The Aristocrats

Guthrie Govan | Marco Minnemann | Bryan Beller

2/11Announcing the “DEFROST” North American Tour for summer 2022!

Hello everyone!

We are very excited to announce that we will make our long-awaited return to the stages of North America this summer, for the DEFROST tour. The ten-week, 50-show run will mark our first live performances since the FREEZE! Live In Europe 2020 album was captured, more than two years ago. Audiences will be treated to a debut of select new material not yet released on any album, as well as a carefully curated collection of fan favorites and deep cuts.

We’re beyond thrilled to get back out there and do what we do best – playing together, live and loud, in the same room – for our amazing fans who’ve been so generous with their support of what we do as a band. Even though modern technology is great, we wanted to wait until we were physically together before playing any new material, because that’s just how we do it. That’s finally going to happen right before we head out on the road, so it will be really fresh and exciting. We can’t wait!

In addition, we will soon share news of a collaboration project one year in the making, which is slated for release in the spring. More details will follow on this project soon!

Full details for all shows, including ticket links as they become available, can be found on our website at: http://the-aristocrats-band.com/shows/

Before we go, don’t forget to give us a like and follow (if you haven’t already) on social media:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aristocratsband
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/acratsband
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/thearistocratsband/ 

That’s all for now; hope everyone is staying safe and well, and we’ll see you on a stage near you very soon!

Guthrie, Bryan and Marco

5/07FREEZE! Live In Europe – Release Day!

Hello!

We just wanted to send you all a quick reminder (just in case you missed our last message) that our brand new live album FREEZE! LIVE IN EUROPE 2020 is finally available… NOW!!

FREEZE! LIVE IN EUROPE 2020 is available on CD and digital download formats from today, as well as limited-run double-vinyl exclusively sold from Diggers Factory.

Hi-res digital downloads of FREEZE! are available exclusively at our brand new Bandcamp store, along with CD-or-better quality digital downloads of our entire back catalogue for the very first time.

All studio and live releases by The Aristocrats can be purchased at:

https://linktr.ee/AristocratsBand

and wherever music is sold.

For a little taste of what to expect, check out the ‘teaser’ video here:

The album showcases performances recorded across Spain in February 2020, during our last European tour and just weeks before live music went on extended hiatus. FREEZE! leans heavily on debut live-recorded renditions of material from our most recent album You Know What…? It also contains an extra special version of “Get It Like That”, with a drum solo by Marco specially dedicated to Rush’s Neil Peart, who very sadly passed away while we were on tour.

FREEZE! documents a particularly memorable period for us and it’s really fortunate that we were able to capture this musical ‘snapshot’. After months of relentless gigging, the material from our latest studio recording had started to feel really natural for us and yet… somehow, there was still an unmistakable element of excitement and musical risk-taking on stage every night when we played those songs.

Growing together as a band also means knowing, focusing and perfecting the details of our musical presentations. This sort of ‘quality control’ is always necessary and trying to give 110% every night is the least we can do for us and especially our fans! We believe that this ‘hand-picked’ selection of Aristocratic tunes showcases the band as a very well-toured, oiled and locked machine, with not only love and attention to detail, but also playfulness and fun. 

But we had no way of knowing as we ploughed through Spain that these would also be some of the last shows we’d play for a while. So it’s special on several levels for us to be able to share this frozen moment in time, which is what a live album truly is. It’s a statement of what we were bringing to stages every night in the heat of a world tour; it’s something for our fans who may not have caught this tour to experience and hopefully enjoy at home; and, ideally, it’s also something to keep the flame burning for when we can get back out there and let loose onstage once again. Because that’s what we do best!

Before we go, please check out our official website and (if you haven’t already) give us a like or follow on social media! We’re on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

• Website: http://the-aristocrats-band.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aristocratsband
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/acratsband
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/thearistocratsband/

We hope you all enjoy the new live album, and fingers crossed we will see you all again very soon, on a stage near you!

Guthrie, Bryan and Marco

3/18FREEZE! LIVE IN EUROPE 2020 – Available For Pre-Order Now, Drops May 7!

We know it’s been a while, but we have some very exciting news to announce: We are releasing a new live album called FREEZE! LIVE IN EUROPE 2020 on May 7, and
pre-orders are available starting NOW!

CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER FREEZE! LIVE IN EUROPE 2020
IN YOUR PREFERRED FORMAT (CD, VINYL, HI-RES DIGITAL) –
AND RECEIVE THE TRACK “SPANISH EDDIE” IMMEDIATELY.

The album showcases performances recorded across Spain in February 2020, during our last European tour and just weeks before live music went on extended hiatus. FREEZE! leans heavily on debut live-recorded renditions of material from our most recent album You Know What…? It also contains an extra special version of “Get It Like That”, with a drum solo by Marco specially dedicated to Rush’s Neil Peart, who very sadly passed away while we were on tour.

Here’s a few things we’ve got to say about it, from each of us:

GUTHRIE: “FREEZE! documents a particularly memorable period for us and it’s really fortunate that we were able to capture this musical ‘snapshot’. After months of relentless gigging, the material from our latest studio recording had started to feel really natural for us and yet… somehow, there was still an unmistakable element of excitement and musical risk-taking on stage every night when we played those songs.”

MARCO: “Growing together as a band also means knowing, focusing and perfecting the details of our musical presentations. On tour, we sometimes become our worst critics and maybe one out of ten gigs fully pleases the band as a collective. But I believe that sort of ‘quality control’ is necessary and trying to give 110% every night is the least we can do for us and especially our fans. I have to admit that I at first was reluctant listening to the recordings, almost fearful about how many mistakes I would find. However, with a little bit of distance and fresh ears, I was actually more than pleased finding out that this ‘hand-picked’ selection of Aristocratic tunes I believe showcases the band as a very well-toured, oiled and locked machine, with not only love and attention to detail, but also playfulness and fun. Furthermore, Neil Peart sadly passed away during our European leg …. I played my heart out for him every single night.”

BRYAN: “Like Guthrie and Marco said, by February 2020 we were deep into the You Know What…? touring cycle, almost up to 100 shows. We were greased up and ready to go, every night. But we had no way of knowing as we ploughed through Spain that these would be some of the last shows we’d play for a while. So it’s special on several levels for us to be able to share this frozen moment in time, which is what a live album truly is. It’s a statement of what we were bringing to stages every night in the heat of a world tour; it’s something for our fans who may not have caught this tour to experience and hopefully enjoy at home; and, ideally, it’s also something to keep the flame burning for when we can get back out there and let loose onstage once again. Because that’s what we do best.”

FREEZE! Live In Europe 2020 is available for pre-order now in all purchase formats and will be available starting May 7th on CD and digital download, with streaming services to follow in subsequent weeks. Also, a limited-run double-vinyl version of FREEZE! will be available through Diggers Factory.

For our longtime fans, we’re happy to announce that not only are Hi-res digital downloads of FREEZE! available exclusively at our brand new Bandcamp store, but also that CD-or-better quality digital downloads of our entire back catalogue are available for the very first time. Click here to check out our new Bandcamp store!

As mentioned above, all pre-orders of FREEZE! include an instant download of the song “Spanish Eddie”.
JUST CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER.

That’s all for now – we can’t thank all of you enough for your continued support, and fingers crossed we will see you all again very soon, on a stage near you!

Cheers to all,
The Aristocrats

2/25The Aristocamp!

Hello Aristocrats Fans

We are pleased to announce The Aristocamp! A three-day music camp for guitarists, bassists, drummers and fans which will take place from June 18th to 21st 2019 in upstate New York. The Aristocamp will also feature the world premiere of our new material currently being recorded.

This is our very first music camp and we can assure you it will be packed full of activities to educate, inspire and entertain. Musicians and music fans of all ages, abilities and musical tastes are welcome at The Aristocamp. Attendees will be able to fully immerse themselves in the world of music, learning from us, special guests and each other at a wide variety of workshops, jams, Q&As and instrument specific breakout sessions. Of course there will also be opportunities to see us playing as a band on stage, debuting some brand new material alongside old favourites.

The event will be organized by Music Masters Camps, who are well known for facilitating a highly interactive experience between artists and audience. The camp will be held at Full Moon Resort, located a half hour west of Woodstock, NY. It’s a year-round mountain resort in the heart of the idyllic Catskill Forest Preserve and includes comfortable country inn accommodations plus camping and commuter options.

