Yesterday was a pretty hectic day. I was up early to get on a plane at Koln airport and fly into London, to celebrate the UK release day of England Keep My Bones. Lots of rushing around ensued, including interviews, photoshoots, signing sessions and a great gig at the Barfly to round it all off. Everyone seemed pretty excited about the new album, and there were good vibes all round.

In general, I’m kind of ambivalent about the whole business of record sales and chart positions and so on. Having grown up as an indie purist of sorts, the whole thing seems a little crass to me at times, and it’s certainly never been a motivating factor in actually making music for me. But at the same time, sneaking into the big boys’ locker room has a certain underdog appeal to it which pushes my buttons.

I’ll stop being oblique. I got a call this morning to tell me that England Keep My Bones, as of its first day sales, is currently at number 6 in the UK album charts.

That’s fucking insane, to me. I’m up there with Adele and the Glee soundtrack, haha, in the top 10 for the first time in my life. It’s something that I never really imagined was a possibility for me, so it’s very surreal. Thanks to everyone who bought a copy yesterday or preordered the record, it means a lot.

Here’s the thing about the music industry though – new releases generally do well in the first couple of days of the week. But as time goes on, the bulldozer major label pop sellers (Lady Gaga etc.) generally pull up the charts as the smaller, independent releases slip down. So it’s unlikely that my chart position, at the end of the week, will still be #6.

However, there is a slim chance we could still stay in the top #10. As I said before, part of me doesn’t give a shit either way, and a larger part of me is just peachy with being where I am right now anyways. I guess what I’m trying to say is this: if you were planning on getting the album anyways, please do try to find the time to get it this week, and get your friends to do the same. And then who knows – maybe a punk rock record on a small independent label can stand up to the mainstream juggernauts, if only for a little while.

Thanks again, everyone.