Kerrang! March 10th 2001
Words: Paul Travers

Up in Smoke
Three bands. 12 people. Several tonnes of weed. Countless bouts of wanking.
Welcome to life on the road with Sunna, Miocene and Crackout…

"F**king hell, man, you really cane it off before a gig don't you? If I have one spliff these days I have to make sure I'm ready for bed 'cos it just knocks me out."
Sunna's resident sticksman Richie Mills just poked his head into the blue pungent haze that seems to fill any enclosed space containing one or more members of Miocene. We've joined the two bands - plus newcomers Crackout - in the less-than-salubrious environs of King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow, six days into a 20-date Kerrang!-sponsored UK tour. There are several hours to go until showtime, but already Miocene are cracking open the beers and serially skinning up. It isn't, they're quick to point out, that they're a bunch of complete potheads and drunks. They are, however, touring on a budget that would make a shoestring look ostentatious, and this is what helps them get through the day.
"We're basically living in a van and begging people for floors to sleep on every night," explains guitarist Graham ("just Graham" - the band refuse to use surnames, in a hardcore stylee). "Every morning when you wake up you ask yourself where you are, why you're so cold and why you feel like you're just been beaten up. You do get on each other's nerves and you get pissed off but when you've reached the very end of your tether you can always stop and roll a joint. You still feel like shit, you're still pissed off but the edge has gone and you can get through the rest of the day without committing murder."

It would, you suspect, be easy to at least contemplate the occasional homicide on a tour like this. The bands all appear to get one (albeit as acquaintances rather than best mates) but it's still a case of three groups of complete strangers being thrown together in a very enclosed environment. The dressing room we're currently holed-up in measures about 15-feet square and is expected to house the combined 12 members of all three bands. There are two sofas, a table with a bowl containing one solitary banana and a fridge full of beer. The fridge is divided into three sections, each clearly marked and designated for a particular band - Drink Thine Own Beer Only, as you might expect, is a sacrosanct commandment in the book of tour etiquette.
For Crackout - relative road fledglings with an average age of 19 - the key to a friction-free tour is unobtrusiveness.
"The first thing you have to know is when to shut up and when to step back," claims singer/guitarist Steven Eagles. "You have got a lot of people in an environment that isn't like normal life and you can't impose yourself on other people's space. Sometimes you have to sit back, pull your jumper over your head and just chill out."
Headliners Sunna - that's Richie, frontman Jon Harris, guitarist Ian McLaren, bassist Shane Goodwin and DJ Flatline (aka Mark Cahill) - at least have the sanctity of a tour bus to retreat to and can afford to eat out at decent Italian restaurants. While Miocene's most pressing concern is finding a floor for the night, Sunna's is how to combat the boredom that goes hand in hand with life on the road.
"PlayStation and masturbation," laughs Jon over a plate of pasta. "That's all we do."
It isn't all sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, then?
"If you're in the game to just go out and get laid and get smashed out of your face then you can find it," Richie shrugs.
"It does get boring pretty quick," adds Jon - an answer that suggests he's already been there, bought the T-shirt and decided it doesn't fit. "For me, if I start using class A's then I lose my voice and just end up ill. If you're gonna do that you've got to do it every night and it doesn't come into it for us. It's all about getting onstage and doing it up there."

Back at King Tuts, that onstage moment has finally arrived for Crackout. They might be relative unknowns who look more like sociology students than rock stars but the Buckinghamshire three-piece (completed by bassist Jack Dunkley and drummer Nick Millard) swiftly win over the capacity crown with a spikily infectious set of punk-edged pop-flavoured gems.
Performance over and with beers in hand they're more relaxed than earlier in the day, talking freely about everything from genitalia-devouring rats to the state of music in 2001.
"I had a bit of a rant about it on our website," says Stephen, referring to the latter topic, "because I don't think there are many good British bands around right now. The hardcore scene is really good but in more mainstream terms we've been lacking a really good English band since Bruce Dickinson left Iron Maiden. There are good bands out there but they're not breaking through and whatever gig you go to it's very rare to see T-shirts of an English band.
"I'm not saying everything's shit because that would be a ridiculous thing to say but there don't seem to be the real life-changing bands - here or anywhere - that were around when I was growing up. Nirvana are the obvious example but even when Green Day's 'Dookie' came out it was amazing the way that shook things up. I don't think kids who are just getting into music today will have anything like that to remember."
"It might be changing now with the likes of Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach and Wheatus in the Top Five," offers Nick.
But then none of those bands are a Nirvana…
"Exactly my point," nods Steve.

