Norwegian band Arabrot were one of our five bands to watch at the Inferno Festival in Norway earlier this year. The band’s brand of sludge and noise had us pretty instantly hooked, and they delivered live. With the band currently on tour in Europe, the band have agreed to give us a tour diary. Here’s the first installment, in which their tour gets off to a less than ideal start:
SATURDAY OCTOBER 11th, VANSBRO, DALARNA (SWEDEN)
Arabrot is back! Just a few months ago an impossible thought. The idea of floating back to the surface from the bottom of the sea is almost indiscernible. No wonder someone screams “Jesus” in between every song at M4, Brussels, Belgium.
Arabrot’s been tossed and turned, scarred and wounded, humiliated and ravished through the years. Members come and members go, some grateful some broken. Songs written – some great, some futile. Many years have passed while dwelling in the gutter of underground music. Arabrot has been banned in Boston, has been banned in Leipzig. We’ve been accused of being nationalists, sexists, pederasts and Machiavellian. Why?! God knows why, but the truth is that the meticulous planning and organizing of a tour that includes a wall of amps certainly acquires a certain whiff of fascist order.
Amp tubes need changing, broken cymbal stands need repair and the vehicle needs a few thousand NOKs ($) worth of work. A few weeks 12 hours shifts and finally everything, including the seemingly fatuous little detail, is crossed, checked, completed.
An important part of the overall autistic approach to these details is making sure our beloved “Doris” (the van) has the correct air pressure. The load is surely heavy. On the way down from the church (where we live in the Swedish countryside), there is a nice little gas station that actually sells guitar strings, drum sticks and instrument cables(!?).
I worked out the air device and filled the tires to a perfect 4.5 bars and put the tool back in place. Then opening the front door, ready to continue our journey I notice a local fat fuckface in a small ugly shitcar parking right in front of “Doris!” Fuckface is already out filling his shitcar with gas. As there is now no room for “Doris” to move forward and we don’t have time to idle I set in reverse with no room to maneuver, crash right into a rental trailer! Shifting forward the horrifying sound of metal scraping metal fills the air and the entire grille of “Doris” falls to the concrete, leaving a HUGE gap in the front of the van.
Thus begins a seemingly “magnificent” start to our three week musical excursion. As I see fuckface gaping back at me, I thank the gods of destiny that I channel much of my anger through intensely angry music so Dalarna, Sweden didn’t have its first ever mid-day gas station manslaughter on this beautiful October afternoon.
