People ask me what it’s been like – leaving family and friends behind and moving to the other side of the world. It’s a tough question to answer when I’ve missed a so many birthdays, celebrations… even a funeral. I usually reply that my time in Europe has been amazing (personally and for the band), so it’s been hard but worth it. I’m loving life over here and with the way things are going for the band, I can’t see myself moving back to Australia any time soon. I don’t usually talk about the harder side of what we’re doing, but I’m feeling philosophical at the moment…
We’re doing it Rolling Stones style and living together in one flat (in Berlin). We’ve all got separate rooms, which helps keep us sane. The flat doesn’t have any chill-out space though, which is tough. Plenty of people have housemates- but not many work, play, spend 20-30 hours a week in a little van and party (we do almost all our socialising after shows) with their housemates as well. The guys are more like family than friends, but that makes it harder too. Being around three brothers 24/7 is more difficult than being around three mates.
Our schedule is pretty brutal. Leave on Wed or Thurs, drive 8 or 9 hours, set up / soundcheck / play / pack down for 3 or 4 shows (and drive 4 or 5 hours between each show), drive back to Berlin on Sun (another 8 or 9 hours), work on the ‘business’ side of things on Mon and Tues… then do it all again. On bigger legs things get even more intense – our 2 week tour of France ended in Nice and we did Nice to Berlin in one day (and drove through 5 countries). Most nights on tour we’re sleeping at someone’s house on air beds and couches or staying in hostels (hotels aren’t really in the budget just yet). It’s an amazing way to meet people, but sleep deprivation is pretty standard. Getting to bed around 3 or 4am every night doesn’t help!
To put things in perspective, you might not know that we’re touring full time (yep – every week of the year). So we’ve been doing this every week for the last 10 months… crazy times.
Life on the road is an awesome adventure, but we’re usually never in one place long enough to develop deep friendships with people. Now that we’ve been here for a while that’s starting to change (our amazing friends in Geislingen, South Germany are a perfect example) – but it’s a slow process. We haven’t had a lot of spare time in Berlin to meet people either. So yeah, things can get a bit lonely sometimes.
That being said, the other question I get is “so, is it worth it?”. Despite the insanity, my answer to that has never changed. Two words – HELL YES.
-Raj
