Okay,
So we travelled to Norway on the last tour, and you'll never guess what?! Our Van broke down in Bergen. This usually happens every time we tour, but we didn't expect it to happen after paying £1700 on repairs (thanks LDV). Top it off, Bergen is geographically one of the worst place to break down in Europe. Financially, it is devestating.
Add some more icing to the cake, the German Pigs pulled us over, did a piss test on our driver, and turns out there was THC in his piss!! Whooooo!!! That's another 1000€ bill!!!!
Norwegians pay bands really well, but we were stranded in Bergen for 6 days straight. Being a 6 piece band, this is extremely expensive, especially when a meal costs you £10 a head, and £5 is a cheaply priced beer. We were living off £2 hot dogs for days, much to the dismay of our guts, and assholes. mmmm....
We had an amazing time in Bergen and met a lot of new friends (you all know who you are). The town even put on a benefit concert for us, and the local paper ran a story telling everyone how fucked we were. Without the help of Fred, Solgun, Line and Elizabeth, we would be close to death out there. An extremely desperate situation.
After 6 days in Bergen, the garage told us that the van was fucked, and so we had no choice but to fly home. We arrived at the airport, and tried to book all 6 of us on the same flight. Only 3 flights were available, and so that cost us £700 for 3 people. 3 people then had to fly on a more expensive flight, which was close to £400 per person. It was complete extortion, but what can you do?
So, in the end, Action Beat 'the mug band from Bletchley' spent £1700 on repairs to a van that was never going to make another tour. 1000€ to the Germans, cause we are weed addicts. And, £1800 on flights. Tell me about any band that goes through that shit??!
Our van is still stuck in Bergen, with all our equipment. We recently bought two custom amplifiers for £700, and 2 guitar cabs for £500. They are stuck in the van, and we have no idea if they are still there?! All our shit has probably been robbed!!!
All I can do is laugh, or I'll go mental.
Action Beat is in about £9000 debt now. We don't make money on tour, because our van is constantly breaking. It's now a write off. We don't make money from record sales, cause we're not that popular.
We love playing in a band, and we have met so many cool people. We've played around 200 and something shows in 2 years, and so now we will probably have to take a little break, to work real, shit jobs, earn some money and save for our next tour. It sucks, but what else is there to do?!
I don't know why I am telling you all about our shitty problems. To you, we are probably just a band. This is just to clarify that we aren't these rich pricks living off music. Quite the opposite. Our music lives of us.
Wanna book us for a £10,000 fee???
fortissimorecords@hotmail.com Don