The 'Weight of the World' single is OUT NOW!

The 'Weight of the World' single is now live on iTunes and other digital stores. GO GET IT!

(FYI Fact Fans - Track 1 should be named (Single Edit) and Track 2 is the Sound of Everyone mix. These mistakes will be sorted ASAP, but I guess that makes it rare for a while?!)

You can buy the digital bundle, containing the Single Edit, Remix and Video, all for just £1.79, here: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/weight-of-the-world-ep/id400792648



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Weight of the World / UK & Ireland Tour / Kerrang! Readers Poll 2010

All ticket links for shows are on the left hand side of this page, don't miss out!

Head over to the Kerrang! Readers Poll 2010 website and make sure you vote for us in as many categories as you like! We won Best New Band last year though, so we can't win that again.

Thanks guys, see you soon!

-YG

Support acts for Gloucester and Stoke!

Sorry for the delay in announcing these, but we can now confirm our support bills for the shows at the beginning of the tour before The Swellers and Japanese Voyeurs join us. (Francesqa on the Irish dates, don't forget)

In Gloucester, our friends in Spycatcher and Minutes will be supporting. You can check Spycatcher out here, Minutes you'll have to wait for the show to check out (they're so new they don't even have a website!). Dan Weller who produced on our Mirrors EP and All Our Kings Are Dead is in the band though, so you know it's going to sound great!

In Stoke, support comes from Rio, who you can check out here and our friends in Jett Black, who you can check out here.

Supports for Tunbridge Wells will be announced shortly, but it'll likely be 2 of the 4 above. More on that soon!

Finally, we hope you're enjyoing the European Tour blogs and we'll see you guys in the UK in a few weeks time, where Gus' diary will be running on Kerrang.com

Tickets for all forthcoming shows are to the left, don't miss this tour!!

-YG

European Tour Diary: Day 13 - Nuremberg, Germany

The plan is to get up really early so that we can travel early and see some of the famous sights of Nuremberg. Nuremberg was (as far as I know) the place where the post WW2 tribunals were held, many Nazi army figure heads were tried here, and the city was the place of the infamous Nuremberg rallies, as well as the site of the Nazist Coliseum. By this point it will surprise none of you to know that we fail to make it there to see any of these amazing things. We are out the door by ten but make a stop off at a gigantic music warehouse outside Nuremberg called Thomann’s. Emre needs some microphone clips for his drum kit mics, and as a band you can never have too much gear so we muck around trying out all the different pianos, guitars, basses etc. Why are instruments so expensive!!!! Music shops are funny things, people are always trying to out-play each other, me and Fraser are fucking around on a cool keyboard we’ve had our eye on for a while, when some middle aged German dude comes up, muscles us out of the way and starts shredding out some jazz on it, before sauntering off without even looking back at us. Dude alert.

Simon buys a cool new pedal for his bass that makes it sound even more rowdy, and we collect Emre’s clip and head off. We are stupid for spending too much time in a music shop but it always happens. Damn it.

We turn up at the venue and make our way to our dressing room. It is approximately the size of a matchbox, but we’re used to that so we all squeeze in and set up our little stations where we can eat, surf the web, warm up or whatever. Being in the room is like being in a game of Tetris, you all have to work together to be able to be in there at the same time, fitting around each other. There is a small table with one chair, again this doesn’t bother us as we’ve played small shows for years, but why they provided one chair at all is a mystery. Maybe it’s to see who will assert their dominance, and so the game of musical chair begins. We eat, play, and watch Linda strafe the crowd combing for signatures. Go Linda!

It seems the further we get into the tour, the more people are coming to the show already fans of us. Small numbers, but it’s still really encouraging to see, so we hang and have some drinks by the merch (I’m on water as I don’t want to get properly ill and still feel a bit shit) and get back to our old tricks of hustling CDs to people as they make their way home. When you’re just starting out as a band it’s just what you have to do to make cash to eat with etc. Maybe some times you feel like a dick selling your EPs or whatever like you’re working on a market stall but you simply have to do it, and I actually quite enjoy it, engaging with people, persuading them to part with their hard earned money. I am pretty confident that if people take the plunge with our music they’ll end up liking it anyway so I don’t feel bad. It works though as we end up selling out our CDs that we brought with us on tour. I can’t figure out if we’ve shot ourselves in the foot or not. Will have to order more from home I guess. Good to feel like we’re making progress. If you can get someone to take a CD with them if it’s the first time they’ve heard you, you have a much better chance of getting them to come back to see you next time you play the area, instead of forgetting you exist, so job done!

