Millionaire - APPLZ ≠ APPLZ (2020)

After two groundbreaking and successful albums in the early 2000s, musical mastermind Tim Vanhamel shifted his focus to a more intimate solo record and a string of side projects, including Broken Glass Heroes (with Pascal Deweze), Eat Lions, The Hickey Underworld en Tom Barman's Magnus. He ended up with his first love Millionaire in 2017 though, after a twelve-year hiatus. Out of nowhere, he released the magnum opus 'Sciencing' in 2017, getting rave reviews all over the place and putting Millionaire back on the map. The band kicked off a sold-out release tour on Best Kept Secret Festival in the summer of '17.

I am honoured and proud to present to you "APPLZ NOT APPLZ" (pronounced apples not apples), the brother to my previous album "SCIENCING". "Sciencing" was female, "APPLZ NOT APPLZ" is male, they are brother and sister, and turned out to be related in more ways than I could've imagined. If "Sciencing" was the mother, giving birth and taking care of her babies, then "APPLZ NOT APPLZ" is the father, going out for the hunt and taking care of the family and the planet.

The record practically wrote itself and expressed a sound that felt reflective of these crazy times. Crazy times that have always been and probably always will be.

I love albums like "There's a riot going on" by Sly & the Family Stone, "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye, anything by Curtis Mayfield, Public Enemy, Jimi Hendrix... If this album shares even the slightest hint of those great contemporary "political" albums, I am a happy man. Consider this a tribute to those kinds of records, with a tongue in cheek nod and celebratory flavour.

I always stayed away from politics because I feel it is an unnecessary evil existing only through man's incapability to love himself. A wise man once said: "One has as great a chance of meeting a politician who loves himself, as of being hit by a comet. Never trust people who don't love themselves, especially if they have to take care of their own people."

Politics were born the very moment the apple got bitten and that's what this album is about.

We are 7000000000 apples trying to get along on one big apple and if sometimes, we could just get a little bit out of our own way, it would be one tasty yummy fresh golden apple.

Now, please forget every word I wrote, they are all absolutely irrelevant, just put on your dancing shoes and boogie your ass down to the ground like this moment is the only one you got!