HANOI ROCKS Frontman Issues Tour/Songwriting Update

HANOI ROCKS frontman Michael Monroe has posted the following message on the band's official web site:

"First of all, I'd like to thank you for all your kind and sincere birthday wishes. I did have quite a fun day too. We played a good gig in Spain at the Lorca Rock festival and Andy [McCoy, guitar] got the crowd singing 'Happy Birthday' to me. I must admit it felt nice and warmed my heart. The Spanish people in general seem very kind and friendly.

"My ear infection earlier this spring really set us back quite a few months. Once again, I'm sorry for the consequently cancelled/postponed dates. Frustratingly enough, it also disrupted our songwriting process that me and Andy had just gotten off to a promising start. Well, we'll just have to pick up where we left off…

"So, this June we decided to join forces with our friends and labelmates TWISTED SISTER for what was supposed to be five U.K. dates, but turned out to be three, since they cancelled the last two. (Our sincere apologies to anyone, who may have been inconvenienced by this.) It's unfortunate, because the Hammersmith Apollo would have been a great show for both bands. However, as we hate having to cancel gigs, we decided to make good on the Nottingham Rock City date on June 28th, as well as the ones we had booked in Milton Keynes (29th) and Cleethorpes (30th). The Nottingham Rock City is one of our favorite venues and it's practically impossible to have a bad gig there. Cleethorpes is a place we seem to have played on almost every HANOI tour since the early '80s and has always been a good gig to do, as well as Milton Keynes.

"By the way, working with TWISTED SISTER was a very pleasant and positive, fun experience. They were very kind to us and their fans treated us nicely. I watched their entire Manchester show and as a first timer I must say I was impressed. Definitely a force to be reckoned with. Dee Snider is surely one of the strongest and hardest working frontmen around and they put on a great show.

"And while on the subject of cool bands to play with, I'm quite looking forward to our dates with the newly reformed NEW YORK DOLLS on July 7th (Peace & Love [festival] in Sweden) and July 8th (RuisRock, Finland). Especially because our 'old young kid brother' (and original bassist) Sami Yaffa has recently found himself amidst a 'personality crisis' and joined the DOLLS. It'll be great to see Sami and what the DOLLS are like today. I wouldn't expect anything other than a great rock 'n' roll show.

"In record release news: On the 12th of July a special edition of 'Twelve Shots On The Rocks' will be released in Finland. It is the correct finished version (as in U.S.A. and U.K.) of the 17 tracks, with renewed digipak artwork. Finally, for the first time all the right mixes will be officially available in Finland. If you ain't got it, grab it since/while you can!"

HANOI ROCKS recently completed work on the video for the song "Back In Yer Face", taken from their "Another Hostile Takeover" album, available on Demolition Records. The CD is the group's first album to feature Conny Bloom (ex-ELECTRIC BOYS),who joined the band in 2004. HANOI ROCKS' current lineup also includes a second ex-ELECTRIC BOYS member, bassist Andy "A.C." Christell.