We leave the venue tired but happy and make our way to the hotel. John Emre and Simon demolished the whisky on our rider so they have a little disco while the rest of us sit there in the dark getting elbowed. Good times. I’m jealous, but have to try to stay focused, and as boring as it is sometimes it means not partying. It’s a small price to pay or getting to sing in a band so whatever. Hopefully see you next year Munich.

-Gus

European Tour Diary: Day 12 - Munich, Germany

We wake up in our dorm style rooms and climb out of our bunk beds for showers. Some of us decide to go back into town (the venue is just outside) so we get in the van and drive back in, happy to be seeing Munich in the daylight. We park and get out, and the first thing we notice is that Munich is fucking freezing. The second is that it’s an amazing city, the architecture is grand and has an old-world feel to it. In many ways it looks like the kind of European city that I had in my minds eye… Imperial and ornate buildings stretching out around us, sculptures, fountains and open squares.

We walk around for a bit, do a tiny bit of shopping for some hats/gloves (I get a bobble hat beanie ‘cos I lost my hat somewhere) and have some pizza in a cool little Italian restaurant. The waiter seems to speak in both Italian and German, but not English so we try to order as clearly and un-english as we can. By some miracle we all get the orders right and stuff ourselves, though why we bother ordering loads of different food when we all just cover it with Tobasco and it tastes the same is anyone’s guess. For the record, we all love Tabasco sauce. It makes everything good, and we’ve gotten into the habit of putting it on everything we can, even if it shouldn’t be put on. Short of cereal, there ain’t much we won’t douse in the fiery delicious sauce.

Before we know it our time is up so we navigate our way (badly) back to the van and drive back to the venue where Emre is waiting unimpressed. We are late, as usual, so quickly chuck our gear in and soundcheck.

Tonight’s show is cool, and it’s awesome to see a few people already wearing Young Guns tee shirts. We also have a street teamer from heaven (or hell depending on where you stand) that kicks everybody’s ass and gets pages and pages of sign up names for our mailing list. Linda you are amazing! We owe you.



We hang out by the merch as per usual, watch Danko’s set which is again tight as fuck and really gets the crowd going, then head back for an early night. I’m currently addicted to The Wire so I watch a few episodes in bed before turning in. I’m getting ill, which really sucks but is not at all unexpected. Oh well. Good night Munich. I wish I could have seen more of thee.


-Gus

European Tour Diary: Day 11 - Travel to Munich, Germany

Today is a travel day and it’s good to have the rest. That is to say, it would be if I didn’t have to wake up at quarter to eight in the morning to pay for parking on the van, which inevitably is more complicated than would first appear. This is mainly due to the fact that it’s my job and I’m pretty inept at, well, pretty much everything. Especially at 8am. Once I’m up I’m up, and besides I have a few interviews to do early anyway so it’s for the best. The walk to the van on my own isn’t as unpleasant as I thought it would be - though I emerge from the dark hotel room and into the blinding early morning autumn light blinking and squinting like a mole, really it’s kind of cool to have some space and to briefly walk the streets of Hamburg on my own. I head back, tidy the room that me and Dave managed to make a mess of in less than 10 hours, and do a phone interview with a Japanese magazine for our first Japanese feature. So fucking cool! Japan has always been my number 1 wishlist thing-to-do-before-I-die, and everyone else in the band feels pretty similar so to start doing press there is seriously cool and exciting – hopefully it’ll be the start of a long journey to get us over there. We’ll see.

I miss breakfast (standard) and meet the guys half an hour late to leave (again, standard), and we begin the 800km journey to Munich.

