Arizona/SoCal

I awoke to the sound of Dutch turning the engine off, sometime around seven am. I felt wide awake despite the fact I'd only drifted off a few hours earlier. I hissed over to Kev to check if he was awake too. He was.

We'd pulled over at a service station in the middle of the desert to fill up on gas. The rest of the guys sound asleep, we decided not to disturb them and left them to their dreams. It was an incredible feeling, sitting with Kev on a bench outside the roadside café, supping on black coffee and staring off at the dusty, silhouetted mountains on the horizon, the sleepy sun hovering just above them. We were miles from nowhere in the middle of Arizona. The Unites States of America truly is a strange and wondrous land. No doubt it has a dark side to it but it's hard not to be blown away by scenery such as this, scenery that carries such weight you can almost feel it pressing upon you. I've drank coffee all over the world, but nowhere quite as beautiful as this.

We played one show in Arizona, stopping off in a strange little town called Tempe, on our way to the west coast and California. Tempe was strange in that it looked like a full scale model village, or small grid system city, brand spanking new and shiny, in the middle of the arid Arizona desert. It reminds you of the computer game Sims. It was boiling hot when we arrived at the venue. We had plenty of time to kill since Nile were sound-checking pretty much up until doors and we were simply line checking before playing. With better things to do than watch them wank their guitars off for a few hours, we took a look around Tempe.

Right next to the venue and looking down on the small city from a northern vantage point was this big dusty hill. I wouldn't call it a mountain but from the top of it you could see the entire city as well as the silhouette of Phoenix off on the horizon. Nervously ignoring the “BEWARE COUGARS!” sign, we climbed to the top for a peek. On the other side of the hill was a gigantic college football stadium that from our viewpoint we could look right into. It says everything you need to know about the USA that their school football teams have stadiums that hold forty thousand spectators! It wasn't like that at Lodge Park I can tell you... After spending an hour pissing about at the top of the hill we headed back down into the little Sims city of Tempe and found a coffee shop. The town was almost unnerving in it's quiet normality.

The Tempe show gave an insight to how the tour was starting to unfold and what signs we could look for in the crowd to gage how our set was going to go down. The easiest marker to study was how well Decapitated's set went. Or more to the point, how well their guitar and drum solo sections of their songs went over. A common theme during the tour would become the six of us stood backstage waiting to go on after Decapitated, all of us suffering some level of hangover, Kev peeking through the stage door to check out the crowd's reaction to a guitar solo and then ultimately announcing we're doomed. The show tonight was one such occasion.

The venue was big enough to hold around eight hundred people but it looked they'd only sold around three hundred tickets. However thin the crowd, they were lapping up the Decapitated set and cheering every time one of them broke into a solo. Not a fucking chance tonight boys! And so it was. The crowd looked irritated at best, amused at worst by the six of us going mental during our set. The stage was huge as well, must have been at least six foot high, so we couldn't even get in their faces and kick off with the cunts.

Funny thing is, the show wasn't much better for Nile. The night belonged to Hypocrisy and Soilent Green and to a lesser extent, Decapitated, with us and With Passion being treated merely as a joke. This was the first night of many though, when by the time Hypocrisy were done, the crowd thinned out dramatically before Nile hit the stage. Something that would start to cause problems further down the line.. I guess it could have a lot to do with the fact Nile seem to tour constantly whilst this was the first time Hyporcisy had played the States in over ten years..

Next stop was Santa Ana, California. Never been here before, probably never need to go back. The venue was on this soulless strip mall that disappeared proudly into the horizon. I felt like taking a walk around when I got to the venue but gave up after twenty minutes when I started to feel suffocated by the endless traffic. It was like taking a stroll down the fucking M1.

Typically enough, my friend Mark was coming to the show this night. He's an English guy living in Sweden who used to work with my wife. Insanely enough he is now the chairman of Sony Records in Sweden. Anyway, of all the places to hook up with a mate on tour, Santa Ana was a shite choice. He was on holiday in Los Angeles but couldn't make our show there the day after. He had a couple of straight looking friends with him who looked scoobied by the whole evening. To be fair, I can see why. The venue was this brightly lit theatre with a low stage at the one end and had all the atmosphere of a bus station. And of course, we went down like a fart at a funeral.

At least tonight the crowd were in striking range. As we rattled through the set you could almost breathe in the animosity we were creating. There were people at the front of the crowd who looked physically insulted by us. At one point, there were a couple of metallers who were stood there flipping me off and I got pissed off and swung my guitar at the cunts, all part of the show of course. They fucked off after that. If there are people in the crowd who want to confront us then we're more than happy to take them on, which makes things a lot more fun when the stage is low and close up to them like it is here.

Mark caught up with me at the bar after another stinker of a show and bought me a drink. “The people here tonight really didn't seem to like you” he innocently notes. “No shit!” I laugh. Mark seems completely confused as we get stuck into the beer. Funny really, this is the first Speedhorn show he's ever seen and it's in Santa Ana, California to a crowd that hated us..

There isn't much to stick around for in Santa Ana, and funnily enough Mark and his friends aren't too bothered about sticking around for the rest of the bands, it not really being their cup of tea, so as soon as we're packed down we fuck off in the direction of Los Angeles.

It's only a short drive and we awake outside the venue in Hollywood. We've played the Key Club before with some awful nu-metal band which turned out to be a good show simply because the band we were playing with was so bad we couldn't help but look good. The show tonight would be different though. It was obvious by now that these big city shows, where there is so much happening every night that people are spoilt for choice, were going to be tough for us. Even if there were kids in LA that were in to Speedhorn, they were not going to be that into us that they'd spend thirty dollars on a ticket just to see us..

I spent the morning waking around Hollywood with Lasse looking for his camera. He found it in a shopping mall on Melrose but then decided to haggle with the woman over the price and got nowhere. It's weird how they advertise items for sale in this country minus the tax. I mean, does anyone ever fall for that? It was a beautiful day in LA, hardly a smog cloud in the sky. Even though we were on a tour playing to some really tough crowds, I couldn't help but feel like a lucky bastard as I sat with Lasse outside a bar in Hollywood, drinking a cold Corona. There are worse ways to spend your days.

Our good friend Joe Barresi came down to the show this night. He's an absolute legend in the business who we've been lucky enough to have mix a couple of our albums. Despite his high status in the industry, he's one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. The dressing room for the show was an old hollowed out bus beside the venue, and we hung out there with Joe for the best part of the night. The thing with Lasse is starting to get a bit of a pain since he's grumbling more and more about having to sell shirts all the time. Most nights he's just got tanked up on Captain Morgan to kill the boredom. I feel bad about it since I'm starting to feel like I falsely advertised the job to him. Still, as soon as he pops the Captain open the rest of the guys usually swarm around him like flies around a turd, so he's rarely short of company for too long.

The show tonight is exactly as expected. Actually, it's beyond. The club is pretty packed and we're up on this high stage giving it our all as usual. The majority of the crowd looks either bemused or disinterested. There is one guy though, stood right at the front that seems to be having a whale of a time. He's laughing his fucking tits off whilst pointing at us, as if he can't believe what he's witnessing. After a while he starts scribbling notes on a piece of paper that he's found somewhere and gives it to Kev, who's screaming songs in his face. Kev looks at it and starts pissing himself laughing. The note says, “Your guitarist has a very tight t-shirt” with an arrow pointing at Jay. Kev loves this. I'm on the other side of the stage wondering what's going on as this guy continues to scribble notes throughout the rest of the set and give them to an appreciative Kev. “Your band is gay” and “Are you guys for real?” being a couple of examples of the guys quips. The guy doesn't even look like your typical death metaller, the likes of which have been giving us shit since Day One on this tour. I don't know what that says really. Seems like every fucker is against us.

Kev happily passes on the notes to Jay and John as the set progresses and ends up dedicating the last song to his new friend. As we finish the set and pack down, the guy grabs Kev, “You guys are fucking awful but I genuinely appreciate your attitude and sense of humour!”. Kev gives him a big hug and we leave the stage. Kev thinks this is by far the best show of the tour so far, despite the boos hounding us off stage as we exit.

We have a couple of drinks with Joe after the gig and watch Soilent Green play their set. They truly kill it every night. Ben is a great front figure. Whilst having a drink with Brian later, he tells us he loves the band, that we remind him of his other band Eyehategod. Apparently they'd once done a tour with Pantera where they were really thrown to the lions every night. He said at certain shows they'd literally be playing to a packed arena with everyone in it giving them the finger. It's comforting knowing that we have allies on tour at least.

We had an eight hour drive to San Francisco after the show in LA. Dutch drove through the night to get us there, leaving sometime around two am. We spent the night getting pissed on Captain Morgan and cheap beer, turning the RV into a mobile disco. Gordon and Lasse seem to be bonding. We're all pissed up and dancing to AC/DC and the likes as Dutch plods north up the highway. At one point, out of the blue, Lasse grabs Gords around the neck and starts to strangle him, all in good fun of course. The two of them fly forward and fall through the dividing curtain to where Dutch is sat at the wheel listening to his Ipod. The two of them fall through the curtain, almost ripping it down in the process and Gordon's head ends up in Dutch's crotch with Lasse on top of him. Dutch starts going crazy as he swerves about the road, that pair of idiots pissing themselves laughing. “What the fuck is wrong with you guys?”

