Hustle The Most

Hustle The Most Episode 16: Banding In Europe

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Hustle The Most Episode 16: Banding In Europe


So in 1998 which was the summer before I moved in with Phil I was drummining in a band called Earthmover. We were a hardcore band from Detroit and we had a few records out and done a handful of small tours and  bunch of weekends all over the east coast. We had just released a new record a few months earlier and were about to head out on our first European tour. I can’t tell you how stoked I was. I was going to Europe to travel and play drums!  had this record label in Europe that we working with that was pressing all of our vinyl. In hardcore this was pretty standard that bands would have a record label in the states that put out there cassettes and CD’s and then in have a label in Europe that pressed all vinyl then it would be distributed to other distros or record stores. It was pretty cool because sometimes you would see records that made it back here to the states from other bands or distros and it would be strange because it would be something that you had never seen before. It would be CD’s that you own but everything just looks bigger. I think the weirdest would be when you would see a record of your own band that you had never seen before. Something about seeing the artwork in a different medium it just really cool.

 

So the label we were working with was called Genet records and they were based out of Belgium. They were pressing all of our vinyl for the new record. The label also had a big hand in this big festival in Belgium called “Ieper Fest”. This fest was great because people from all over Europe would come to this show. Usually on the bill were a few American Bands, and then a bunch of different Euro bands from places like Italy, German, Holland, the UK and all over the place. This was the first time Earthmover had been there so people were pretty excited. Generally people over there were pretty stoked on most american bands. The label put us on the fest and then we worked with a few other companies, promoters and bands to basically book a tour around the fest. So 1 big festival and then a handful of supporting shows. This tour had lots of crazy adventures from the very beginning. We started the tour by driving our van from Detroit to Orlando so we could catch our flight. At the time there was an airline called City Bird that flew from like 5 destinations out of the US and only went to Brussels International Airport in Belgium and only on Wednesdays. The tickets were cheap I think it was like $330 roundtrip.

I think you can find deals like this now for cheap but at the time this was a pretty good deal. I think one of the reasons we booked with them was because they  had less restrictions on luggage so we could bring guitars and drum stuff without paying crazy amounts of fees.

So we drove to 24 hours to Orlando and left our van with our friends in the band Drag Body. We headed off to Europe. It was like an 8 hour flight. The flight was pretty uneventful for the most part. I remember we got there and our driver was waiting for us at the airport and we went right to the label. We didn’t really have anywhere to go so we just went there. We got in like 2 or 3 days early. Since the flight came in on a Wednesday and the first day of the fest was Friday we had a few days to kill. The guy that owned the label was a dude named Bruno and he and his wife owned record store in Gent Belgium called Pryuss and they also had an apartment above the store where they lived. We...