I’d love to know what bands like Motley Crue or any of the 80s party-animal heyday bands did during the long journeys. Bands in this day and age pretty much seem to exist stuck to their laptops, watching films or whatever, and we are no different, so that’s a big part of spending most of your life in a van. Laptops are up, earphones are in and the stereo is on for the driver’s benefit (which today is Dave for the first half, and then John for the evening stretch). You can never quite concentrate on anything ‘cos the stereo is too loud, or because Simon is air drumming hour upon hour next to you. You watch the countryside flit by with your face against the window, or the miles of road slip underneath us out of the front view (always makes me feel like we’re missing so much whenever we travel, but sadly we are always against time) or if you’re me you read a book (more specifically my prize possession – a Kindle which I love to bits), write lyrics or tour diaries like this, or whatever. There’s also a lot of Garage Band going on as people muck around with ideas that may or may not end up on album 2 (something on our mind a lot, of late). Don’t even get me started on seat politics; I’ll be here all day – who sits where has been the source of many arguments.

So, across Germany we go, doing all of these things and stopping for way too many pee-breaks and eating service station bockwurst/bratwurst/schnitzel/pretzel every chance we get (again, Europeans, you guys are amazing at this food thing) and arrive after night has fallen. Spending nine or ten hours in the van sucks so we put our bags in the backstage area that we’ll be staying in for tonight and tomorrow night, and go into central Munich for some dinner. We aim for the Hofbrauhause and get there at 10pm-ish. It seems like all of Munich are out at the Hofbrauhause and are drunkenly singing along and dancing to the life horn section band that are playing in the centre of the huge pub/restaurant that almost looks like somewhere in Hogwarts or someplace similar. Big long tables with lots of people animatedly talking and swinging around big 2 pint jugs of potent beer, often standing up and singing at the top of their lungs. This place is amazing! We have some traditional german dinner of bratwursts, sauerkraut, roast pork and dumplings, and of course, a few jugs of beer, served by women in traditional german garb. It really is an incredible place, and feels extremely German, which we love.

We sit and drink our beers, stuffed and merry underneath the big chandeliers before deciding to leave and get some rest.

On the way back to the venue we get pulled over by the police and spend 30 minutes with them, they check our van and threaten to bring sniffer dogs, but since they clearly find nothing and seem to believe that we are above board they let us go and we climb into our bunk beds. I have to set my alarm for half 8 as I have to do a radio1 interview over the phone. Tom Deacon is covering the morning slot for a week and has chosen Weight of The World as his record of the week so is going to ring me for a chat, which is brilliant except for the fact that I appear to have no signal here. Typical! Anyway I set my alarm and after catching up on e-mails/skyping to friends and loved ones at home, we get some sleep. Bring on tomorrow! Can’t wait to walk around Munich again in the afternoon.

-Gus

European Tour Diary: Day 10 - Hamburg, Germany

When we get up, we take a quick walk around the local area for some breakfast before we leave for Hamburg. Our Tour Manager Emre can speak pretty much every language in the world so we come across a Turkish café. Seeing as Emre is Turkish and can speak German we figure we got all the bases covered and go in for some sandwiches and coffee. We walk back to the van noticing how common street art/graffiti is over here on the mainland. From tiny little pieces to building sized paintings, it seems more accepted over here. We open the doors to our travelling waste bin of a vehicle, and my suitcase flies out onto the pavement. From the top. That’ll be my one-week-old suitcase broken then. Awesome. It’s holding on for dear life and still has one zip that kind of holds it together so all is not lost, yet. It’s my property and will therefore break soon though.

We travel to Hamburg while Emre delights in telling us what’s going down in Turkey thanks to his Turkish newspaper he picked up in the café.

I feel like I keep on repeating myself when I say ‘the venue is really cool’, but truly that is the case, a lot of them are converted buildings and have a past history, and some are just laid out really well and are super accommodating. Partly I imagine it’s because Danko Jones pull big crowds so play good venues. Makes sense really, great for us though. This particular venue is close to the Red Light District of Hamburg and is called the Reeperbahn, which we are told by DJ’s crew is second only to Amsterdam’s - not that we even get to see it.


I do another interview in our dressing room while all the guys set up on stage for sound check and then join them on stage where we noodle around with a few new ideas and things to play on our next UK tour.
The show is great, but nobody is in the mood to go out after Berlin’s late night, and finally have the chance of a decent night’s rest so we pack the van and go back to our hotel. We paid for a shitty one but for some reason have been upgraded to a few really nice rooms at the top of the building which offer a great view out over Hamburg, which is awesome, but now we have three rooms that have a grand total of 12 beds in, instead of the 8 we ordered so somehow it feels like we are getting ripped off (we had booked 3 rooms to sleep our party of 8).