Dutch looks back at the rest of us, as if in hope of explanation, but we're all pissing ourselves laughing too. “God damn it guys!”... Gordon is actually a little bit pissed off by the time the two of them are on their feet, claiming Lasse actually hurt him. They're soon friends again though. The two of them seem to be made for each other. I think Gords sees a lot of himself in Lasse. It must be five am by the time we all collapse into our hard beds, fucking steam boats, the lot of us. Next stop Frisco. 

Texas

We'd made it into the States and now we could relax. At Houston we didn't even have to show our passports on the way out, we just picked up our luggage and walked right out the door. It did strike me as a little strange that the conveyor belts delivering the arriving passengers luggage was situated in the public hall next to the street exit. There seemed to be no security whatsoever. If you were so inclined you could literally walk in to the airport, pick up someone else's suitcase and fuck off with it. Weird. Especially when you consider how tight the security is surrounding the rest of the air travel industry in this country. I guess things are a little slacker in Texas...

Dutch was waiting for us right outside the airport. I spotted the RV straight away. You couldn't really miss it. Just four hours earlier I was sure we were being sent home and the whole tour was fucked, now we were heading off on a big American adventure in a camper van. Chicago already felt like a million miles away.

Dutch seemed like a friendly enough guy, pretty normal. We told him all about Chicago, all of us still buzzing from the experience. Dutch assured us he'd heard it all before though. Stepping into the RV felt like stepping into one of those great 80's films like National Lampoon's Vacation or The Great Outdoors. It had that vibe about it somehow, I felt like a kid going off on road trip with my buddies.

As normal as Dutch first appeared, the tell tale signs of tour driver weirdness soon started to appear. I'd been mailing back and forth with him before the tour about all the usual logistical stuff, and during that time I'd asked him if there was a dvd player on the bus. He'd told me that yes there was and that not only that, he had hundreds of dvd's, so there was “absolutely no need” for us to bring any with us. Cool, I thought. Bonus. And it's true, there was a dvd player and there were indeed hundreds of dvd's to go with it. The problem was that ALL of them were wrestling DVD's. All of them. Wrestlemania this, Royal Rumble that, “Jake the Snake, the True Story”, “Mick Foley, the Man Behind the Mask”... John was chuffed enough, but the rest of us were a little inquisitive. I asked Dutch if he really only had wrestling dvd's to which he happily replied, “Yeah dude!” Ok, a little weird that our forty five year old driver is fanatical about wrestling but what the fuck do I know? Horses for courses and all that..

There were a few other things about the bus that weren't quite as described by Dutch, like the bunks at the back of the van were actually thin strips of plywood, attached very loosely to the walls, holding an oblong piece of wood with a slither of yellow foam acting as a mattress. It was like sleeping on a table and literally every time Dutch took a sharp curve the bunks on the left side of the van would sway away from the wall. But all in all we were chuffed. There was a lounge area at the front with a table, bench seats and a sofa facing a tv. There was a small kitchen area with a stove and microwave. Between the lounge and bunk area there was even a toilet and a shower, although you had to stop the van and wait an hour for the water to heat up, and then you'd only get five minutes of warm water. Even so, to us it was absolute luxury.

We drove into Houston and parked the van in the large car park outside the venue where the tour would be starting the next day. Even though it was the middle of January it was still twenty five degrees and the sun was shining brightly in the early evening sky. It was fucking miserable at home so being able to walk the streets of downtown Houston in t-shirts was sheer joy.

We walked around for a while, in and out of shops and shopping malls, just killing time really. I remember there was this one crazy looking black guy in a shabby suit, who had a handmade billboard hanging around his neck, preaching something about Jesus and the end of the world. He was literally following people along the side walks and screaming that the end of the world is nigh in their ears. The people just carried on walking though, as if he wasn't even there.

We ended up spending the evening in a sports bar, drinking pints of weak American lager. All in all, it was an easy going first night though, I think we were all emotionally worn out from the journey and the drama that went with it. We retired early, going by Domino's to pick up some pizza to take back to the van. I'd heard about Houston being the fattest city in the USA but still couldn't quite believe my eyes when, as we were sat waiting for our “small” pizza's to bake, what has to be the largest human being I've ever seen walks in and orders two XL Meat Feast pizzas, along with an XL diet coke.

The next day Nile's tour bus turns up in the early afternoon, followed shortly after by another tour bus that houses Hypocrisy and Decapitated. Soilent Green and With Passion's splitter vans arrive a little while later. Nile soundcheck for about four hours, something I put down to at the time as first night niggle and jitters, but annoyingly it becomes the norm over the course of the tour. It's immediately obvious to everyone that amongst all these super technical bands, musically, we're outsiders here. Our closest allies in both sound and attitude are Soilent Green, who we'd previously met in Japan and had a great time with. The other people we quickly align ourselves with are the boys in With Passion, who are a bunch of young guys from California with short hair like us, and seem intent on taking the piss out of everyone they meet, like us..

It's safe to say we're about a million miles away from Nile in every aspect of life and music. I'd always quite liked their records to be honest, I still think Black Seeds of Vengeance is a great record when it comes to that style of music, but I was disappointed as soon as I saw them soundchecking since the entire drum kit is triggered and even worse, the vocals are really weak. I mean, on record it sounds brutal, that deep guttural growl done so well, but in reality they're just putting the microphone as close to their mouths as is possible without actually eating the fucking thing and growling with absolutely no effort whatsoever. There is no strain in their throats at all. It all feels a bit like cheating when you consider that John and Bloody Kev literally tear their throats to pieces every night.

We soon have new names for the Nile guys. One of the singer/guitarist guys is re-christened Ghost Tramp, since he looks like the tramp from that scene in the film Ghost, the one Swayze meets on the subway. The other guitarist is given the moniker Fat Jeff, since he looks like a fat Jeff Hanneman and the bassist is called Zanussi due to the fact he is doing the Jason Newstead swirling headbang thing, even during soundcheck, and looks like a fucking washing machine on spin. I can't remember what we call the drummer but then I can't really remember the drummer full stop, since you never see him. It turns out Zanussi is only nineteen years old and this is his first tour with Nile. I can't help feeling sorry for him although he seems to be living the dream.

The first show is not so bad, for a first show. We're not all that tight and we're still figuring out Soilent's backline that we're hiring, but as far as the crowd goes, we'll face much worse on this tour. There are about five hundred in the venue. Some of them are down the front and seem to be in to it and then there are a bunch of people behind that are either disinterested or totally confused. I mean, right before us you've got Decapitated who play solid death metal, very technical, very fast, very long hair, very static on stage. And then we come on. Short hair, regular clothes, not technical in the slightest and performing what looks more akin to a scrap on stage than a gig. Even most of the other bands look confused. I guess I can see why.

Afterwards I hang out with Lasse who is sat at our merch table looking bored, something that will become a regular feature, and we share a bottle of Captain Morgan that Lasse has snuck off and bought from a liquor store, another thing that will become a regular feature, and watch Nile on stage whilst listening to The Bear Quartet on Lasse's Iphone. He has these shit hot earphones that block out all other sound and it's quite a trip watching Nile and the crowd bang their heads to a soundtrack of northern Swedish folk/pop. It's like being in a David Lynch film.

The next night is in Fort Worth, about an eight hour drive from Dallas. The venue is this large, brightly lit hall, that is carpeted all over. It's kind of reminds me of the lounge at the Silver Band club in Corby, only way bigger. The gig is a bit of a non event, we play, get little to no reaction and fuck off again.

I meet a guy here who used to live in Corby and was friends with my good mate Kimmins. I think they worked together or something. Anyway, he's moved back to the States and is here on Kimmins' instruction. He's a really nice guy and he was one of the few people who really liked the gig. He insists on buying us drinks and paying for a t-shirt. We'd all been pretty hungover during the day, something else that will become a regular feature, but the adrenalin from the gig has us all restored and we're ready to go again. We hang out at the merch table with Lasse, who is already starting to make the odd comment or two about not wanting to sit at the merch the whole time. I get the feeling this is going to be a problem but try to ignore it for now. I tell everyone that they have to take turns hanging out with Lasse at the merch and help relieve the boredom of not selling anything.

The night rolls along and we all get pissed up. Kev meets two big, shady looking guys at the bar who he befriends and they buy him some shots. When I meet up with Kev he's pretty pissed and introduces me to his two new friends, Uni Bomber and Tit Cutter. They've just got out of prison apparently. So the story goes, Tit Cutter got into a fight with his girlfriend and then got sent to prison for cutting her tit off. I don't know what the fuck that's all about but they seem to be lapping Kev up, who is happily drinking anything they buy him, the whole while that big stupid grin spread across his face.

The next day we're in San Antonio at a really small club. It's another eight hour drive and we haven't even left Texas yet! It's a luxury having Dutch drive the van though since he likes to drive through the nights and sleep during the days, so we wake up at the venue. We're in San Antonio so obviously we have to take a look at the Alamo. There are hundreds of people swarming around but it's very little to see. Just a brick wall basically. Obviously it has huge historical importance but if you didn't know it you'd walk straight past the thing.

