Here’s how much you matter to Alex!

Hey,

I hope you’re doing great! It’s already this time of the week where I’m sitting down, excited as always to share parts of our universe with you, as I feel like last time I did it was yesterday! What an incredible week we had around Alex’s new release A Nightfall Ritual and his song and music video I’m Afraid! It’s pretty much the only thing we’ve been talking about here on a daily basis! Your comments about the song, the lyrics, the live video, the packages, the vinyls and so on are all so meaningful and above all so aligned with the spirit of the project and the reason why Alex decided he wanted to immortalize this incredible concert with you all and to share that song in particular as a starter! 

It’s 3pm (15h) on Sunday afternoon and I’m at Alex’s home down in Virginia since, as he shared with you in one of his previous journal, his home is now close to being a complete flooded disaster, so I, of course, decided to come down and help him navigate through those very dark and troubled waters, and I’m not talking about the flooding here! I’ll let him share more details with you if he feels like it, but since I’ve always shared with you where I was at the time I wrote this letter, I didn’t want to lie to you.

The amazing thing about being here at this time of the year, though, is that springtime is fully blooming already, and the mountain is so beautiful, colorful, and the smells of the fresh flowers coming out of the ground on a daily basis and the sound of the birds waking me up every morning are simply stunning and so refreshing, especially following four months in Tangier, where all the noises a city can produce are not only there but make you feel like they’re multiplied by a few hundreds if not thousands, which adds to the charm. But the contrast of the mountain lifestyle is through the roof! Almost making me feel out of balance! Any City Noise Podcast recommendation for me to fall asleep to at night?!

One thing that I have always admired about Alex since the first day I met him was his resilience in every aspect of his life! The resilience to win against all odds, the resilience to reach the unknown, the resilience to challenge status quo, the resilience to never conform, the resilience to always stay incorruptible, and above all the resilience to be free. I will never forget when we were getting started with our former band, Your Favorite Enemies, and we had a few days of meetings with major labels in Toronto and in New York, back in 2008, which was already a massive accomplishment against all odds and predictions from our surroundings and so-called friends at the time. But what was the most amazing part was when Alex realized that if he signed with any of those staple labels, he was losing the final say on pretty much everything he would be releasing, such as artwork, merch prices, packaging, and quality control, leading to pretty much a transactional relationship between you and him. It was something that deeply troubled his mind, especially at that time. Labels were promising huge amounts of money, which we were far from having, in exchange for full control over our album releases.

The reason I’m sharing this is for you to know that ever since we released our very first EP titled And If I Was to Die In the Morning… Would I Still Be Sleeping With You, Alex decided we would sell them ourselves, from our own website, we would ship them ourselves, write down a short note on a post-it (every band member would have its own color), and on top, people would pay 10$ shipping included, no matter where you were in the world. That was in June 2007!

Let’s jump to 2025 and imagine yourself with Alex in a meeting to set the prices of the up-and-coming packages for A Nightfall Ritual! Well, guess what?! Nothing changed! I even bring all the costs of every item every time just in case, but we never use those, since for Alex it’s quite simple: the way he thinks is based on how much he would like to see his friends pay for his things, not the real value of the package at all!

Think about it: the biggest package is 175$ and it includes 4 LPs that we normally sell for 35$ each, which means we’re already at 140$, and we added a CD/DVD, a t-shirt, slipmat, 6 silkscreen-printed posters, 1 folder containing Alex's lyrics sheets, 1 bracelet made with blue tiger eye stone, 1 bag of lapsang souchong tea, 1 candle, 1 tour pass replica, 3 1-inch buttons, 1 digital download card, and all of this in a beautiful box! On top, as if this wasn’t enough already, 5 years ago, we decided that the shipping costs would be the same for everyone and a flat fee no matter what you would order!

Since everything is homemade, now more than ever since we opened our vinyl pressing plant, we can make sure of the quality control and we also travel to ship those items to you as we don’t want you to pay extra custom taxes as we’re always aiming for the highest quality at the lowest possible price! Alex and I will be shipping again from England, Germany, and the USA, hoping you won’t have to add a penny to those wonderful products that were made for us all to celebrate what matters the most to Alex and me: art, music, meaning, purpose, and humanity!

I’m still taking my breath after what has been such a crazy week mixed with supporting Alex, celebrating with Alex and you all and of course, making sure that the motion we’ve been into since last year won’t slow down for a split second since what we’re building and sharing has so much value and meaning. This truly is what defines us completely!

Forever thankful for who you are! For who we are! Always feel free to reach out! 

Let’s be great to one another! 

Your chief operator and friend, 
Jeff