We hang out on the balcony of John and Mark’s room for a while before having probably the strangest half-asleep argument in the history of mankind over the rules of Heads or Tails. I lose and it is decided that I will be the one to get up early. Shit.

-Gus

European Tour Diary: Day 9 - Berlin, Germany

We finish the journey to Berlin in the morning and get to the venue, which used to be a massive post depot so we walk around its wide-open spaces, very industrial and very cool. It is also very cool to be in Berlin! I’ve never been and always wanted to, so I’m excited to be here. I remember watching The Berlin Wall being pulled down on the evening news when I was a kid, and now I can see it from our dressing room. Mad!

Sadly, we don’t have that much time before doors so we shower, eat yet another incredible dinner and get ready to go on stage. Tonight is a massive venue and to come to Berlin for the first time and be able to play to so many people is a great opportunity so we try our best to get them warmed up for Danko Jones later on.
After we’re done on stage we go upstairs, get cleaned up and wander down to the merch to hang out and meet anyone that wants to pick up merch or come say hi. I always find this to be one of the most rewarding parts of being on tour, meeting new people that have seen us play and have something nice to say. It’s a good feeling getting out to new people, especially when the crowd is made up of people who wouldn’t usually give our kind of thing a listen. We hover around merch until the show is over, sell as many CDs as we can and get on with my favourite EVER part of being in a band; The Load Out. This bit sucks. We heft all our heavy gear out of the venue and stick around the venue for a few hours as it turns into a club night. We drink lots of our new favourite beer ‘Berliner’ and then make a late exit to walk back to the hotel we are in for the night. It’s basically one big room with 8 beds in it so it feels like a school trip. In many ways, pretty much everything we ever do feels like a school trip. Make of that what you will…

-Gus

European Tour Diary: Day 8 - Copenhagen, Denmark

Denmark! Another first for us and me personally. I can’t wait to get there, even more so once Ben tells me that Biffy Clyro are playing a show at the same venueon the same night! They have a different room to us (obviously) but they are one of my favourite bands right now, and we’ve been fortunate enough to meet them a few times and hang for a while (they are possibly the nicest dudes ever) so it makes today even more exciting. We load in and make our way to the dressing room and once again fiddle with our laptops, doing a bit of demoing and putting some rough ideas down. I’m in the middle of a song that features the sound of John eating crisps in the background I will later discover. Interesting.

Tonight’s show is smaller, but a wicked one and I feel like we play it pretty much as well as we possibly can. Also, there is a group of people here that are actually fans of our band and give us some incredible presents of local foods, sweets etc. We are a lucky bunch of boys, and no there is no denying it, Anna and Karoline you guys are the best, thank you for our lovely present! And to our Swedish friends that have come to the past 3 or 4 shows and hung out with us, thank you so much. It means a lot to us. I can’t wait to come back again and spend more time with you all.

We rush to get all our stuff packed away and get a bit of Biffy Clyro in before the night ends. They are predictably good, and though Simon is sick, the songs still sound great, especially the material from the past 2 records, which I’m particularly a fan of. You just can’t argue with song writing of that quality. Simple as that. I really do feel Simon Neil’s pain though, even if nobody else notices much, not being able to perform as well as you know you can is infuriating, and when it’s because you’re sick there’s often nothing you can do about it. It’s like playing guitar with broken fingers, but as they say the show goes on so you just do what you can, and tonight they do that with skill. Good job gentlemen.

We leave and are taken to a Turkish restaurant by Emre (himself a turk) and we eat what might possibly be the best food ever. Fresh chicken shish kebabs cooked over hot stones, fresh hot wraps, delicious tsatziki and pitta etc. Literally incredible. We settle into our seats and begin the journey. Tonight is a long haul, 3 hours to the ferry that crosses from Denmark to our next destination: Germany! The ferry crossing is two hours long, and then another journey to the town of Rostock which is a midway point for us between Denmark and Berlin. The guys have slept in the van and on the ferry but I suck at sleeping so am pretty exhausted by the time we get into bed.