The venue had a record shop right beside it, which I spent a few hours in whilst Nile were soundchecking. The fun thing about tonight is that there is this young kid here with big hair that is really into Speedhorn. The venue is packed out with about two hundred people, our kind of gig, and this kid is down the front singing along to all the songs. The crowd in general is much better for us this night, which becomes a general rule on the tour, that being that the smaller cities are way better for us, since it's not just purely death metal kids in attendance, but punk and hardcore kids too, which gives us more of a chance.

We're only three days in but we notice Dutch is starting to get a little weird. He starts a hate campaign against Lasse, who up until now had been the person making the most effort with him, because Lasse had stupidly put a plastic cup of coffee in the microwave to warm it up. Whilst Lasse is in the toilet the coffee explodes and Dutch goes fucking crazy. Alright, it wasn't Lasse's finest hour but it's not the end of the fucking world, nothing is broken, and Lasse cleans up the mess. But Dutch has decided that's him and Lasse done with and from this point until the end of the tour addresses him with utter disdain. I can't help finding the whole incident hilarious, as does the rest of the band. Although, we don't let Dutch know that.

Tonight is Daz's birthday and we all get pissed with him. The Speedhorn fan joins us as well. It's a good night. Daz ends up steaming, stood at the bar with a grin on his face and his balls hanging out of his flies, Lasse ends up hitting it off with this cute emo girl and suddenly seems chuffed to be hanging out at the merch stall, Kev is drunk and furious since he seemed to like the girl Lasse has pulled and is a little jealous, “I don't get it Gaz! How the fuck did he manage to pull her? He's got weird eyes!”

This turns out to be the first big party where we really hang out with the Soilent guys. Their tour manager Chris, this big loud guy with a great sense of humour, has decided he loves our attitude. Ben, the Soilent singer, has decided he loves Gordon, “that weird kid on drums”. The night turns into a blur as the shots fly down the hatch. At one point Gords heads back to the van in search of something he's lost, and finds one of our guys (not saying who) who had been preaching about how they're in a solid relationship and who's days of fucking around are behind him, tied up to the ceiling of the lounge in the bus with his top off, with some girl whipping him with her belt. Gords stands there shocked at the scene as our boy casually greets him, “Alright mate, what's up?” Gords just pisses himself and comes running back to tell us all. The thing that makes me laugh is that Dutch is trying to sleep in his bunk above the driver's seat whilst this is going on!

The next day is a day off in El Paso and we're all understandably hungover. The Mexican border city is an ominous place at night, our fears no doubt aided by Dutch warning us not to go near the border bridge, which is apparently a simple wooden bridge that people go back and forth over to pick up drugs. We spend the day flaked out in the van but by night time we've picked ourselves up and decide to go bowling. Unfortunately I get talked into going with Lasse in search of some electronic super store that has a camera he wants to buy.

I kind of want to go with the guys but feel bad for Lasse and tag along with him. I find myself regretting it shortly afterwards as we end up completely lost, walking around dark, unlit streets on the outskirts of the city. We're walking about for an hour and after a while the side-walk diminishes and it's pitch fucking black. Lasse has a map on his phone and insists we're on course, but I feel like shit and want desperately to get back to the boys and go bowling, where there is light and it's safe.

As we're searching for this store, we see what we think is a UFO in the sky. It's really weird. We figure it's something from the military base nearby, but this being UFO territory our minds can't help but wonder. It's a really bright light over in the distant dark sky, that seems to be moving in a very strange manner. It goes from seemingly hovering in one place to suddenly shooting off at high speed in all kinds of directions. The two of us stand there mesmerised by it for what must be twenty minutes before it finally shoots off and disappears into the night. I don't know what it was but it was fucking weird and we decide to get the fuck out of there. As it happens we soon come across the store Lasse is looking for but they don't have his camera in stock. Great.

We end up waking all the way back, which must take an hour, and head to a Mexican restaurant. Lasse offers to buy me dinner, which I happily accept. The food is very welcome and the beer tastes like heaven. Satisfied, we head over to the bowling alley and meet up with the rest of the guys, excitedly telling them about our UFO experience. We end up having a relaxed night and hitting if off with the bartender there, who happily pours us pints of Amber Bock. I think we end the night watching a wrestling film with Dutch. We decide John should buy some dvd's when he gets the chance. Not really because he has great taste in film or anything, more that he loves spunking his money on dvd's.

Dutch pulls the van out about two am and we head to Arizona. Most of us are soon fast asleep but Kev ande I lie awake, chatting through the night whilst laid up in our bunks. Despite the bed being as hard a table and the bunk frame tilting with every bump in the road of which there are many, it's still pretty cosy somehow. As we're chatting away, Gordon shouts out in his sleep, “If you fuck my mum in the arse then I'll fuck you in the arse!”. We stare at each other for a brief second and then burst into laughter! I hear Lasse giggling from his bunk too.

A little while later we drift off to sleep as Dutch shunts through the night, across New Mexico and on towards Arizona.

Chicago O'Hare

Getting through Heathrow wasn't so much of a problem. Daz's bass amp cost about sixty quid in excess weight charges, but he was willing to pay for that himself. He'd really wanted his own amp with him on tour so fair enough.

It's seems crazy to me now that we'd take so much obvious touring equipment on the flight with us and expect to breeze through customs. These days we don't take so much as a guitar pick with us, let alone a fucking bass amp. To be safe we rent gear in the States or ship ours over in advance and have a friend pick it up. Some of us won't even travel wearing a t-shirt with a band's logo on it, but that is maybe a little excessive. I mean, punks are surely allowed to go on holiday like anyone else, right?

Daz was a notoriously nervous flyer, and I remember sitting in the airport bar with a view over the runway with him, me drinking coffee, him nursing a pint. He said that watching all the airplanes take off and land made him feel a bit better about the journey ahead, but his pale expression betrayed him. I felt bad for him, it must be horrible to fear something like that. He wasn't the only one who was nervous though. My thoughts were churning over the journey ahead. There were always stories doing the rounds about band's being turned away at the border. And we were flying in to Chicago, one of the major ports. It was not going to be a stroll in the park.

We lift off and settle in to a nine hour flight. Even though the booze on board is complimentary I abstain. I want my clearest head on until we're sat in Dutch's van that is due to meet us at Houston airport in about fourteen hours time. I try to settle in to sleep but it's not happening. I have a hard time sleeping on flights at the best of times. It's not really a fear thing, more a comfort thing. I'm a light sleeper as it is and trying to drift off whilst sat in a tight, airplane chair is quite a challenge. That together with the customs control at Chicago O' Hare airport haunting my thoughts making it nigh on impossible to nod off.

We land nine hours later, some time around noon, Chicago time. We've got two hours until our connecting flight to Houston and not only do we have to make it through border control, we also have to pick up our luggage and check it in again. I'd been so busy worrying about the cops sending us home that I hadn't even thought about the fact that we're on a fucking tight schedule just to make it on to the next flight. At least we're not playing tonight. The first show was due to be in New Orleans, but the horror that was hurricane Katrina had put an end to that. The first show was now going to be in Houston, which as much as I was disappointed about New Orleans, made things a lot easier. We would've had to have driven from Houston airport, all the way to New Orleans, play a show and then head all the way back to Houston the next day. We're not talking any three hour drives here either.. So, all being well, we'd spend the first night in Houston recuperating from our travels, resting up in wait for the first show the night after. We just had to get past the “first port of call” and after that it would be plain sailing, of course..

Sometimes you get a friendly cop, one with an amiable demeanour that genuinely welcomes you into the country. Sometimes you get a grim looking bastard with a face like a slapped arse. The seven of us had separated after disembarking the plane, I had no idea how it was going for the other guys but as I shuffled closer and closer to the end of my line I could see that the cop I was going to be dealing with today belonged firmly with the latter category of cop that I have just described. I put on my friendliest face and approach him. I say hello, he looks at me like he despises my very existence. I go through the usual eye and fingerprint scan and then he grunts a few questions at me. Stuff like how long I'm in the country for, what's the meaning of my visit. He doesn't seem to like the fact that I'm going to be in his country for a little over four weeks. He gives one last disgusted look at my passport, as if telling me he knows something doesn't add up, and then shunts it back in my direction and turns his stare at the next poor bastard in line behind me. With a considerable sigh of relief, I continue my shuffle towards the luggage belt on the other side of the room, where a few of the other guys are already standing with our gear.

Soon, we're all gathered and ready to continue, all except for Gordon. “Where was he in the queue?” we enquire amongst ourselves.. It seems like some of us had it easier than others on the way through but nothing to suggest that we were in real danger of being turned away. We're stood there with the gear, waiting on Gordon with one eye on the clock and our connecting flight.. And then we see him.

Wearing a t-shirt and long skate style shorts, he's walking behind a pair of cops along an aisle towards an interrogation room looking as pale as a ghost. When I first spot him my heart sinks. To make matters worse, and in true Gords style, he starts making the slicing action with his hand across his throat, the kind directors use on set when saying “cut”. As if that's not bad enough, he then starts shouting across the hall to us, “We're fucked!” and “We're going home!” and even “They know!”. Poor Gords, I really feel for him, I know how stressed he can get. But fuck me buddy, try and keep a lid on it. The six of us are stood there with a shit load of band gear, shocked by what's unfolding in front of us. I remember Kev being stood beside me, saying through gritted teeth, “I'm gonna kill the cunt! What the fuck is he doing?” I honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry. And then Gords disappears into the room with the cops.

