SunriseAve ITALY

Post N° 6

Changes in Sunrise Avenue from Sunrise Avenue Diary

Changes in Sunrise Avenue

I established a band called Sunrise 15 years ago and later on changed the name to Sunrise Avenue. There have been hard times all the way but the hardest moment for me and for all of us was 2 weeks ago when we had to make a very hard decision.

A band is a very complex thing. It's like marriage between the members and it's much more than what people see and hear on the outside. Sometimes bands spend whole moths together, day and night, and of course like all bands, we also have had our stupid meaningless fights and disagreements. Everybody is tired and stupid things are said. This case was not about who gets to sit next to the window in the car. It was something that had been going on from the first recorded track at the studio. The reason we were able to go on together for so long is all the success we have had with the support of our wonderful fans, but now even the gold awards weren't enough to cover the pain and to keep us together.

Why the change….

Nobody did a bad job and like in most of the relationships that end nobody was wrong or right. The cold fact is that we simply didn't fit into the same tour bus anymore and it would have been impossible to go on and create new music together when the atmosphere is not healthy. Some of us have travelled to shows with our own cars for months already because travelling in the bus felt unpleasant. That is not healthy but we really tried. You can erase your thoughts for the 60 minutes on stage and show a happy face for the audience but you cannot escape the feelings you have for life and if nothing changes, there will be the day you will have to make a choice.

You might ask why didn't we try talking about it. Yes we did. And again, nobody was wrong or right, we just saw the things so different that we never got to the point. If there is something wrong between two or more people it's impossible to clear the air if both / all sides can't see or can't accept the real problem. It's ok for some time to find peace for two weeks after every conversation and fight, but in the long run it kills everybody to argue about the same things month after month.

I understand it is really hard to see the points from the outside, but I bet you all understand nobody would be left out of the band without a reason. The cause has been there for a few years and the pain inside got tougher and tougher the further we went. Every single person in our Band, Management, Record Companies and Live Agents understand the reasons behind this arrangement and stand behind the situation fully. The band and myself asked for help in this matter from all of them already last year but there was nothing nobody could do.

Digging this issue and reasons of it deeper now would only hurt both sides and especially Janne. We will not build a soap opera around the situation. Nobody will get anything from that. We don't want to publish an open letter on our website about who did what and all. This is the bands internal thing and it shall stay like that. As Janne says in his letters, we also would have done anything to avoid this mess but this time there was no other way.

We honestly wish all the best for Janne and his future from the bottoms of our hearts and of course we understand the anger and all he is feeling right now. We respect and value the work he did for the band and he has gotten and will get every credit for his efforts.

And we understand the confusion everybody around us feels right now and we can't blame anyone for feeling sympathy, sorrow or even hate. The last months and especially the last 2 weeks have been really hard for all the band members and the folks behind us and we really hope you could all give us the peace to recover and move on and Janne to build up his own future.

Sunrise Avenue will keep on touring, promoting and travelling just the way we have done so far. For the next few weeks there will be a guy playing the guitar, not as a band member, only as a hired musician. We will let you know as soon as we have a new guy, a new member in the band.

The shows in Gothenburg, Sweden yesterday and on Sunday were really great. We were really happy with everyone in the audience and back stage and how the unnecessary chewing of the topic was skipped and we were able to focus on our jobs. We really hope that would happen wherever we go. You should all know the arrangement puts us in a very tough place finding and training musicians for the future. Still even if it's a huge workload with our partly broken hearts, the move we made was something that needed to be done. Otherwise there would have not been Sunrise Avenue at all. The decision is final and there is no coming back.

Thank you for you patience and understanding,

Samu and Guys