As you might imagine, we’re very excited to provide this unique experience. We’ve each been involved in music camps in the past and the highlight has always been interacting with the passionate musicians and music fans in attendance. Between us we have a lifetime of performing, touring and recording experience to pass on and this is the perfect environment to do that. Also, this time we’ll have the additional luxury of being able to zoom in on how we create our own music, and what happens when we interact as a band and play it live. We might even say it’s ok to break the rules now and then.

We will be joined at The Aristocamp by some special guest musicians, to be announced soon.

Full details are available at www.aristocamp.com and tickets will go on sale at 12pm EST on February 28th. Register before March 12th for an early bird discount. See you there!

Cheers to all,

The Aristocrats

12/07Europe Tour Shirt – Now In Europe! Plus 30% Off JTC, And…

Happy holidays everyone! We’ve got some good news for our very patient friends in the U.K. and Europe: We FINALLY have the Europe tour shirts for sale on your side of the pond! Our friends at JamTrackCentral (based in the U.K.) have come through, and have the shirt available for sale right here – with very reasonable shipping rates.

CLICK HERE to order the limited edition Europe tour t-shirt, shipped from the U.K.

We’re quite proud of our years-long association with JamTrackCentral. Some of you know this, but for those who don’t, JTC provides essential materials – like guitar-less, bass/drums-only backing tracks, and transcriptions of GG’s Aristocratic performances – to guitarists who are up for the challenge of learning Guthrie’s parts off of our three studio albums. (They even have no-bass and no-drums packages, with transcriptions, for the bass and drum parts on “Culture Clash”.)

So JamTrackCentral and the Aristocrats are celebrating the holidays with a special 30% off of all Aristocrats products – album backing tracks, transcriptions, and the digital audio albums as well, all at your option – until December 18!

HOW JTC WORKS: Click the link you want, then select MORE INFO, and then click COMPARE next to where it says “Standard And Deluxe Options Available”, and you’ll be able to customize your package: Digital album only (you probably already have that…right? right?!), backing tracks for play-along and transcriptions, or the Deluxe package which is “the lot” and some bonus video performance along with it.

Deluxe Album Boxset (packages for all three albums!)

Tres Caballeros

Culture Clash (for guitar)

Culture Clash (for bass or drums)

The Aristocrats (1st Album)

And we’ve got two more important news items to share:

1) We are close to re-launching our U.S. webstore! We know it’s been down for a while and we apologize for that. Stay tuned for news very soon.

2) WE ARE GOING BACK IN THE STUDIO TO MAKE OUR FOURTH ALBUM, IN MARCH OF 2019.

Sorry for yelling but we’re pretty excited about it.

Happy holidays again everyone!

Cheers to all,
The Aristocrats

10/08Aristocrats Europe Tour 2018 Shirt – Now Available Online Due To Blowout Demand!

Hello everyone! We want to thank everyone who came out to see us on our all-too-brief Europe 2018 Tour. We had a blast and it was great to see you all again. More news about the future below, but for now…it turns out we didn’t print nearly enough tour shirts with the exclusive “Aristo-Saints” design (by Brigitte Roka).

We sold out halfway through the tour! We apologize to those who wanted one and didn’t get one. So, to make it right, we printed another run and now you can get it online. Just click here – it’s our temporary online store and it ships worldwide. PayPal is the payment machine but you do NOT need a PayPal account to pay with a credit card. Thanks to Hostile City Distro for stepping up during our webstore transition to help make this happen.

Some news items:

* The Aristocrats will return to the studio in 2019 to record our fourth studio album

* You can see lots of great tour photos by checking out our social media on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

* For those outside Europe, worry not: We’ll come play for you on the next world tour.

Thanks again to all for making our return to the stage a most enjoyable one. ;-)

Cheers to all,
The Aristocrats

8/28The Aristocrats’ Europe Tour Starts In 10 Days!

Hello Aristocrats Fans,

We’re less than 10 days away from kicking off our tour of Europe! We’ve got a new t-shirt to mark the occasion, and we have some additional news (like, why does this e-mail look different?) to share with you.

First of all, if you’re in Europe and anywhere near any of these locations, and you haven’t bought tickets yet, now’s the time:

THE ARISTOCRATS
EUROPE TOUR 2018

Aristocrats Store

JamTrackCentral

Official Backing Tracks

Booking Info

Upcoming Shows

More dates…

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