-Gus

European Tour Diary: Day 7 - Malmo, Sweden

This will be our seventh day in Scandinavia, and I love pretty much everything about it. The people are beautiful and hospitable, and so are countries themselves. I could live here very easily. I’m so grateful to be here and to be doing what we are.

We travel to Malmo without incident and arrive at the venue to watch Danko Jones sound check. They are so tight; it’s really something to see/hear. I’ve been using in ears for the first time ever on this tour so far, and I love it, but one of the earpieces stops working during our sound-check and afterwards I realise it’s because somehow the right ear has just…broken. Somehow it managed to disconnect itself and is just sadly dangling on a broken piece of cable. I either break or lose everything that I like, I am beginning to believe that I am cursed. Either that or just really really irresponsible. Perhaps it’s somewhere in the middle of the two, but it is so annoying. Damn it!!!! I’m not surprised, but it is so frustrating. When we’re playing supports, like this tour, often you have minimal space on stage once all the bands gear is up on stage. This makes it really hard to hear what you’re doing as a singer as most of the time all you can hear is cymbals and snare or bass guitar, having your voice and everything else actually in your ears can be really useful, but there’s not much I can do it about it so I just get on with it.

We chill for the evening and do a bit more song writing/demoing on our computers and warm up for the show. It’s another cool one tonight, and it is great seeing crowds that maybe wouldn’t give our band the time of day being won over and banging their head, it’s good to feel like we’re making progress.

Sadly, it is our last show in Sweden until whenever it is that we get to come back. We go out for some drinks with some of the Danko Jones guys and stay with some friends for the night.

-Gus

European Tour Diary: Day 6 - Gothenburg, Sweden

I’m a little sad that my time in Norway has been so brief, I don’t really feel like I got to grips with the city, but such is life, and I hope we’ll be back soon enough so I don’t get too down about it. Really, I’m lucky enough to be here in the first place, so that’s just how it goes I guess.

We leave and make our way back across the border to Gothenburg, Sweden. More amazing scenery, and lots of ‘danger’ moose crossing’ signs which are amazing. We stop off for some lunch at what turns out to be a huge cash and carry store. It’s hard to resist spending all of our money here, bags of M&Ms the size of pillows, gigantic Toblerones and all the imported American sweets you could think of. We like to consider ourselves sweet connoisseurs so I’m pretty amazed that we don’t come out with armfuls of tasty treats but we make do with some pizza and a few cans of American root beer and stuff like that and continue our journey. I eat a pizza called Obama while some of the others opt for a Da Vinci. I have no idea why they are called this but hey. 
We carry on and arrive at Gothenburg on time (shock horror).

We are fed in the restaurant next door to the venue, and it is SO posh, there is absolutely no way we belong in here but we soak it in, and it’s a cool experience eating in such a good quality restaurant when it’s closed. We mooch around the venue for a bit, looking at the wall of photos of cool other bands that have played here. Lamb of God were here on their last tour! Badass.
Tonight’s show is a lot better; the crowd is massive and treats us really well. Said it before, but we LOVE Sweden!



It is officially Ben’s birthday but we’re all so tired and worn out that we don’t really have the energy to go out. We are staying at some friends of Emre’s tonight, so we wait for them to finish up in the club post-show, and head back to theirs. They are lovely but both drunk and one of them pours a pint of Jack & Coke all over Simon on the journey back, much to his delight. We sleep in their spare room and make an early start the next morning.

-Gus.

European Tour Diary: Day 5 - Oslo, Norway

Fail plain miserably due to not really being able to sleep and pretty much have to go straight to the venue. Really cool place though, the Rockefeller, and we’re all excited to play again after a few days off. It’s only really now that the tour begins properly! 28 dates after tonight I think. Seems like a lifetime. When we get there, we are amazed to find that three Norwegian fans have come and have been waiting for us with some presents. We can’t believe it, and we hang out and take some pictures and chat for a while. Norway and Sweden seem pretty strict on age restrictions and tonight’s show is an 18+, so they can’t get in which really sucks. I try to figure out a way to do it but as a support act we don’t really have much weight so sadly we can’t make it happen but they hang outside for a while anyway and we talk. Next time guys, I promise, and thank you so much for coming to say hi, and the Norwegian chocolate.

