Kings of the road: mini skirts! carbohydrates! drummer’s arse!

Offered the opportunity to write a fly-on-the-wall, warts ’n’ all piece on the Future Kings of Spain on tour in the UK, I naturally jumped at the prospect. The New World Disorder tour – a rock ’n’ roll safari through the small towns and big smokes of the British Isle, rolling at the breakneck pace of 15 shows in 15 days. The Dublin boys were sharing the tour bus, the limelight and pretty much everything else with two bands, My Red Cell and Ludes. According to the posters, they’re “the bands NME are tipping for next year. No musical hierarchy, just onstage anarchy”.

In my mind I’d prepared for two days of the kind of drug-fuelled debauchery that Led Zep legends and rock ’n’ roll cliches are made of. No sleep till Leeds, like. The reality, however, involved a lot less high jinks and a lot more waiting. Rockstars, after all, are made of flesh and bone.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22

1730: Fez Bar, Sheffield
Hot Press is joining the Future Kings on the Yorkshire leg of the NWD tour. Not to be forgotten for giving the world stainless steel and Licorice Allsorts, Sheffield is also the home of the legendary Def Leppard.
We arrive at the venue to find Bryan Mahon (drums) and Tony Hegarty (bass) lounging on beanbags backstage. Having just finished their sound check they’re keen to entertain new company in their relatively lavish dressing room.
Bryan introduces us to the well-stocked rider: “It’s the best we’ve had so far,” he says with glee. Rarely can you expect to avail of all five food groups from a backstage rider, but today’s selection includes a fine array of crisps, bread and dips, celery sticks, nuts, fruit, one bottle of red wine and one case of San Miguel beer. It becomes apparent over the next few hours, as the motley crew from My Red Cell and Ludes amble in to forage from the rider, that it is clearly the highlight of Day 6.
While the Dublin lads are modestly dressed in jeans, trainers and nondescript jumpers, their British bus mates are lifting the punk fashion stakes with a sufficient quota of pin-stripe blazers, mohawks, dreadlocks and woven scarves. (“When we played the South London show everyone in the audience was wearing those scarves,” remarks Bryan, “I guess they were all the friends of Ludes.”)
The Future Kings of Spain were the Former Kids of Leixlip, where Bryan, Tony and Joey all grew up. With their down-to-earth manner and self-deprecating humour, the Kings are a breath of fresh air in a music industry that tends to cater all too often for the sense of sight ahead of hearing.
Well, there was the matter of Tony’s check shirt phase, which followed in the tradition of Mike Watt, who’d played with J Mascis at his Temple Bar Music Centre gig (where the Kings played their first ever support slot). Tony maintains it wasn’t a conscious decision to emulate his ex-Firehose hero: “I’d be in shops and I was was just drawn to the check shirts,” he smiles. “The other guys would just be standing there shaking their heads and laughing at me.”
Enter Karl Hussey, the newest appointment to the Future Kings of Spain. This tour is his first live outing with the band and he seems to be having a right royal time - both during and after gigs. Today, however, the long nights drinking have taken their toll and the Kings are all partied out. Joey, who is nowhere to be seen, has apparently lost his voice from all the early morning sing-a-longs in the tour bus. Tony is sunken into the sea of beanbags like its quicksand: “Maybe I could get a lead long enough to play my bass from here,” he laughs.
Bryan, who injured his back lifting equipment yesterday, has binged on the mini chocolate eggs from the rider. “I feel like a kid at a birthday party,” he says holding his stomach.
Bryan says that the band don’t generally drink before their gigs. He takes a bottle of water from the rider before continuing. “We’ve learnt from past mistakes… How do we know that no one’s tampered with this water?”
“Bryan’s the most paranoid member of the band,” smiles Karl.

1800: Media interviews
Bryan is also the most talkative member of the band, and that’s why he ends up with the media commitments. On this tour it’s been 2 or 3 daily interviews with local papers, web sites and college radio stations.
One interview the band were all pleased to oblige was during their London stint, when they spoke to none other than Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickenson, who presents a radio show on BBC 6. “He was asking us about all the small details of different songs, it was incredible,” enthuses Bryan.

1830: A worse-for-wear Joey has returned from his Strepsil’s mission, and sits quietly nursing his throat in preparation for the gig.
The others haven’t had the luxury of visiting the chemists of Sheffield, though Bryan is particularly interested in Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre - home of the annual World Snooker Championships. As it turns out, snooker is the Kings’ sport of choice. With the exception of Karl, who is yet to be fully initiated into the band, they all have membership for a chain of pool halls that they frequent when on tour in
the UK.

2130: The crowd has gradually dispersed by the time the Kings take the stage on their headlining night. It’s Sheffield’s loss, as they perform a set so energetic that they inflict injury to their equipment – a broken guitar string by Joey (common) and a broken snare drum by Bryan (unprecedented). Joey’s trademark screaming seems in no way impaired as he writhes and howls his way through a blistering 30-minute set.

