In the summer of 2001, Onward kept very busy. Century Media liked the "Reawaken" demo and wanted us in the studio immediately as "Evermoving" was doing very well. I tracked down the maestro who had engineered my Shrapnel debut eight years earlier, Brett Hansen. It was awesome to see him again and revisit his Audio Art Studio. Everything was exactly as I remembered it, even the 5150 amp in the corner. He agreed to do the album. We set about finding a rehearsal space and ended up in some crackhead's garage to tighten the band up before entering the studio.
In the meantime, Century Media were trying to find us support slots on bigger tours. CM were pushing Iced Earth to take us out but Jon Schaffer was not interested. My manager started visiting local clubs for gig prospects and ran into the legendary and elusive Apocrypha vocalist, Steve Plocica. Mike Varney was coming over to our house to hang out and visit. At times our backyard barbecues looked more like Heavy Metal celebrity hangouts with Mike Varney, Steve Plocica, Metal Church's David Wayne, Michael Schenker vocalist Chris Logan, Dreams of Damnation's Loana Valencia, guitar legend Adrian English and others joining our festivities.
We didn't tour for "Evermoving" but we got several good shows in. We landed a slot at the Ultra Sound Fest in Burbank, Ca. We pulled into an empty parking lot and the sounds of Vicious Rumors blasting away in an empty auditorium. I thought to myself "If there's no crowd for Vicious Rumors then we are gonna be screwed". We adorned ourselves with bullet belts and spikes and got on stage. Still no audience. I started playing the intro to "The Last Sunset" and just concentrated on the music. I looked up and saw a big audience that seemed to come from out of nowhere. WTF? Onward had fans! Looking into the audience was also a who's who of the California Power Metal scene with members of Steel Prophet, Agent Steel and Fates Warning cheering us on with huge smiles of approval.
Now it was time to enter the studio to record "Reawaken". I'm going to fast forward a bit to when we were working on the apocalyptic song "Who Saw the Last Star Fall". I remember having an uneasy feeling about the song when returning home that evening. I went to sleep and awoke to two jets collapsing the Twin Towers on the TV. The recording was put on hold as this seemed more like a time to prepare for the end. Recording an album was the last thing on anyone's mind. Onward's rhythm section of Payette and Pereau packed up and returned to Montana. I stayed behind.