Tour life might seem glamorous and fun, but it ain’t for the faint of heart. Between the homesickness and long drives, there’s also the issue of where to rest your head each night. Up-and-coming bands cutting their teeth playing tiny gig after tiny gig don’t get to ride in a lux tour bus much less stay in a hotel room every evening. Instead, they get to crash wherever they can while trying to save up gas money. Italian death-metal crew Blasphemer are doing alright for themselves these days, but it wasn’t that long ago that the boys were staying in some pretty shady spots while on the road. We caught up with the band — which just released its third album, The Sixth Hour, via Candlelight Records — to get a look at what tour life is really all about, warts and all.
1. The Bunker
Some years ago we often played in northern Switzerland, and after the show we usually slept in some fallout shelter, which was our accommodation.
2. The Garage
When we were on tour in the USA for the first time, we booked a last-minute show somewhere in Virginia in a place called The Garage. Well, it was actually a fucking garage! The backstage was in the house nearby, which was creepy AF and from outside looked exactly like the house in the movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre!
3. The Prison
Again in the U.S., North or South Carolina, right in the middle of nowhere. Out of the venue: nothing. We walked around looking for some food, but the only building we found was a prison!
4. The Church
During one tour, we played in a deconsecrated church in Poland — very suggestive indeed, but the sound was awful due to the huge natural reverb. Warming up in the ex-sacristy was weird!
5. The porno set
When we played in Russia, we rented an apartment ’cause we wanted to spend couple of days there after the show. We rented an apartment and we had to wait more than two hours to get the key, because the owner, a girl, explained that they were making a movie and, yes, one of those movie! When she showed up to give us the key, she was completely drunk and tried to get into the building but something didn’t work. After half an hour she realized that she was trying with the wrong building.