For a moment, it's sheer panic. What the fuck are we going to do? I soon get myself together and I know I can't leave my best mate in there. Lasse approaches me and suggests we go over to the room and try and talk them around. After all, I have everybody's travel details, I can present myself as the leader of the party. I realise that if Gordon is getting sent back then so are the rest of us and I don't want to leave Gords to face the music on his own.

Lasse and I sheepishly approach the room where Gordon is sitting inside, no doubt shitting himself, the poor bastard. There is a female cop stood guarding the doorway. I tell her that one of my party has been taken by them and I ask her if there is anything I can help with, trying to explain to her that I have everybody's travel details and all, being the self selected leader for the merry band of men. I'm doing my best to put on the most charming Englishman persona I can muster. I'm therefore surprised and to be honest a little insulted that she merely barks at me, telling me to step away from her. This seems ridiculously over the top to me. I stupidly attempt to continue with my line of approach, Lasse stood behind me backing me up, She simply cuts me off, “Sir, do you want to join your friend inside?” Fucking bitch! I can't believe this. Before I can say another word she comes back at me, “Actually sir, the two of you, come with me!”. For fuck sake. What is wrong with these people? Can't they just be fucking normal?

By now it's fairly obvious that the proverbial faeces has hit a very big fucking fan.

We're lead into the small room where we meet Gordon who is sat by a table that his suitcase is resting on. When he clocks the two of us a smirk spreads across his face that sends a glimmer of relief through me. At least he's ok. We're faced with the classic good cop/bad cop routine. Whilst we're awaiting the arrival of mine and Lasse's suitcases, the woman (bad cop) and the man (good cop) start firing questions at us. The usual stuff.. what are we doing here, how long are we here, how much money are we carrying.

“Are you guys a band or something?” I'm considering what line of bullshit to take when my suitcase turns up, and then I realise there is no point lying because when they open up my case they're going to find about one hundred cd's of our Live and Demo's album. I shoot a glance at Lasse who knows exactly what's in there and the two of us utter something to each other in Swedish, along the lines of “Bollocks!”

I tell them that we're a band and that we're recording for a while in Austin, and that the cd's are for promotional purposes. I have Dutch's name and contact details and hand them over. I know we're fucked by this point. Upon admittance that we're a band they immediately start with the drugs questions. Something about Cot? I genuinely have no fucking clue what they're talking about. And I think it shows. Good Cop starts asking what kind of music we play, feigning interest. I'm a little surprised that they don't go into the making money/visas question. Maybe there is hope here. They continue firing the drugs theme at us but I guess our genuine perplexion convinces them. They give the bags a search and then see the name of the band is Raging Speedhorn. They want to know what that means. I can't even fucking remember what pathetic lie I come up with for that one, but I remember thinking that they must be thinking what a shit band name we have.

Just as there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, and hope arises that they might just let us through, Lasse starts pushing them about our connecting flight..This really pisses Bad Cop off! She starts shouting at Lasse that she doesn't give a Good God Damn about our connecting flight. For a second Lasse continues to plead but I kick him in the leg, and shoot him a glance that tells him to shut the fuck up.

I don't know why, but somehow we're allowed to pack up our bags and continue on our journey. Good Cop throws one last enquiry, smile spread across his face, “Sure you guys don't have any cot?” Bad Cop looks at us as we shuffle past her at the door, as if she's about to spit in our faces. As soon as we're out of there we leg it across the arrival's hall, dragging our cases behind us to where the rest of the guys are all waiting with a huge display of relief and bewilderment on their faces.

No time to even explain to everyone what happened, we have another plane to catch and we still have to check all our gear through security. Of course, there is a huge line ahead of us and our flight is taking off in a half hour.

Somehow we make it. A feeling of total elation washes over me as I sit in my seat and the half empty plane lifts off into a clear blue sky. The relief on everyone's faces is plain to see. Me and Lasse look at each other, “How the fuck did we make it through that?” he asks me. I had been planning to wait until I got to Houston tonight before treating myself to a drink but as soon as the seatbelt sign goes off and the air steward comes along with the trolley I order myself a gin and tonic. No drink has ever tasted to good!

In three hours time we'll land in Houston and meet the final member of what will be our touring party, and he'll be driving what will be our home for the next month. I order another gin and tonic and stare out at the United States of America below me.  

Preparation

It didn't start too well. We'd applied and paid for work visas that would keep us on the sweet side of the authorities whilst we were in the old US of A. Not something we'd usually do, but since it was a big tour that travelled right around the land and there'd been a fair amount of national advertising for it, we thought it might be a bit risky to chance it. We shouldn't have bothered!

The visas cost a small fucking fortune for the six of us, as well as a lot of energy obtaining them. They don't just let anyone into their precious country. After a month or so of pissing around with the authorities we finally received conformation that our applications were approved. This was sometime in November. The tour was to start on January 12^th in New Orleans.

With the green light finally given, we set about putting the tour into action. We got flights booked from Heathrow to Houston, via Chicago. There was the six of us in the band as well as my mate Lasse, who was coming along for the trip. He'd broken his leg whilst waiting for a blind date just a few weeks before, and feeling sorry for him I asked him to come along and sell shirts for us. I told him we couldn't afford to pay him for the actual work but that we'd cover his flight, giving him a working holiday in effect. We didn't have a visa for him but he could just enter the country as a tourist.

Bianchi had sorted us a van for the tour. He found some guy online by the name of Dutch, actually his name was Job but he was Dutch. Dutch had an RV camper van that he'd kitted out into a tour bus and he had a decent price on a deal that included him as driver. Bianchi had also been in touch with the Soilent Green guys and fixed us a pretty cheap deal to hire their backline. It seemed like we were all set.

Then in December we got a call telling us our visa applications had been pulled from the system on a routine check. Ok, we thought, typical, but hopefully it will only mean a week or two delay, tops. Two weeks came and went and still there was no fucking sign of the visas in the post. Bianchi tried calling the American Embassy, stressing that we needed them for the start of January. That of course, did not impress the cunts. They simply refused to give us a time-scale or guarantee that we'd have the visas in time. I could barely fucking believe it. They cost around seven hundred quid each and it looked like that money was about to get shat down the drain. The embassy took great pleasure in telling us that there would be no refund in any case.

They simply never came. We never had sight nor sound of them ever again, or the four grand we'd paid for them. I wonder how much money the wankers make that way each year. Completely gutted but none the less determined that the tour would go ahead as planned, we decided we'd simply travel in to the country as Lasse intended to, as tourists. Hell, we were going on tour after all. Of course, this made things pretty nervy for us. The US customs authorities were bad enough before 9/11, they were fascistic now.

To add to the drama, the night before we head off to the UK, where we'd be playing a couple of shows before leaving for the States, Lasse rings me and tells me he'd totally missed that his passport has gone past it's validity date. Unfuckingbelievable! He has to take the train out to Arlanda airport and fix a last minute temporary passport. I go to bed that night wondering if we've just blown another four hundred quid on that gammy-legged twat. In true Lasse style though, he managed to sort it out, although it was tense there for a while. I wake up the next morning to his text message telling me that he's sorted and he's coming along.

So it's off to the UK we go.

We had a couple of small, local shows, local to Corby that is, booked to warm up for the tour. One at the Attic in Rushden and one at Sawyer's in Kettering. The Rushden gig was great. It was in a carpeted function room above a pub and it was packed. We played on the floor and the crowd was wild. The thing I remember the most is this one huge skinhead guy in the middle of the crowd. He seemed a little out of place at the show, since most of the people there were young metal kids and then there's this guy, who must have been a foot taller than everyone else in the crowd and at least fifteen years older. I don't know if he was pissed or drugged up or what, but he definitely had a huge excess of misplaced energy. The kids moshed around him as he stood there staring at the band, kids simply bouncing off of his considerable bulk. After a while he starts throwing random kids about the place like rag dolls, at one point almost toppling the PA speakers with one poor kid. No one dared utter a fucking word of complaint to this bear of a man though, including us, and everyone just got on with it. Didn't stop the kids from moshing though. Weird show.

The second show in Kettering was a tamer affair, as far as crowd violence goes anyway. There were still a lot of people in the small venue and it was a good gig. It was the first show Frank had been to since he'd quit the band six months earlier. It was a bit strange at first but the night ended with him getting up and singing the lyrics to Knives and Faces with Bloody Kev. It was a nice touch. It still felt awkward afterwards though because we were going to the States for a full on tour, something we'd never got around to doing with Frank in the band, and I could sense that he regretted his decision to leave. At least at that moment in time anyway.

We'd arrived in the UK a couple of days before the Rushden show to practice. The first night, after practice, we'd gone over to the Sawyer's for a drink. Rich, the landlord was a big Speedhorn fan and by now a friend of ours. We were gagging for a pint after practice and Gords had rung him telling him we were coming over, in typical Gords style, having the cheek to tell him instead of ask him if it was ok. Rich had just closed up for the night and was on his way to bed but Gords was having none of it and Rich eventually agreed to let us in for a sneaky pint. We'd turned up around half eleven, a tired looking Rich cursing us for being cheeky cunts as we traipsed in to the pub. One sneaky pint became a few, and then a few more and eventually turned into shots and then five am. We all left there feeling pretty fucked. When we'd arrived I'd introduced a quiet, shy Lasse to Rich, his wife Leanne and the other bartender who had also been unlucky enough to have been trapped at work by us. Well they weren't really working any more I guess since the three of them were drinking as much as we were. Lasse was a little quiet then, before you got to know him, or before he had a drink in him at least. It didn't take long for the fucker to loosen up though. Within a couple of hours he had his balls out at the bar, zapping them with an electric buzzer that belonged to a quiz board-game, much to the amusement of everyone else.

