Good Trip, Bad Trip: Black Moth

Broken ankles and Haribo pyramids - it's life on the road...

Leeds-London types Black Moth have always struck hard.

Very much a physical live experience, the band have criss-crossed the continent, with their black-clad rock vision demolishing venues across Europe and beyond.

Recently touring with everyone from Sisters Of Mercy to L7, the band have experienced things few others can match.

A fresh batch of live shows have been announced for February, with Black Moth set to preview material from their incoming record ‘Anatomical Venus’.

Here, singer Harriet Hyde recalls a few hair-raising experiences from the road in Good Trip, Bad Trip…

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Best Trip…
I think our European tour with Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats has to be the winner… Just amazing venues and perfect crowds every night and they were fresh off their tour with Black Sabbath so their crowd were exactly the sort of people we wanted to be playing to. Having said that, it was almost too good. It’s the chaotic trips where we had to bomb up the motorway with the van door hanging off… or turn the van into a winter wonderland to take our minds off the bitter cold… they’re the moments you’ll always remember!

Worst Trip…
I think the tour that was most beset by disaster was the UK and Europe with dark lords, Sisters Of Mercy. It was all going brilliantly as we were merrily making our way up the motorway to Glasgow for the first show. We even stopped at service station heaven – the touring band’s dream: Tebay! Say that word to any touring musician and watch them go weak at the knees.

But the moment we pulled up outside the venue, I stepped out of the van and CRUNCH! My ankle just inexplicably went beneath me! I was in agony for all of those shows, drugged up to the eyeballs on painkillers and red wine! Then after one almighty show in Germany, the rest of the tour was pulled due to Andrew Eldridge losing his voice! The Gods weren’t smiling on us for those shows….

Our favourite foreign venue…
I really love the Rock Café in Hamburg! It’s a scuzzy little German rock club like many of the others we know and love. Germany is our favourite country to play. However, the backstage area at this one is like no other… just dreamy – like a cosy, underground Moroccan palace.

They brought us delicious Indian food, we had hot showers and generally felt rejuvenated to carry on with the tour like healthy humans, not stinky husks. Little things like that make a huge difference when you’ve been on the road for a while…

We’re surprisingly popular in…
Sao Paulo apparently! Although we’ve never played there – I’d love to! Maybe we should get on that.

Best or worst exotic foodstuff…
In Italy we were given ‘chips pizza’ once. That was pretty weird, it was as if they wanted to give us something Italian but couldn’t quite trust our dull English taste to embrace it. In Germany they sometimes give us a fucking pyramid of Haribo gold bears. That’s when you know you’re in for a good night.

Most interesting individual you've met on the road…
We met a bunch of cool, wizened old hippies in a motel once and it turned out they were also playing a show nearby. Turned out it was Chris Jagger- Mick’s brother and we partied with them for the night! That was a pretty surreal one!

Overall though, meeting and playing some dates with the ladies from L7 was a dream come true for me. And they were even more awesome than I had hoped. I went drinking and dancing with Donita in LA and it was definitely one of the most fun nights I don’t remember…

Worst on-tour injury, or infection, or accident…
I think even worse than the ankle sprain is when I party too hard and screw up my voice. That is hellish as I so don’t want to let everyone down but it hurts too much to sing so it becomes an anxiety-riddled existential crisis to boot. I try not to do that these days.

When we played White Trash restaurant in Berlin years ago, our organ player (yes we had an organ player for a while) had a dodgy currywurst and had to throw himself offstage and past all the confused diners in order to projectile in the carpark…

My essential travel item…
I like to bring a few good books which will weigh my bag down and I will not even look at for three weeks. I think I bring more books to ignore every time. It’s quite a talent.

My essential travel tip…
There’s a lot of sitting around on tour… in vans and in venues. I’d say get off your ass and go exploring, at every possible opportunity. Maybe take a camera if that motivates you, but there’s no point in having the opportunity to travel with your music and squandering it by being a hungover waste of space in a dark room scrolling through Instagram like a dead-eyed zombie.

I see far too much of this with touring bands and we’re determined not to be like that!

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Black Moth are set to play the following shows:

February
7 Brighton Hope & Ruin
8 London Boston Music Rooms
9 Manchester Rebellion
11 Glasgow Garage Attic
12 Newcastle The Cluny 2
13 Birmingham Mama Roux’s
14 Cardiff Fuel
15 Norwich Waterfront Studios
16 Leeds Brudenell Social Club

Join us on Vero, as we get under the skin of global cultural happenings. Follow Clash Magazine as we skip merrily between clubs, concerts, interviews and photo shoots. Get backstage sneak peeks and a true view into our world as the fun and games unfold.

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