We set up, and I leave the guys to sound check while I go to do another radio interview, on my own this time, for Radio Tango, Norway’s rock station. I get taken by cab (check me out) to the station and go up to the15th floor where I’m to do the interview. The view is immense, and it looks like mountains and rivers snaking off to the horizon in different directions surround Oslo. Pretty stunning stuff. Unfortunately, since I had my phone stolen in London a few weeks before, I have nothing to take pictures with so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

The interview with a lovely Norwegian woman called Marie is fun and easy enough, and I head back to the venue to get ready. The venue fills and we play our set. It’s fun, but the crowd do seem a little muted tonight, at least for us. That’s understandable, most people probably have no idea who we are, and people just want to see Danko Jones so it’s to be expected, but we give it all we got and make some new friends in the end.

It’s Ben’s birthday at the stroke of 12 we go for just a quiet few drinks, and plan to go out properly once we go back to Sweden tomorrow. We walk back to the hotel and pass out.

-Gus.

European Tour Diary: Day 4 - Day Off in Oslo, Norway

We wake up, sore headed but excited to start our first travel day in Europe. We’re on our way to the capital of Norway. Being half Norwegian but never having been there, I’m really excited but also completely unsure of what to expect. Will I feel some kind of homecoming sensation? Will I feel a kinship and a connection with this place I’ve never even been to before? I highly doubt it, but nevertheless part of me kind of hopes that will be the case.



We leave Stockholm and make our way across Sweden. The scenery on our journey is breathtaking, and though it’s not Norway it’s still Scandinavia and it feels good seeing this world I imagined all my life for real. Rolling hills and mountains, lakes and rivers, and fir tree forests lining the roads. We all want to get out so we stop the van in a remote area, climb up the bank on the side of the road and make our way through the wood to a beautiful still lake to skip stones, take pictures, and just generally absorb a bit of this amazing countryside. It really is amazing, but fucking cold! We lark around for a while by the lake and get back on with the journey, and arrive in Oslo quite late at night.

Tonight we are staying in what is basically a set of hostel rooms, which are basically a corridor with bunk beds and a sink. This is okay though, we’ve been in places like this plenty of times before, and the novelty of actually being able to stay in hotels/hostels and not on friends/acquaintances/strangers’ floors hasn’t worn off so it’s all good. We are pretty broke and Scandinavia is REALLY expensive, so we pop into the centre to see if we can eat some dinner for cheap. We walk past a cool looking venue and find out that one of my favourite new bands, a Norwegian punk/black metal/rock band called Kvelertak have just finished playing. Gutted! I keep missing these guys, missed them at Reading, at the Camden Underworld with Converge, and now all the way over here in Oslo. We find a junk food place and eat back at the room.

We are staying in the red light-ish area of Oslo and there are people around even though it’s pretty late. The area is a bit sketchy but kind of cool but we are all pretty exhausted so we split up into our two rooms and get into our beds. I later learn that Ben got stuck in the communal toilet for a while which amuses us no end. Our room is myself, John, Dave and Emre so I drift off while Emre reads and John and Dave skype each other for no reason at all. Plan to get up early and see some of the city.

-Gus.

European Tour Diary: Day 3 - Day Off in Stockholm, Sweden

Although we’ve only played one show so far, it’s really cool to have a day off so we can acclimatize to being in our new European surroundings. We get up and head out into town and basically spend the whole day walking around Stockholm looking at the sights and drinking coffee.

We eat an awesome Mexican lunch and go to a supermarket and buy essentials. Not being used to the different currency means that we spend LOTS without realizing, and come away with lots of different types of bread and not much else. Oops. We decide to head out for some drinks at a really awesome bar called Garlic & Shots. Funnily enough, the only other place in the world that has a Garlic & Shots bar is London, so we’ve basically ended up in the only place possible that we could just go to when we’re at home. Go us! Garlic & Shots is famous for (unsurprisingly) shots made out of garlic, chilli and all kinds of other crazy shit, so we choke down a few then hang out with the Danko Jones guys who are also in the bar eating dinner.The highlight of Fraser’s night is buying a Simpsons Duff branded beer, which is basically a normal beer but with a Duff sticker on it, and a much higher price.