The other funny thing with Lasse, something I'd never really experienced before, was hearing him speak English. We'd always conversed in Swedish until this point. He seemed to have no concept of the gravity of swearing in the Queen's, or at least when it was and was not appropriate to do so. We'd sat at dinner with my parent's the first night, my mum having made a slap up meal for us all. Lasse was overjoyed with the food and the hospitality that my parents are infamous for, and he also seemed to be embracing the opportunity to practice his English. He kept saying stuff to my parent's like “Oh, this food is so fucking good” and “this is fucking great”. He literally said fuck in every sentence. My parents thought it was hilarious though and they took a real shine to him. He helped my dad tune in his new tv too, and then bought him a pint at the Rock afterwards, after which my dad was totally sold on the buffoon.

So after one practice and a couple of shows, we were off to the States. Considering that the situation had been made a little nervous thanks to the whole work visa débâcle, you'd think we would have thought about being extra pre cautious with customs. You'd think we'd have put some effort into maybe not so obviously looking like a band going on tour without work visas. You'd think. Unbelievably, not only did we take all our guitars as luggage, as well as a suit case full of albums, we even had Daz's Ampeg bass amp with us which was packed in a cardboard box. What the fuck were we thinking really? We had printed the merch in the States, but only because it was cheaper to do so, so the only precaution we'd taken in going through the notoriously paranoid US border customs was to make sure we split up in the queue. Our lackadaisical approach to the matter almost fucked the whole tour up before it even started..

Speedhorn in the USA

Raging Speedhorn toured a lot. If you look down at the list of previous shows on this blog, everything you see from 2008 back to 1998 is Speedhorn. I experienced a wild contrast of highs and lows during that period, and unlike the cheesy cliché, I would change a fair few fucking things if I had to do it all over again, but you live and you learn don't you? Either way, I'm grateful for those ten years.

One thing I do regret is not writing about it at the time, like I do now when we're on tour with Victims or whoever else. So much nonsense took place back then that it's hard to remember the fine details a lot of the time. I did write a tour diary for a short while that we used to put up on our website, but it only lasted one tour. I guess the reality of the matter is that I was probably often too hungover to have the energy to write every day back then. I'll try and dig that tour diary up at some point though.

I often think back to the Speedhorn period with the false impression that all the crazy shit happened exclusively during the first era of the band, when Frank, Tony and Darren were with us. Although a lot of the nonsense stems from this period, it wasn't all tea and biscuits after Jay and Kev, and later Dave joined. Far from it in fact.

One jaunt I have a lot of memories of was the nationwide tour of the States we played in early 2006, the band then consisting of myself, Gordon, John, Bloody Kev, Darren and Jay. The tour, which lasted a little over a month, was a six band package bill, a package that we stood out like a sore fucking thumb on. Didn't we always? When we were offered the tour I didn't really think about the other bands on the bill, my ears pricked up only at the list of cities that the tour took in. In retrospect, touring with Nile, Hypocrisy, Soilent Green, Decapitated and With Passion wasn't the best choice of bands for us to hit the road with. I mean, Soilent Green are great, both as a band and as people, and most of the other guys on the tour were decent enough people, but the crowd attending the shows hated us for the most part. I learned on this tour that the scene divide in the States stretches over a far wider ravine than it does here in Europe... Still, we didn't give a fuck. In fact, playing in Speedhorn was always most fun when we were up against the odds. We excelled in pissing people off.

So, since there won't be any new tour diaries on the blog for a while, I thought I'd dig up the highlights of the Nile Annihilation of the Wicked Tour. I know...just the name of the tour has me wondering what the fuck our name was doing on the poster.

Punk Rock Stories: Me and Mary Goodnight

One of the main reasons behind me starting this blog a few years ago was to share some of the weird and wonderful stories that I've been a part of since I started playing in bands as a teenager. And playing in a band, touring all over the place creates a lot of stories. Fucked up things happen on tour because touring is a fucked up way of living. I have many friends who have lived the life and they all have tales to tell.

Obviously playing in a band like Raging Speedhorn for ten years has borne many tales of idiocy, all of which I'll get around to telling at some point...

Anyway, as I was out walking Bonzo today, checking Facebook as he ran around the field chasing his frisbee, as we do, I noticed my friend Lucas had written that last night he dreamt he'd met Britt Ekland. And that reminded me of something that happened a long, long time ago...

I've always been a quiet, calm guy at heart, usually one to walk away from trouble rather than towards it. And to be fair, the same could be said for the rest of the guys in Speedhorn, well, Frank wasn't that quiet I guess, but I would say that even he never actively looked for trouble. None of us did. It's just, being six young guys from Corby who liked a drink or two, and who happened to spend most of their twenties doing just that, for free, well, sometimes trouble found us.

When we formed Speedhorn in the summer of 98', our one main ambition was to get a gig supporting Iron Monkey, the band that inspired us more than any other. It just so happened that a friend of a friend of ours, a fellow Corbyite then living in London, was managing Monkey and that ambition was soon fulfilled. And it just so happened that the Corbyite in question, Dave Bianchi, soon became our close friend and manager too, and things really started rolling from there. Rolling way beyond any boundaries I ever imagined, to the point where it gave me the shits if I'm honest. In the space of two years we went from supporting Monkey at the Bass Clef in Northampton, in front of sixty people, to opening the main stage at Ozfest in front of forty five thousand. I can't honestly say which gig I enjoyed more. Of course, playing in front of thousands was fun but the buzz I got when Bianchi rang and told me we could open for Monkey takes some beating...

To us, Speedhorn was just a shitty little hardcore band. The fact that the band got so big, for a while at least, in the UK and Japan at least, was really quite surreal. And things never got more surreal than the night we attended our first Kerrang! Awards...

For a fucking start, what the hell was our band doing at the Kerrang! Awards? Somehow we'd ended up being nominated in the “Best Newcomer” category, along with bands like Hundred Reasons and My Vitriol. I just couldn't take it seriously. We'd released our first album, that although sounded as rough as a hungover turd, somehow through endless touring and some top notch guerilla marketing ala Bianchi, had sold a fair few copies. That was weird enough, but being invited to the Kerrang! Awards on the back of it was just too much. I knew fine well that we had no fucking chance of winning the award, that we were just there to add a bit of drunken spice to the proceedings, but as far as we were concerned, if there was free booze all night then fuck it. Makes a change from hanging out at the Rockingham Arms in Corby.

We were due to be at the award ceremony around two pm if I remember correctly, which I probably don't. It was early in the afternoon anyway. For some reason, even though we knew there would be free booze on offer all afternoon, we still fancied a pint of two at the pub before we headed over to the venue. Bianchi was chuffed, most likely salivating at the thought of seeing us goons mixing it up with the celebrity elite of the rock n' roll world. To be honest, being near those people just made me feel strange. I know I don't belong in such circles and I'm happy out of it. The rest of the guys seemed to be up for it though, but in all honesty I was drinking a couple of pints in that pub beforehand to loosen me up for the awkward afternoon ahead.

We take a cab over to the venue, some hotel in the west end I think, and as soon as we arrive the bullshit hits you. It's proper red carpet crap. Not for us, we're hurried along it and shufftied inside the building, but the likes of Iggy Pop, arm in arm with some plastic looking woman with rock-like tits, are stood there getting their photos taken by hordes of photographers. “What the fuck are we doing here really?” I wonder to myself.

We arrive into a brightly lit lobby area, where there is a lot of mingling going as everyone waits to be ushered inside to the main room where the awards will be held. I soon find a glass of champagne in my hand. I've since learned that champagne and I don't see eye to eye. I've learned that the hard way, just ask my wife about the state I was in at our wedding.. But I didn't know about the dangers of champagne then, so there I was, stood with Bianchi, couple of pints down the hatch and a glass of bubbly in hand, already starting to feel tipsy. I really should have eaten some breakfast. The other guys have gleefully jumped feet first into the spirit of things. Frank has acquired his own tray of champagne and is walking around with it, emptying the five or six flutes that stand on it at a rapid rate as he flits between famous faces who are standing around small-talking. Darren, also already quite pissed, has latched on to Iron Maiden guitarist Janick Gers and is repeatedly chortling in his ear, and everyone else's in his vicinity, “Don't panic, it's Janick!” Daz thinks this is a damn sight funnier than Gers seems to.

After a while they open the doors to the main event, and we all shuffle in to our allocated tables. This main room is a lot darker than the lobby. It's just like every award show you've seen on tv, big stage at the front with a podium on it and lots of tables decked out across the floor. Funnily enough, our table is right near the back, along with the likes of Napalm Death. Unlike the Oscars though, instead of being catered with champagne and Filét Mignon or whatever other poncey crap you might find at the Oscars and it's ilk, each of the tables here display a huge assortment of booze. Bottles and bottles of the stuff. There is vodka, rum, brandy, cheap bubbly, a few crates worth of beer and of course the compulsory Jack Daniels. Every single table in the room comes with this complement. I don't remember there being any food though...