2230: Since the bus is not leaving tonight the boys have the rare opportunity to hit the town. Even Bryan is lured out, though usually he’d avoid big nights drinking on tour. (He later tells me the best thing about going out in Dublin is “knowing that bed is at most 30 minutes taxi drive away”). Joey and Canice, the sound engineer, have gone ahead with the brief of finding “somewhere decent”, but all lines of communication fall through while the rest of us search in vain for The Casbah, which was wrongly misinterpreted as the Carpet Bar.
Sheffield’s streets resound with sirens and Rugby festivities and hyena-like laughter from the middle-aged stilletto brigades. We can’t help but feel like Sheffield is to the English what Temple Bar is to, well, the English. The lads note the high ratio of women, but don’t seem impressed by their “belt-like miniskirts”. We decide to cut our losses and go back to the club at the Fez Bar, where several quiet beers are consumed until closing time. It’s a far cry from Motley Crue, but it’s an average night in the pub for these typical Irish lads.

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 23

1030: Sunday morning is perhaps not
the best time to experience the thrills and spills of the tour bus. The most action occurs when Bryan – who, naturally, is the only person awake - has a minor disaster carrying cups tea down the stairs as the bus takes a turn. He pops in a video (“It’s too early for talking”) and we laugh our way to Leeds with Reeves & Mortimer.

1200: Premier Lodge Hotel, Leeds
The tour bus pulls up in the hotel in the outskirts of Leeds, and we wait an hour before the ‘day-rooms’ are prepared. The band members take their daily showers and return to the bus without so much as a stolen towel. There is no time for trashing rooms or ransacking mini-bars on this tour.

1400: Rolling on to Leeds, the bus becomes a hive of activity. In the upstairs lounge area the boys from Ludes and My Red Cell are sitting around strumming guitars, playing Playstation 2 and making obligatory phone calls to girlfriends.
Another popular activity on any tour bus is, naturally, listening to music. The artists on high rotation this week are Refused, Gram Parson, ska compilations and various David Bowie titles (“In honour of the Dublin gig we missed last night,” says Joey).
Then there’s the DVD facilities (Charlie & The Chocolate Factory is a particular favourite with the Dubs) and videos (a number of adult titles that found their way onto the bus).
While this 18-sleeper tour bus is actually bottom of the range (the five-star Austrian models have double bed bunks, each with a private TV) it’s still good enough for Gangstarr. The hip-hop legends were also performing in Manchester on Friday night and had parked their identical tour bus alongside that of the New World Disorder crew. So you can imagine the confusion when the boys from Ludes settled themselves onto the wrong tour bus, only realizing their mistake when they came face to face with DJ Premier and Guru (luckily before the keepers got there first).

1430: Leeds Metropolitan University
Arrive at the venue after a short drive and a longer wait. All band members chip in unloading equipment from the bus, and the day’s work begins on empty stomachs.

1450: Excitement spreads through the camp when the tour manager announces that free hot dinners will be available in the university cafeteria. “Fair doors,” is the Future Kings catch-cry. With a tour budget that provides each band member with £10 pocket money per day, eating and drinking are mutually exclusive activities.

1500:Instrument maintenance
Bryan is busy fixing his snare drum, while Karl and Joey begin re-stringing and tuning their guitars.
As well as playing guitar, Karl also plays the ukeleli and has an album of songs that he once wrote during a ten-week holiday in Thailand. His other hobby is buying and selling guitars on E-Bay. “It’s kinda like women,” he smiles. “You might think you want to keep looking around but you always go back to the one you love.”

1600: Sightseeing
The Kings have a little free time before their sound check, so we take an aimless stroll along the sleepy Sunday streets of Leeds. Nothing too interesting other than the dirtiest church we’ve ever seen and a large ship anchored on a grassy knoll that’s been transformed into a bar on the inside. The band enthuse about the Japanese tour that’s being mooted for January.

1730: After about an hour’s delay, the Kings begin their sound check. Bryan changes into his ‘drumming shoes’: “They have no weight on them,” he says “Like the kind that Ben Johnson wears.” Of course, because they’re white and get dirty easily, they’re only ever worn onstage. Rock ’n’ roll, man!

1800: Dinner is served, heavy on the carbos. As Joey’s mum used to say “Hunger is the best sauce – it makes anything taste good.”

1900 – 2100: Joey is drawn to the ‘Pepsi Chart Music Quiz’ machine, where he puts hotpress to shame with his freakish knowledge of music knowledge and boy band trivia. “I have no job.I watch a lot of TV,” he explains. Two hours and 20+ pounds later we finally win the coveted £2 cash prize – only to realize that the machine is broken.

2130: The Kings take the stage and belt out another seamless set. The venue could have done with a few more bodies, but in no way does the turnout effect the band’s performance. I suspect that Joey would scream as loud for six people as he would 600.

2220: Bump into Bryan, who has happily availed of the shower facilities in the dressing room. “Drummer’s arse,” he says with a grave face. “I’m always dripping with sweat by the end of a set.”

2300: Equipment is reloaded onto the bus and we say our hasty good byes. Joey apologizes for the lack of ‘action’ and hopes that we got what we wanted. It wasn’t a weekend of sex or drugs but we did get a total hour of pure, honest rock ’n’ roll. And that was well worth the wait.

The self-titled album from the Future Kings of Spain is out now on Red Flag Records. They embark on an 8-date tour of Ireland next month, finishing at Whelan’s on December 21. See gig listings for more details

[Images Shawn Lynch]