We should write a book... Okay, so here's the story: We were working in our brand new rehearsal space in Pompton Lakes, NJ, which is a studio that our friend Kenny is hooking us up with. Anyway, so we're in the middle of writing a song (a good one, too) when a light burning smell came across. At first, I thought I wouldn't interrupt the song for this because it's most likely the heating vents. Misha had a cold so he couldn't smell anything, and nobody else noticed it. I decided to stop the song though and go check it out.
I went into the main room and saw smoke coming in from the door. I opened the door and immediately got ash smoke and fire in my face. Two guys that owned an auto body shop right across from the studio yelled, "Get out of there, the building's on fire!!" as they were trying to put the fire out with a hose. At this point, we realized we were trapped inside a burning building, since the front door was un-usable. We were half panicking and half trying to get our act together so we could get our asses out. The back door, which was the only other exit to the building, can only be opened with a screwdriver and a hammer, which Dan courageously handled, and eventually opened. Misha and I grabbed our guitars before storming out, and started to think of all of our equipment. As we ran out and looked back at the building and saw a huge cloud of smoke and ash, I knew we wouldn't be able to go in and get any more gear.
Because the two people from the auto body shop somewhat held the flames at a standstill until the firetrucks got there, the roof didn't catch on fire. If it did, it probably would be the end of that place and everything inside. So thank you two guys from the auto body shop.
Here's how it happened. A cigarette was thrown in a bucket that had some sort of paper or pack in it, which caught on fire, caused the bushes and building to catch on fire (since it was a CRAZY hot and dry day.) So yeah... don't smoke.
Oh and also, the firefighters had to get into the studio control room to check for any extensions, and since we didn't have a key, they had to break in... (later, we realized this would make a pretty nice Fail Blog picture)
We can now say that part of Jet Lag Gemini's next record was written inside a burning building.
-Vlad and JLG