News Page July 2002: News from the St. Thomas world, and updates to this page in July 2002. This page is not an official source of information, if in doubt of accuracy of info please get in touch with webmaster of this page or the info source. Click here for latest news.

July 26th 2002 - Sorry about the lack of updates lately, but it is vacation after all. St. Thomas is also taking a vacation, and except for a performance at the Dour Festival in Dour, Belgium on July 13th all performances have been canceled as the band needs a concert break to focus on the recordings in Nashville that will begin in October.

In the end of June, Thomas, Espen and Bosse recorded a twelve-song demo in Berlin with producer Robert Jønnum. This demo will be the basis for the recordings in Nashville, and according to Thomas they sound "fantastically good." In a recent e-mail he said he thinks the new songs sound a lot better than the ones on "I'm Coming Home," and that he is excited to go to Nashville with this material.

Some titles for the new songs the band has been working on are known from recent live performances: "Heroes Making Dinner From The Outer Space," "Sunny Day," "New Apartment," "Everything Was Up For A Romance," "Institution," "45 Seconds," "Something Happened," "Falling Down" and "A Long Long Down" are nine songs that might end up on the new album, in addition to Thomas wanting to re-record "With The Feather" and include it on the album.

The concert chronology has been updated. The canceled performances have been removed, some information plus a setlist from Kongens Brygge in Halden, Norway on June 15th has been added. Eleven articles have been added to the articles page, one in German and ten in Norwegian. There is still a whole heap of articles that need to be typed up, but it takes a lot of time so it will be done later.

July 1st 2002 - On June 22nd, St. Thomas played at Lt. Creutz Pub in Kongsvinger, Norway. The band performed "The Cool Song," "A Nice Bottle Of Wine," "Cornerman," "New Apartment" and another new song before the concert ended with an onstage-fight between band members that ended with Thomas having to be driven to the local hospital.

According to the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, the concert had lasted for about twenty minutes when Thomas smashed his acoustic guitar on the speakers and then ruined a mic stand in front of about seventy shocked audience members. According to one of these audience members, Thomas also kicked and headbutted Espen, which was not mentioned in the newspaper. According to the paper Thomas said he thought it was the mic stand that cut his forehead, it looked dramatic with a lot of blood but he did not need to get stitches.

"It is disappointing that this happens over and over again at my concerts. Whether it is in Royal Albert Hall or at a pub in Kongsvinger, there are a lot of emotions. In Kongsvinger it was a combination of us not playing good enough and of the audience standing and talking while we were playing," Thomas is quoted by the newspaper.

Last Friday the band performed at the Roskilde Festival in Roskilde, Denmark, and luckily things went a lot better. Dagbladet published yet another article about the band, where Thomas was quoted as saying the band had been in meetings with Racing Junior and that they had talked about what happened in Kongsvinger the weekend before. He also said they had recorded a new demo and gotten the focus back on the music.

Speaking of the Roskilde performance, Thomas planned on lowering his demands for communication with the audience and rather play safe and as good they can. "I think some have started doubting us. We do not want people to come see us because there might be a scandal, so today the goal is to play as good as possible," Thomas said. "We are going to disappoint those who come to see the freak-show," Espen added. Thomas has high self-esteem when it comes to the new material, that they recorded demos for in Berlin with producer Robert Jønnum last week. "We are going to make classic pop. I was dancing during the recordings this week. That is a good sign," Thomas said to Dagbladet.