoi Rocks. We had two rehearsals at the end of two of our demo session days and we were ready to rock! Nasty handled it like the pro that he is. Ginger did a fantastic job too, covering a lot of Steve's lead parts etc. as well as his own. I did my best with the broken ribs, trying hard not to cause any further damage. Of course it was frustrating to me, having to be so careful on stage, as it limited my performance quite a bit from my usual 'reckless wildness,' but people seemed to enjoy it all the same. I'm glad we were also able to play a little longer than our usual festival set, to make up for it. I want to thank all of you in the audience for being so supportive and understanding.

On Friday, the 20th I played a little acoustic gig at the Rock'n'Roll Bar in Lohja, which was cool and fun. The place was packed with a lot of nice people and I actually dig doing that sort of thing once in a while for a change. Next time I'll try to make sure my acoustic show will be a bit more publicized, so that more of you may attend, if possible. So far I've been a little apprehensive about doing them, but they've gone pretty well and people seem to enjoy themselves so why not, right?

At this stage I finally got to rest my weary broken bones at home. It's still gonna be a while 'til I'm completely healed, but I'm well on the way to recovery and already looking forward to our up and coming shows later this fall.

And I can't wait to start working on our new album with the band and Jack Douglas - it's definitely gonna be a killer!

In the meantime, enjoy our new live album, Another Night In The Sun, coming out at the end of September."