We sit down, most of us half pissed already, and scan the room. Right up front, head table are those silly looking guys in Slipknot, decked out in the costumes and all. There is this weird buzz about the room as they sit there, as if something dangerous is about to happen. Gimme a fucking break! I feel way out of my depth here.

Our award is the first up. By the time it's announced I can barely see. Most of the booze that was on our table has vanished in a drinking frenzy. We're literally like a gang of crazed, alcoholic sharks. The table looks like a bomb has hit it. Tony has fallen backwards off his chair, just lying there on his back pissing himself laughing. I remember Larry and Colin from Hundred Reasons on stage giving their acceptance speech, somewhere on the distant horizon that is that stage. Like I said, I knew we didn't have a paedophiles chance in prison of winning that award.. We barely noticed it coming and going.

By the time they're moving things on to the second award of the night, we're off in search of more booze. We spend the best part of the rest of the night, stumbling around in the dark from table to table, pinching booze from others. We are all completely fucked by this point. After an initial smattering of giggles and smirks from the rest of the room, I get the feeling we're soon starting to get on people tits. Frank is fucking bombed, he's found a punch bowl and thrown absolutely everything he can find into it and is hysterically serving it up to people. His secret ingredient being Tony's mobile phone. John is stumbling about getting his photo taken with anyone and everyone, whether they like it or not. Daz is still on the trail of Gers... I have a vague memory of trying to engage in a conversation with Lemmy but getting absolutely nowhere. I guess he's seen it all and done it all before. The whole while the awards are rolling on in the background.

During an interlude, either they turn up the lights or I'm starting to drift off to some other plane, but it seems to get a lot brighter for a while. I remember being stood in the toilets at the trough, using all my concentration to keep myself from pissing on my trainers. As I'm leaving, Marilyn Manson walks in, normal as you like, except for his mad make-up. As I pass him on the way out I'm starting to realise how surreal this night is becoming.

I come back out to the main room, lights are still on, and Dani Filth from Cradle of Filth has latched on to John. He seems to be enjoying the carnival that is Speedhorn. The singer from Muse is hanging around somewhere, telling one of our guys he loves the band. I'm starting to get weirded out again. Who the fuck are these people and where the fuck do they come from? You like our band? Really? I guess you like Iron Monkey and Eyehategod too? I fucking doubt it.

The lights go back down and the carnage continues. At some point in the night the Slipknot guys set fire to their table, or at least, something on it. I can't help thinking what a bunch of cunts they are, whilst seemingly completely able to dismiss our behaviour up to this point. It's just, with us it's simple. We're a bunch of harmless piss heads with a shit load of free booze on offer. The whole Slipknot thing to me seems like a big pose. Weirdly enough, within a year we'll end up supporting Slipknot on a couple of shows and befriending the guys, who turn out to be an alright lot, as far as superstars go.

A couple of years later, after having played and partied with Slipknot a couple of times, we're sat backstage at Full Force Festival in Germany, shamefully hungover after our shabby show, when Corey, the Slipknot singer sits down at our table. He's just played, unmasked with his grunge band, Stone Sour. “What did you think to the set guys?” As I'm pondering how to answer this question politely Gordon barks, “Fucking shite!” He's serious of course. Corey just laughs, “Why the fuck do I hang out with you guys?” Haven't seen him since though.

Anyway, back at the Kerrang! Awards. Slipknot have set fire to their table, causing a bit of a stir in the room you might say, at least for a while. It all settles down again and the award ceremony marches on. And then one of the weirdest things that's ever happened to me, actually the weirdest thing that ever happened to me, occurs.

Frank and I are stumbling about the room, going from table to table trying to pilfer booze, completely oblivious to all that is going on around us. As it happens, Britt Ekland, the Swedish actress and my favourite Bond girl, you know, Mary Goodnight from Man With The Golden Gun, is walking to the stage to present an award. Like two planets set hopelessly on a path of collision, our fates seem to be determined to meet. I hadn't even noticed her walking behind us until it was too late. I just happen to look up at Frank as he nonchalantly throws an empty bottle of beer over his shoulder. Like a car crash, the next few seconds sink down into slow motion. Just as Frank throws the bottle over his shoulder, Ekland is right behind him. She treads on the bottle, causing her to slip and hit the deck. Hard. Holy fucking shit!!! Frank and I look at each other in stupefied amazement for a second, like that scene from the Matrix where everything else freezes and it's just us, and then like being sucked down a plug hole, the silence disappears and we're thrown into chaos. And we piss ourselves laughing. There is an immediate swarm of people to Ekland's aid. I'm soon in there, trying to help her up, but she's obviously in a lot of pain. She tells me in no uncertain terms to fuck off. My response? “ But you're my favourite Bond Girl!” Frank, not really grasping the seriousness of the situation wades into the conversation, “Ah, fuck her!”

If Ekland's “Fuck Off” doesn't convince me to do so, the burly security guard who's face has turned crimson with rage, certainly does. I didn't know it at the time, but it turns out Britt had broken her ankle. Obviously it was an accident, albeit one that our tit behaviour had caused. All the credit in the world to her though, she still made it up to the stage and presented the award, before heading off to the hospital.

The rest of the night kind of peters out after that. I mean, what the fuck could top that scene? By the time the awards are over, about eight pm, I'm ready for bed. I end up passing out in a hotel room nearby, praying God for forgiveness as I drift off into the abyss. Some of the other guys make it to the after party with Bianchi. A couple of them end the night, smoking a pipe with the Deftones bass player in a back alley somewhere, and someone goes white. I can't remember who it was, but I think it was Deftones.

The next morning I feel like I've been hit by a bus, and then reversed over, and then run over again. Did that really happen last night? We rendezvous for breakfast somewhere in Notting Hill, Bianchi getting serious with us for a minute. The news is out that Britt broke her ankle last night. What's more, Cradle of Filth are claiming it. Something about a banana.. We all knew the truth. Bianchi, manager head back on, tells us he's going to have to resist what could possibly be great publicity and avoid a court case, and let Filth take the credit on this one. All these years later, I find myself wondering if it really did happen as I remember it. Maybe it was Filth with a banana. Maybe...

Like I say, we weren't wankers by nature, we just couldn't control ourselves when we were pissed up. Things could have so easily gone off the rails for any one of us. It's mental enough being that age and most young kids get into situations they shouldn't, that natural way of things is amplified massively when you're in a band touring the world. Thankfully, we all made it through to the other side, relatively unscathed. Although we had some near scrapes.

Five months later, whilst on a European tour, we'd end up spending the best part of two days in a Spanish jail. It was destined to happen. We couldn't go on thinking we were invincible forever. Reality was bound to hit us hard and throw and cold slap in the face at some point. We took a lot of publicity for that one, publicity that this time Bianchi was more than happy to exploit. Funny thing is, the cunt was in the jail with us. But that's another story..   

Diagnosis? Bastard!

With Victims being on holiday for the next six months or so, I've finally got around to starting a new band with Bloody Kev. We've been talking about it ever since we decided we were leaving Raging Speedhorn, which coincidentally happened whilst we were stood watching Victims at a show in Göteborg back in 2008. Funny how things work out...

The new band is called Diagnosis? Bastard!. Along with me on guitar and Kev on vocals, Viktor (Nitad/Pig Eyes) is playing drums and Lucas (Avalanche) is on bass. With Viktor being a Swede and Lucas hailing from Brazil, we're hoping we can break into the Best International Act category at all the major music awards next year.

With Kev living in London and the other three being Stockholmites, or honoury Stockholmites at least, we've been busy writing songs instrumentally, in anticpation of Kev flying in to scream over the top of them when ready. We've had one such visit from Kev so far which resulted in one night of full-on practice (the first night), followed by two days of lying about on the floor of the rehearsal space, hungover, talking about practice. The songs are short, fast and simple though, so it went ok anyway.

Kev of course, came up with the band name. It took me a little while to get it out of him, but he eventually told me that he'd come up with it whilst sat at home watching the old tv show Diagnosis, Murder, the one with Dick Van Dyke as the protagonist. At some point the thought struck him, “Dick Van Dyke you big bastard!”, from whence the name Diagnosis? Bastard! came. Classic Kev...

Anyway, we've recorded five songs with our friend Linus at his studio, the same place we recorded the last Victims album. Kev is coming over for another weekend at the end of August to record vocals on those and to rehearse some newer songs I've been writing. So I'm hoping the first DB seven inch will be released by someone who thinks it might be fun to do so, sometime this autumn. We're planning a few shows too. As well as some in Sweden and the UK, we're talking about some squat shows in Spain around November time..

There might just be some more tour diaries this year yet...

Tuska Fest, Helsinki

I haven't been to Finland for a long time. Actually that's not true, I passed through Helsinki airport on the way to Thailand a couple of years ago. We spent four hours here on our way out and about twenty minutes on the way back. Neither of those occasions were particularly fun. Hanging out at an airport is quite a boring way to spend four hours. On the way back, we'd been forced to run from one plane to the other and is if that wasn't stressful enough, I'd ran in to a bald giant of a border cop, he looked like Zangief the Street Fighter character, and he seemed to be angry at the world and wanted to take it out on me. As he held me up at the passport queue he made it abundantly clear he didn't give a fuck if I made my flight or not.