I’ve spent the whole day stumbling along behind everyone else as I managed to get struck down by the worst toothache known to man, pretty much the second I set foot on European soil. I knew I should have gone to the dentist before we left. Looks like I’ll be in pain for the next 7 weeks then. Good good!

We have some more shots and head out to some cool rock bars where we hastily get rid of more money we can’t afford to spend, but we can’t help it - we love Sweden!

-Gus

European Tour Diary: Day 2 - Stockholm, Sweden

We gather in the lobby of the hotel we’re staying in and get ready to go. It is absolutely freezing in Stockholm, but none of us mind, and besides it gives us our first chance to try out our winter jackets we bought in preparation. We get to the venue which is a great place called Debaser and begin setting up for the day, getting our merch ready, getting our gear ready to sound check etc. Danko Jones have a cool light show, and I’m really jealous. It makes our homemade MDF boxes look a little tame but hey, you work with what you got, right? When, and if, it is ever our time to have lights, then we will. I hope.

While the others are mooching around at the venue or killing time exploring the local area, me John and Fraser grab our acoustics and head off to do some radio stuff for some radio stations nearby. It is another cool experience, and another first when we play an acoustic version of Weight of The World for John our DJ and host. Melts my mind that I’m sitting in a studio in Sweden singing a song we wrote in our rooms (pretty much), and I am struck once again by how funny life is. You just never know what you’re going to be doing in the future. Cool. We sneak off for an amazing Swedish lunch of Meatballs and Mash Potato and watch as a huge group of people sing happy birthday (I think?) in the restaurant we’re in. It sounds so cool and so Scandinavian and otherworldly, it gently stirs the notion or feeling that part of my history is here in this foreign world. We go back for another interview then head back to the venue.

We warm up and prepare for the show, before eating dinner at the venue before doors, and proving once again that the food is just amazing over here. I could get seriously fat doing this.

We don’t really get nervous (some of the things we’ve done this year pretty much hammered the nerves out of us) but we aren’t really sure what Danko Jones fans are going to make of us so we take to the stage half not expecting anybody to turn their head our way. The crowd is lively and ready for a good night so it works out fine and we flop onto the couches upstairs afterwards tired and sweaty but pleased. 28 more to go!



One of the reasons we were so excited about the idea of doing the Danko Jones tour (apart from visiting all these great countries and actually getting to tour with a cool band) was the idea that we would be playing to an entirely new bunch of people, which is something we’re all really keen on doing. We see making our way over to Europe as in some ways starting again, but in a good way. We’ve been lucky enough to have a great year at home in the UK, and we are appreciative of that but we also want to take our band as far and wide as we can. Europe is a big part of that, and just like at home where we built things up one person at a time, we aim to try and play hard, play well, and to get people to listen to our music that maybe wouldn’t otherwise do so. I hope (and think) that there is something in our music for different generations, genders, and any other divide you care to mention.

We celebrate our first night on tour by going out for some drinks with our managers and booking agent Sean, but every place we go to seems to be closing in 10 minutes so we pass through like ten different bars before the night ends with us (me) being denied entry to a club on a boat because I don’t have ID and apparently look like I need it. Score! Kind of…

We head back to the hotel and pass out. It’s funny, in some ways it feels like we’ve been on tour for ages, and this is only day one.

-Gus.

European Tour Diary: Day 1 - Home to Stockholm, Sweden

We get back to Young Guns base camp (a.k.a Ben’s mum’s house) at some hazy point of the early hours of Thursday night/Friday morning. Our last UK show for a month and a half was also one of the best (Warwick University you guys ruled and provided a brilliant end to the University tour) and now we are all exhausted, so we stumble out of the van (spilling food wrappers, drinks cans and bits of crap that make up most of a touring band’s day to day existence all over the driveway, as per) and get a few hours sleep strewn around the place at Ben’s. We wake up (late, again, as per) and get a lift to the airport worrying about passports and wash bags and all the other shit that we tend to leave. When I say we, what I really mean is me, as I tend to be the only one that actually forgets shit. I like to romanticize it (‘hey, I’m a dreamer, it’s not a crime!’) but really it’s just plain stupid. Still, this time we are ok and make it to the airport on time and squeeze our way onto our first Ryanair experience. All I will say on that particular matter is that it really fills you with confidence when they have to shift around passengers on the plane in order to ‘balance out the aircraft’.

