In my head the scenario is along these lines...
Band hits up Joey says they want to have him do the record but they have a budget. Joey already has a vacation planned and thinks "well, this is less than I'd usually take but the dates line up with my trip so I can do prepro/mix and let my team handle the rest."
I'm curious to hear if that's actually what happened and hope that it was just a misunderstanding along those lines. What I'm more curious to hear is why the band didn't just track on their own, hire a studio for drums, and send Joey stuff to mix instead? Like surely that's gotta be cheaper than flying 5-6 dudes out?