The last time I was on Finnish soil proper though was actually the first time too. The first show we'd ever played outside of the UK with Speedhorn was in Helsinki, in 2000. We'd driven all the way from the UK, a journey which took two days. By the time we got to the venue we were all a little dazed since the last leg of that journey was spent on the overnight ferry crossing from Stockholm. It had been quite a night. Within an hour of being on the boat we clocked on to the fact that the place was actually a giant, floating nightclub, full of pissed up Scandinavians. We of course, duly joined them. We were on tour with Biohazard and this being the first show of the tour, we'd never met them, but just as we did, they stuck out like a sore thumb on the boat and we soon found each other. A few beers at the bar around five pm quickly escalated into drunken karaoke, in-band fighting, sleeping in corridors unable to find allocated cabins, a puking incident involving our merch guy and a bottle of Jack Daniels and our tour manager being locked up in boat jail having gotten into a fight with the Norwegian rally team. I didn't even know that such a thing as boat jail existed.

On that occasion all I'd managed was a quick stroll around the harbour in Helsinki, since the venue was right next to it. Today should provide ample opportunity to make up for that. I usually hate getting up early, hate it. But even though I'd risen with the cockerel's crow this morning, well I would have if there were any cockerels in Sumpan, I was in good spirits. Getting out of bed at five am is certainly made easier by the sun shining brightly through the bedroom window...

I'd sat on the sofa watching the early CNN bulletin on tv, debating with myself whether I had time to put the kettle on and make a cuppa, when my phone beeped at the incoming of a text message from Andy. “Oi Brit, put down your cup of tea and make your way outside, we'll be there in two minutes”. It's almost as if the big bastard had read my mind.

The flight from Arlanda to Helsinki only takes forty-five minutes. You literally take off, get up to cruising height and then come back down again. One big arch over the water. Despite only having slept for five hours, I felt pretty good. Well, awake anyway. My back felt far from good. The night before, as in any other night that precedes and early rise, I had a hard time getting to sleep. I'd lay on the sofa until half past midnight, nursing a glass of single malt and watching the film on tv, the Forty Year Old Virgin with Steve Carrell. I lay they wondering if Johan was doing the same thing, since he's the same as me when it comes to both rising early and stupid films. I asked him this morning what time he went to bed last night, he smirked and told me he'd been watching the film.

Whether it's a lack of sleep, a hangover or any other shit circumstance, I always feel better knowing there's someone in my company that's feeling worse. Today, as is often the case, that someone is Jon. When I'd awoken this morning at five am, Jon was already in the middle of an epic night. In fact, it's been a bit of an epic week for the poor bastard. After playing with Victims at Strand on Wednesday, he then travelled up to play the Peace and Love Festival with Nasum on the Thursday before flying down to Leipzig on the Friday to play the Full Force Festival. Nasum were on stage at the un-Godly time of two-thirty am, as in this morning. They'd played the show and then Jon and Keijo, along with Hannes and Antti, their two Finish sound crew, had taken a festival shuttle to Berlin for an eight am flight to Helsinki to meet up with us again and play tonight's show at the Tuska Festival. Just thinking about that lot makes me fucking snoozy. I have no idea how he's coping. I remember going through a couple of festival seasons in Europe with Speedhorn, and as much as the shows were often big and a lot of fun, everything else around it was a fucking drag. It didn't take me long to become disillusioned with festival touring.

It's just past nine am by the time we touch down. Jon is still in the air and won't land for another hour. An old friend of the band, Petri, is working for the festival this weekend and he's here to pick us up and take us to the hotel. Petri managed a tour that had a line up of Victims, Rotten Sound, Trap Them and The Ocean a few years back, shortly before I joined the band. He's going to be out with Nasum on their European club tour at the end of the summer, which will be the very final leg of their mammoth round the world trek, ending sometime in early October. After greeting Petri he asks us if we want to stick around and grab a coffee at the airport whilst waiting for Jon, of if we'd rather he took us to the hotel directly. Apparently most of the bands are staying at a hotel near the airport but for some reason we've been moved to one right in the middle of the city. We unanimously decide that we'll meet Jonny boy later. With that we head off.

Petri swings by the festival site before dropping us off at the hotel. There we leave our merch with the festival sellers and obtain a brief look around the place. Unlike Hellfest, Tuska is bang in the middle of town, set up on large asphalted parking lot. It reminds me a little of Maryland Death Fest in Baltimore, only on a larger scale. Two main, outdoor stages stand side by side at the far end of the compound. Flanking them to the left is the merchandise area, to the right, a little further back, the bar area. The bar area, which is fenced off, creating a barrier between those old enough to drink and those who are not, is almost as large as the crowd standing space in front of the two stages. Andy laughs at the thought of bands playing on the main stage, across a barren no-mans-land to the bar area on the other side.

There is a smaller tented stage which lies opposite the bar area and then further back still, to the immediate left of the entrance is the building that houses the stage where we're playing tonight. The warehouse like building has a large stage and it's own little, cordoned off bar area in the far left hand corner. I wonder if this building is a venue in itself during non-festival times...

I have no idea how the show will be tonight, if it rains I guess we'll be in luck. The line up is a veritable hotch-potch of Finnish goth and war metal, along with some international acts like Megadeth and Ministry as well as the odd hardcore band like ourselves and Napalm Death. We'll see. I'm glad for the asphalt though, much more civilised than the muddy bog of Hellfest.

Petri drops us off at the hotel a little after ten am.

My back has now become completely rigid, so that I'm walking around as if I have a broomstick stuffed down the back of my shirt and jeans. I can't even be bothered thinking about how I'm going to manage the show later. I console myself with the fact that it's the last show for a while, after which I'll be able to get it sorted. We dump our bags in the rooms, nice hotel by the look of it, and walk about the city centre looking for some coffee and a spot of lunch. I need a pharmacy, but I need coffee and food first.

We end up walking about a large shopping centre in vain search of something decent to eat. The options are looking slim. We spot an Irish pub and decide that some pub grub could probably do the trick. We walk in and pick up a menu that is stood on the bar. The menu only has beer in it though. We laugh, making stereotypical jokes about Finish people and alcohol. I wonder aloud if they have the same laws concerning alcohol here as they do in Sweden, as in, you can't sell booze without serving grub. I doubt it somehow. Johan assures me that they must have food in this pub though, picking up a different menu a little further down the bar. This menu only has cider on it. Four pages with nothing but cider. “Fucking Finns!”, Johan chortles as we exit, continuing on with our search.

Our ambitions for lunch slowly quashed, we settle for one of the shopping center cafés. Although the queuing system seems a bit fucked, with disgruntled locals pushing in from all angles, the menu offers a few decent looking veggie options. I order a brie and mango bagel with a cappuccino to accompany it. Unfortunately the picture on the menu in no way represents the food on my plate. The chunks of mango in the picture are in reality a sugary mango flavoured jam. As my dad would say, “It's probably never seen a mango!” The cappuccino is all fluffy milk and no coffee.

Not entirely satisfied, we eat up and leave in search of a pharmacy. The pharmacy has far more to offer than the café and I come away with an assorted bag full of salvas and pain killers for my back. I imagine this is how it feels to be Jon.

It's around noon by the time we arrive back at the hotel. With nothing to do between now and four pm, when Petri will come back and transport us to the festival site, we decide to retire to our rooms and relax. I would like to explore Helsinki a little more, maybe check out Janne's Combat Rock record store, but I'm tired and the store moved to the other side of the city a couple of years ago and the hotel bed is calling me to it. I leave Andy and Johan and head to the room I'm sharing with Jon. I find him fast asleep on his bed, that awful Nicolas Cage film National Treasure playing at low volume on the tv set. I crawl into the twin bed beside his and watch the rest of the film, my eyes fading into shallow sleep every now and then. Has Cage done a decent film since Wild At Heart?

Petri arrives at four pm as planned and we head off to the festival. Hannes, one of Nasum's crew is in the van with us along with Petri's girlfriend and another friend of hers. Hannes is going to do monitors for us tonight. Antti, Nasum's sound man, will be doing our front of house. We'll meet him there later. We chat away amongst ourselves as we tour the streets of Helsinki. We're planning to come back here in January and play some shows with Rotten Sound. I really do hope to get a better look around the place then.

We arrive at the festival a few hours before our stage time. We load out the gear into the back stage area of the warehouse building. It's a simple set up. Behind the stage is a large black curtain, behind that a couple of sofas, a table with a few bags of crisps spread about it and a couple of fridge's with beer for the various bands playing. We'd loaded in through an adjacent room where five or six people were sat washing used plastic beer glasses from the festival bars with water hoses. It's a pretty depressing scene. By their expression on their faces I'd guess they've already been here a while. The room is decked out in beige tiles, there is a drain in the floor, although it doesn't seem to be doing much of a job given the pool of water we have to walk through whilst loading in the gear, and there is a large, stainless steel table where plastic bins full of dirty plastic glasses are awaiting a hosing. The whole scene reminds me from Solway Foods back in the day. I hope these guys are being well paid.

We drop of the gear beside the stage, meet the stage manager, who immediately asks us if we want a bottle of booze, I don't remember it's name but Jon excitedly gives me the lo-down on it. A genuine Finnish treat apparently. Johan politely declines his offer and tells him we'll take it later. Along with Avgrund, who play before us on the same stage, Napalm Death are the only other band I'm interested in watching today, and they're about to start. Some of us are hungry though so we decide to cash in our meal tickets and grab some scran and then catch the second half of the Napalm set.

