As you all hopefully know ANTHEM is OUT NOW on Lion Music. To check out soundclips and also order the cd please visit the Guitar 9 website.

Dutch online rocksite RockNet have a new interview with James as well as a glowing review of ANTHEM.

For more information on 'Anthem' please scroll down.

12th July 2002
ANTHEM PRE-ORDER INFORMATION
Lion Music are now accepting pre-order for 'Anthem', to order the album click HERE, then scroll down until you find it. You can click on the album cover there for more information.

BYRD TO PLAY ON ULI JON ROTH TRIBUTE
It also give me great pleasure to announce that Byrd will be performing on the upcoming Uli Jon Roth tribute album to be released on Lion Music with an October release likely.

The track Byrd will be covering for the project is 'Still So Many Lives Away' from the album 'Electric Sun - Earthquake'.

6th June 2002
'ANTHEM' - RELEASE DATE SET
Lion Music have announced on their website a tentative release date of July 16th 2002.

This is not totally a 'definite' date but generally Lion are very good on such things.

31st May 2002
MAJOR NEW ALBUM UPDATE
A report direct from Seattle here!!

The new album title is 'ANTHEM'.

The recording and mixing for the album is now finished with mastering to commence in a couple of days.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Anthem.
2. Omen.
3. Messages From Home.
4. Some Day.
5. All I Want.
6. Killing Machine.
7. Thank You.
8. The Price Of War.
9. Only Love.

The release date is to be announced soon.

I can report from hearing this album first hand that it blows away everything Byrd has done in terms of songwriting, production, guitar work, lyrics etc. Basically its one of the finest things you will ever hear and words cannot really sum this one up.

Michael's vocals are stunning and Brian's contribution to the sound ties everything together extremely well.

THIS IS "THE"ALBUM TO WATCH THIS YEAR!!

On a side note I am currently on vacation staying here with James and the whole adventure is just a huge trip. American life is HUGE is everyway compared to little old England, it all speaks volumes! Pictures will be forthcoming on my return home where I will also give you a more detailed report on the "trip of a lifetime".

7th May 2002
ONE MORE FLYING BEYOND THE 9 REVIEW FOR YOU
Yes, another review has been added for your reading pleasure, goto the reviews page.

Coming soon, news on the new album!!

30th April 2002
MORE 'FLYING BEYOND THE 9' REVIEWS!!
Added another 2 very positive reviews for FBT9, access them at the reviews page.

23rd March 2002
NEW 'FLYING BEYOND THE 9' REVIEW
Almost a year since its release and reviews are still cropping up around the net. The latest addition to the archive is from progressiveworld.net and its yet another glowing accouny, to check it out click on the reviews section.

STUDIO REPORT
James has the following to report - "Since I am doing all the recording/engineering myself, I have so may choices of instrumentation I'm being really fussy. I can't actually count the instrument sounds at my disposal, but I venture to guess it's about 2 or 3 thousand instruments all together. Maybe about 300 that are actually useful out of all that. Decisions decisions!".

No release date or album title have been set as yet.

10th February 2002
ASK BYRD UPDATED
Yes another installment has been added to your favourite help bureau. Once again James does his best to help improve your tone. Got some questions? Send them via the box on the 'Ask Byrd' page.

19th February 2002
ASK BYRD UPDATED
James reply to a couple of questions regarding 8x10" cabinets and speaker attenuators can be found in the 'Ask Byrd' section.

3rd FEBRUARY 2002
NEW JAMES BYRD INTERVIEW
As promised the excellent website The Shred Zone has a new interview up with James. The interview covers a lot of ground and James goes into quite some depth talking about what guitar playing means to him and his unique approach to the instrument.

Check it out here.

1st FEBRUARY 2002
FLYING BEYOND THE 9 SALES REPORT
It has been announced by Lion Music that 'Flying Beyond The 9' was the labels second biggest seller of 2001.  The top three is below:

1) Warmth In The Wilderness - A Tribute To Jason Becker (feat James on 'Outro Jam').
2) Byrd - Flying Beyond The 9
3) Winterlong - Valley Of The Lost

STUDIO REPORT
James is currently recording the guitar parts for the new (as yet untitled) album, the last few weeks have seen acoustic guitars being laid down, and this week saw James start on the electric parts, one change has occured in the recording process, the new album will see the guitar parts recorded with a tube ADK A51T microphone, this is then ran into an ART Audio Tube MP to interface the microphone to the recorder, so the signal path is now 100% tube, James said "I'm in Tone Heaven", which suggest the new guitar sounds will be the best yet!

The album has no release date scheduled at present.

Want older news? Click HERE