THIS IS FOR YOU 🖤🖤🖤

Hey guys, Marisa here again ☺️.

If you don't want to read the long, emotional post below, then just please know that I'm sharing this song with all of you as a thank you for your continued support and love.

I feel very nervous and vulnerable sharing this with you right now, especially as it's literally a phone recording that was done in 1 take as I wrote it (yesterday it had a bit of post-processing and mastering added to it to spruce it up), but something in my soul said I have to show you now. To let you know how much you all mean to me personally, and to us as a band.

As most of you already know, I am back home right now instead of being in the studio in a break between tour dates. In an attempt to recover from the bug I picked up that forced us to cancel 3 shows (other guys in our band and our support band Bastette also picked up this bug), we are resting up!

We're hoping that taking these few days to recover will enable us to see out the rest of tour that we have long awaited and I have personally booked and rebooked about 4 times now due to restrictions from lockdowns over the past couple of years.

If you've followed us for more than a few months, then you probably saw the message I posted in July where I shared my struggle with a bad case of Covid. To elaborate, I ended up in hospital with Pneumonia, a blood clot on my lung, and an unresolved issue with my heart.

I'm 28 and generally quite a healthy person, so this was quite a shock. And of course for these reasons, it was a pretty scary time for me, but the thing I was most scared about was feeling that I was letting YOU guys down. All I've ever known is singing and music. It's all I've ever wanted to do since I can remember and this band, these songs, and the community we have built around it are THE most important thing to me. The oxygen in my "Lungs", so to say.

So skip forward 6 months later, after taking 4 months to recover and not being able to work or perform in any way... we start our tour. And a pile of personal life challenges were thrown at me and then I picked up a bug. I think the combination of general life stresses and this said bug meant that I maybe reacted badly to the illness, and therefore lost my voice a few shows in.. which NEVER happens. I pride myself in taking care of my voice and know my body well. But, as I have been sorely reminded many times this year, you can't control everything, no matter how hard you try.

This song, "Lungs" I'm sharing with you today was the first thing I wrote / sang when I got out of hospital (a matter of days in fact). It's pretty much the only thing I managed to do musically whilst I was recovering. Singing was too much for me physically at the time, and I couldn't concentrate on playing guitar for long, or physically manage it. I'm not entirely sure how I even managed to sing and perform this because I was so out of sorts...

This song is a complete, honest expression of how I felt at the time. That fear I felt that I was letting others down and failing at the only thing I've ever felt I was meant to do. To sing and to write songs.

You guys are the reason we are able to do what we do. The love and support within the community that has built around the band is the most important thing I've ever been a part of. I am just so honoured to be able to connect with you all in the way we do with our music.

I love you guys so much. And I'm so sorry to anyone that we disappointed by having to cancel these shows. This includes our incredible fans that support us like you do, to the support bands and to my band mates who all took time off of work to make these tour dates happen.

All said, I still recognise that this was something I could not control and still can't. Which has been massively helped by the beautiful messages of love I have received over the past few days... But what I can control is putting my all in to making sure that you know just how much I love you and how committed I am to this path, in any way that I can.

We have had EVERYTHING come up against us as a band (and me personally) in recent times, but we are still standing, fully-committed and will not be beaten. We are just getting started and life can come at us however it likes, but we won't stop. Because we can't stop.

We are here for YOU. We love you. And this song, as is the same with all the ones we have shared with you so far and for the ones that are still yet to come, is for you.

I hope you enjoy it, and I hope I explained this all right. I am sorry for the long-winded emotional prologue. I just wanted you guys to know how much I care 🥺😭❤️

Love always,

Marisa 🖤

Song (demo) written by Marisa Rodriguez on an iPhone XR - lol 😂

Mastered by Peter Dowsett