I myself am not that hungry in truth and I'm only eating now for the sake of time. It's no idea playing a show on a full stomach... When I view the food on offer my appetite recoils further, like a scared dog backing into it's kennel. The vegetarian option is a lasagne based on pickled beetroot. I kid you not! I'm far from being a picky eater, in fact I'll eat almost anything that didn't once have a conscience, but pickled beetroot is where I draw the line. I've had a phobia of it since my days at infant school, where on one nightmare inducing occasion we were forced to eat a dinner consisting of: one hard boiled egg, one mound of grated, tasteless white cheese accompanied by a side ration of pickled beetroot. Everything on the plate stained like a disease by the beetroot's purple juice. I've never been able to eat it since. In fact, for a while there I refused to go to school, for fear of that disgusting so called meal. My parents were even brought in for a talk with the teachers who were concerned that I was being bullied, such was my depressed disposition. Up until about a year ago, I couldn't even eat fresh beetroot, but Jenny taught me, or actually, went on a mission to convince me, that fresh beetroot was a whole other thing. She was right about that, and for her efforts I'm grateful. There is, however, no fucking way I'm touching this pickled beetroot lasagne. What the fuck is that all about?

Johan has a theory that the Finns take the same approach to food as they do to music, in that they throw any old combination into the pot. Like techno and death metal, or symphonic synth and math metal, lasagne and pickled beetroot. He also asserts that they never put salt on anything.

Anyway, I end up with a plate of sauce-less white rice, a few leaves of lettuce and a few fallafels. No sauce on them either. Hardly the finest meal I've ever eaten. We're soon done with it and we head off to watch Napalm. The sun is shining on the boys as they power through their set, playing the same mix of old and new they had a couple of months ago when we played with them in Antwerp. I always enjoy watching Barney perform. I have to laugh though, as Andy had indeed predicted, there are just as many people stood way back in the beer area watching them as there are down in front of the stage. All the same, there are still a lot of people watching and despite the sound being the typical crap outdoor festival fare, it's still a good show.

We don't have much to do but wait around for another few hours until it's time for us to play. I string my guitar again. Getting to be a regular occurrence these days. An hour or so before show time I douse my lower back in Tiger Balm and crack open a can of Kharu beer. It tastes better than I remember it tasting at Carmen, where it's still the beer of the week, same as it has been since I moved to Stockholm. I have another as I watch the Avgrund set right before ours.

From what I can hear from the side of the stage, the monitors are more than up to the job. It sounds great from where I'm standing. There doesn't seem to be a lot of people watching them although to be fair to the guys, they put on a really energetic show. I'm not the biggest grindcore fan but if it's done well, like it is here, it's a lot of fun to watch. It all stems from punk at the end of the day anyway. I can't help thinking as I watch the Avgrund set that it's too bad the Hellfest show wasn't our farewell show for the year. I soon put the thought out of mind though. As long as my back holds up, I'm going to enjoy this show as much as any other.

It started well enough. For a kick off, the room was almost full. There must be about eight hundred people in here. I figure it must be raining outside. The sound on stage is perfect and for the first few songs the energy alone carries me along like a surfer on the crest of a wave. The crowd are going for it and we're playing full throttle. And then about five songs in, it starts to really fucking pound in my back. At the Strand show the other day I hadn't thought about the pain until after we'd come off stage, when the adrenalin had died down. As great as this show was turning out to be though, adrenalin wasn't enough. This has happened to me once before, years ago on tour with Speedhorn. On that occasion we were on a twenty date tour of the UK and I'd pulled my back somewhere in the middle of it. It all came to a head at a show in Brighton and I was forced to play most of the gig sat on a monitor, almost paralysed from the pain. Tonight wasn't as bad as that, but I could barely do more than stand still in one position and nod my head to the beat from Andy's snare.

Even so, the gig was still a lot of fun. There was a full on pit for This is the End and I hadn't even noticed that we were running short on time. The stage manager appeared by Jon's side and was telling him we only had three minutes left. I was actually disappointed because we'd been planning to play For We Are Dead, a song we don't often play these days. But in the end we had to cut that and abruptly finish with Circles/Scars. I almost didn't want the gig to end because I knew the pain in my back was only going to get worse once we came off stage.

Pissing with sweat under the heavy stage lights, packing my gear up as rapidly as I could manage, I heard someone shouting my name. I look into the crowd and see a face I haven't seen in a long time. It's a girl called Chrissy who toured with us in the States back in 2005, when Speedhorn played a doomed tour with Nile and a bunch of other metal bands. Chrissy sold merch for Decapitated and Hypocrisy for those seven weeks and we'd all became good friends. I'd forgotten that she'd left the States and moved to Finland. I jump down from the stage to give her a sweat-drenched hug and chat for a few seconds. I have to get sorted but we agree to meet up at the VIP bar later. Before I can jump back on stage some crazy old punk, who looks like one of the alkies that hang out by S-Grillen in Sumpan, starts shouting at me in some weird mix of Finnish/Swedish/English. He's waving a cd of our Killer album, and I realise he wants the band to sign it. I try to explain to him that I have to pack up first and then I'll get it sorted, the rest of the guys by now have long since packed up and left the stage, but he doesn't seem to understand. He just keeps waving the cd in the air and shouting “Please! Please!” This goes on for the next five minutes whilst I pack down my gear, and after offering the odd apologetic shrug of the shoulders his way, begin to find the whole thing funny and it ends up with me and the festival stage hands all laughing. Crazy Punk doesn't give a piss though, he just keeps on waving the cd. I finally get packed down, take his cd, go back stage and get it signed and then take it back to him. “Thank you please!” he rejoices whilst kissing my hand. Chuffed, he stoats off.

My back is really fucking killing me now and the Tiger Balm and pain killers I bought earlier aren't up to the job any more. I take another beer and a few swigs of that booze we'd been offered earlier, Jon had now been given the green light to go and retrieve it, and Johan asks me if I want some of his special shit, being a fellow sufferer he has such things. I rub in a load of this special balsam and within five minutes I'm pissing sweat like I've just gnashed down a Bradford vindaloo. It does the job though, even if it is a little uncomfortable.

There isn't a whole load more to see at the festival. Sabaton are amusing for about two minutes but that's about it. The joke soon wears thin. I catch up with Chrissy and her Finnish husband Ossie over a beer at the VIP bar, it's good to see her and Ossie seems like a really nice guy. We say something about meeting up again in January, if we come over and play those Rotten Sound shows, and then I catch up with the rest of the guys. We're all in the mood for a beer to celebrate the last show of the year. Weird being that it's only June. After a beer in the wooden shed that is the VIP bar we contact Petri and ask him to come get us.

After settling with the merch people we head back to the hotel and drop our gear off before heading down to Tavasti, a great music venue that has a decent restaurant beside it. We sit down to a meal of veggie burgers and fries, the burger is awesome by the way, made of chickpea and mint with a tzatziki sauce, before settling into a few pints of beer, the odd Jack and Coke and even a Balvenie 12 year old single malt. We pay for the night with the merch money. There is a festival-after-party going on at a bar near the hotel but this is far better, just sitting down with the boys at a restaurant, chilling out over a few drinks and shooting the breeze.

It's must be one am by the time we leave and we're all getting a little sauced up, although in a very low-key manner. We decide to pop into that bar with the after party on the way back anyway, since it is literally only a block down from the hotel. It's a small bar with a dance floor in the cellar and it's absolutely packed. We get a round of beers in. They have Brooklyn Summer Ale by the bottle which turns out to be the only good thing the place has going for it. Compared to the chilled out atmosphere of the restaurant this feels like Bips Nightclub in Corby. We drink a couple anyway, the four of us stood tight up against the back wall. At some point, it's getting a bit hazy by now, some young girl who has been sat next to us, chatting with a friend, looks at me and says hello. In English of course. I say hello back and she asks how long we're in Helsinki for. She then asks me if I want to go and dance downstairs. I barely manage a reply, just kind of carry on talking to the boys, a little embarrassed. The girl is obviously hitting on me and I'm absolutely useless in such situations. I'd never make it in the singles world. Or, more like, if I was ever plunged back into the singles world I'd probably stay there for the rest of my days.

We call it a night shortly afterwards. Well, all except Jon, who decides to stay on and hang out with Hannes. I barely remember crawling into bed and I'm not woken by Jon whenever he returns. I hadn't felt that drunk until we'd left the place, but then instead of going straight to my room I'd tagged along with Johan and Andy to there's, devouring the peanuts from their mini bar and opening a bottle of Lapin Kulta, although I barely drank a drop. Goodnight boys, their mini bar ravaged I fuck off to bed.

I wake up around seven am, dying for a cack and with an agonising pain in my back. I make it to the toilet and carefully lower myself on to the seat. When I'm done the realisation hits me that my back is so fucked I can barely reach around to wipe my arse. In a brief moment of panic I think about calling through to Jon to help me, but quickly reconsider it. I get the job done eventually but it's fucking excruciating and I have to hold on to the sink for support. I finally drag myself up and crawl back into bed, the only consolation to this horrid state of affairs being that check-out is not until noon...