ATREYU Drummer Checks In From Australia

ATREYU drummer Brandon Saller has issued the following update:

"I'm writing from our dressing room in Sydney, Australia. It's been a long long time since we have made any sort of update so I felt the need to come on and let everyone know what we've been up to.

"A few weeks ago we finished up the Taste Of Chaos tour with our good buddies AVENGED SEVENFOLD and BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE as well as our new friends in MUCC. We, as a band, just wanted to say a big thank you to all the fans that came out to those shows. We felt an energy playing those shows, both in the States and Canada, that we hadn't felt in a long time. The intensity and vibe was amazing every night so to all of you that where a part of that, thank you so much. You made it the best tour we have ever done.

"Directly after Taste Of Chaos we played a few radio shows which were equally amazing. We had a chance to catch up with our friends in STORY OF THE YEAR and MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE and we got see some great bands play as well. I was psyched to watch BILLY TALENT for three days straight. I love that band.

"We got to go home for a total of six days, which was short but sweet. After a long almost three months we got to enjoy the greatness that is home and family.

"That brings us to this point in time.

"A few days ago we took a loooong 13-hour flight to great ol Oz. We're on the second night of tour with AVENGED and BULLET again and it's going amazing. The show in Brisbane last night was massive. The crowd was louder that anything I've heard. It was a very lovely welcome for us. Tonight were in Sydney, like i said, getting ready to have another rockin' show.

"This blog was meant as an update, but also as a direct thank you to every single person that has supported ATREYU in the past six months. It's been the greatest time of this band's life and we have our amazing fans to thank for that. That being said, we hope to see all of you this summer on the Projekt Revolution tour with LINKIN PARK."

ATREYU released an expanded special edition of its latest album, "Lead Sails Paper Anchor", on April 22 in the CDVU-plus format. The package comes with extra content that is accessed through the Web when the disc is placed in a computer. Bonus features include a new track called "The Squeeze", covers of FAITH NO MORE's "Epic" and the DESCENDENTS' "Clean Sheets", plus 10 exclusive videos featuring three live performances, five individual band profile pieces, two behind-the-scenes clips shot on tour and a guitar lesson from axeman Dan Jacobs.

Singer Alex Varkatzas told The Pulse of Radio where the three new songs in the set came from. "Well, the covers were part of like a separate session that we did right after we did 'Lead Sails'," he said. "'The Squeeze' was just something new we wanted. If we were gonna do a re-release, we wanted to actually have value to it, you know what I mean, and the CDVU is awesome and gave it a lot, but we thought a new song would be really cool too, so we wrote a new jam. It's pretty heavy, it's pretty thrashy, it's good."

The set also features eco-friendly packaging and a 50-page, printable, digital booklet that includes more than 50 exclusive photos and song lyrics.

The five profile videos follow Varkatzas as he travels to Thailand to learn Brazilian ju-jitsu, drummer Brandon Saller talking about his new toy company, guitarist Dan Jacobs discussing his new Rokk clothing line, guitarist Travis Miguel practicing a strange ritual involving cheeseburgers and bassist Marc McKnight going to his favorite comic book store.