You Are Here

You Are Here was released in Europe by SPV's Steamhammer label on 16 February 2004, followed by Japan on 25 February and the United States on 16 March. With Michael Schenker gone, the American guitarist Vinnie Moore had joined in the autumn of 2003, and Jason Bonham, son of the Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, took over the drums; with Phil Mogg, Pete Way and Paul Raymond on keyboards and guitar, they made this five-piece's first album. Moore had been discovered by Mike Varney's Shrapnel label, and Mogg said later that a tape sent by Steve Morse's manager won him over at once, while he first saw Bonham playing with The Quireboys. The album was recorded at the Area 51 studio in Celle, near Hanover, with Tommy Newton as producer, engineer and mixer. As the band told its fans on its website at the time, the newcomers fitted in within the first week, and the sessions ran past their schedule, and over budget, because everyone was enjoying them so much. Mogg described the result as "typical UFO with a twist", and Bonham said the aim had been "a good UFO album" rather than a showcase for his own drum sound. Mogg and Moore wrote most of the songs together; "Sympathy" is Raymond's, and Bonham has a share in "The Spark That Is Us" and "Swallow". The twelve tracks run from "When Daylight Goes to Town" to "Swallow", and the Japanese edition adds "Messing Up the Bed" as a bonus track. The band rehearsed in Birmingham in mid-January 2004 and set out on a world tour in the spring, but its American dates, from 22 April to 16 May 2004, had to be postponed when the US Embassy in London refused Mogg a work visa on 16 April.