We land in Stockholm and bid farewell to our new friends that we’ve made on the flight, on account of not a single one of us sitting next to each other, and hop into a cab to go to our hotel. Nick from Leicester, and your Swedish wife Anne, nice to meet you both - thanks for the Carlsberg.

We show our passports, collect our bags and meet our friends Dave (merch guy and professional handsome man) and Mark (all round helper outer, anecdote master and get-shit-done extraordinaire) and bundle into our new ride for the next 6 weeks, oohing and aah-ing at the leather seats and marble effect ceiling (why...?). Dave and Mark, along with our Tour Manager (master of everything) Emre are the people that are working with us on this tour and are in many ways as much a part of the band as we are. Without a crew, bands, especially a band like us, are nothing. The help they give us on a daily basis is beyond essential, if it wasn’t Emre in particular’s constant direction and knowledge we would be up the proverbial creek, and most definitely without a paddle. We love ‘em, and they probably hate us. I would. They will be spoken of in more depth for sure at some point soon, but back to our journey.

We set off from the airport, and I sit with my face stuck to the window looking at Sweden zoom by in the fading light, and it is only at this point that it dawns on me what it is we’re about to do. See, when you’re in a band and manage to get to the place that we have gotten ourselves to, often things can move so fast that you never really have time to catch your breath, and days weeks and even months can go by in what feels like the blink of an eye. You can be looking at your list of shows for the impending summer, with things like playing main stage Leeds and Reading seeming like a distant impossibility let alone a 6 week European tour a few months after it, and wondering what I’s all going to feel like, and then suddenly you’re driving through Sweden’s capital on the way to your hotel. It’s scary really, and makes me wish time was less cruel. I resolve to try and drink in every moment I can, but know I will fail. It’s a blessing, a curse, and the ultimate irony of being in a band and progressing/becoming more successful than you were. The more you get what you want, the more it slips by without you noticing. I hate this.

We get to the hotel and although we are all exhausted we are also getting more and more excited. Sleep is not an option just yet so we walk from the hotel to the nearby petrol station and spend 10 minutes fucking around there, looking at the new foods on offer and eat a light dinner of hot dogs and ice cream. Ah, tour diets! Even these are pretty amazing though – I always hated reading bands in the press slating UK food when I was younger but sadly, it would seem they’re right, europeans just do it better (though Sweden is crazy expensive). We wander back and get some rest before the first day of tour.

-Gus.

(We'll be posting these regularly, providing we can jump on wi-fi. As today is the first day, pictures were few and far between, but we'll be posting them too, and sending some to view exclusively on our new phone app!)

'All Our Kings Are Dead' Tour: Support Act Update

Hi guys,

We're stoked to announce that joining us on the road in November and December are The Swellers and Japanese Voyeurs in the UK and Francesqa in Ireland!

Check the asterisks below to see who's supporting at which date.

* = Support from The Swellers & Japanese Voyeurs
** = Support from Francesqa
*** = Support TBC

NOVEMBER
16: GLOUCESTER, Guildhall ***
17: STOKE ON TRENT, Sugarmill ***
19: CORK, Cyprus Avenue **
20: DUBLIN, o2 Academy 2 **
21: BELFAST, Speakeasy **
23: LEEDS, Cockpit *
24: BIRMINGHAM, HMV Institute *
25: NORWICH, Arts Centre *
26: YORK, Fibbers *
27: NEWCASTLE, o2 Academy 2 *
28: CARLISLE, Brickyard *
30: GLASGOW, Garage *

DECEMBER
01: PRESTON, 53 Degrees *
02: MANCHESTER, Academy 2 *
03: LONDON, Electric Ballroom *
04: BRIGHTON, Concorde 2 *
05: CARDIFF, Millennium Music Hall *
30: TUNBRIDGE WELLS, Forum ***

Ticket links for all shows are down the left hand side. Check out all three bands at:
http://www.myspace.com/theswellers
http://www.myspace.com/japanesevoyeurs
http://www.myspace.com/francesqa


PS - Don't forget, 'Weight of the World' is out November 1st. Check out the video in the post below.