With their thoughtful and intelligent and yet resolutely ferocious assault, Miocene prise a more frenetic response from the crowd than Crackout. They also ask if anyone can put them up for the night. This garners cheers from people who probably think they're joking.
The band have frequently been cited as one of Britain's few credible answers to an American-dominated nu-metal scene. It therefore seems apt to continue the theme of previous conversations over yet more beers and through the ever-present haze of hash. All well and good, except it soon becomes apparent that Graham, vocalist Ben, drummer Leo and bassist Alex all object to the terms 'answer to', 'nu-metal' and 'scene'.
"You might get told you're the answer to the Deftones but what question are the Deftones posing that anyone feels they have to answer by forming another band?" Alex asks. He has, you'll recall, been smoking for most of the day.
"Who wants to be anywhere's answer to anything?" Graham snorts, somewhat more succinctly. "You shouldn't support a band just because they happen to be from England but, at the same time, you should be aware that a band from Newcastle can be just as good as a band from California."
And the nu-metal tag?
"I don't know if we'd want to be associated with something that can't even spell itself correctly," laughs Ben. "By its very name it's transient - in five years time nu-metal will be old-metal just because it's no longer new."
"The problem with every scene that's ever f**king existed is that they're based around cliques of people and doomed from the start," finishes Graham. "There are people who believe in a scene and they always believe its theirs and it belongs to them. There are people on the outside who think there's some closed-off world that they have to break into. And then there are people like me who don't give a shit and think you should get into music because you like it, not because it's cool or you want to be part of that clique."

By the time Sunna take to the stage the venue is absolutely rammed. The band's debut album 'One Minute Science' is a dark, brooding affair and live they manage to keep the atmospherics, while adding a weightier kick to the proceedings. Tonight they put in a performance that more than justifies their growing reputation and, as they make their way back from the stage towards the dressing room upstairs they're besieged by people thrusting ticket stubs, fliers and any old scraps of paper under their noses to be signed.
This is, Richie later confesses, a new thing for them and not one they're entirely comfortable with. It is, however, something they - and particularly Jon - might have to get used to. The singer, you see, already has the air of a star. It's not something as simple or crass as looking good or wearing sunglasses indoors, more a question of charisma and that indefinable quality that sets the true star apart from the mere frontman. The band's record label apparently views him as a 'potential icon' but remind him of this and he visibly cringes.
"That's an awful, f**king horrible thing to say about anyone. I don't like it, don't like the smell of it. I'm the same as anyone else and all this worshipping shit's beyond me. I've never looked up to anyone like that and I've never looked down on anyone either."
While Jon and Shane make their way back to the bus the rest of Sunna plus assorted Crackouts and Miocenes head for a local rock club. Here Richie is approached by a man in a Metallica T-shirt who produces a Metallica ticket stub and asks him to sign it.
"You're the best band I've seen since Metallica," he burbles, obviously continuing a theme.
North of the border, of course, they're not subject to archaic licensing laws that curb your consumption of alcohol at an unreasonable 2 a.m. The night, therefore, ends for Richie and Ian in a taxi queue at half past five where Richie is again accosted, this time by a young lady shocked at the state of his hair.
"Look at those roots, they're never natural," she shrieks.
"And this from a fat girl with a lesbo hair cut," the drummer sighs.

The next day starts at noon when we board Sunna's bus for the drive to Edinburgh. Richie is the only conscious band member and even he's not too sure: "I think I'm still pissed from last night," he grins.
With nothing to do until soundcheck and tonight's tiny venue not even possessing a dressing room to hang out in, we head for lunch and a wander round the city with Jon, Richie and Ian. Walking down one windswept thoroughfare Jon suddenly becomes animated and trots towards a window display. When we catch up with him we find him staring at a collection of lethal-looking swords.
"It's a long time since I stabbed someone," he says, almost wistfully. We're unsure whether he's joking or not.
The soundcheck itself becomes a protracted nightmare of technical difficulties which bears out Ian's proclamation that touring consists of "largely waiting to go and play". Worse still is the fact that tonight's gig has apparently been advertised for the wrong venue, but come showtime most of the fans appear to have found the right place. It's another enthusiastic albeit necessarily small crowd but this must all seem a far cry from Sunna's previous tour supporting A Perfect Circle in the States.
"Playing to a packed room, no matter what size, where everyone's getting into it and moshing or whatever is always cool," retorts Jon. "It's far stranger playing to people who are basically there to watch someone else. There's nothing worse than putting in all this effort then doing your thing at the end of it and people don't like it anyway. Seeing people who are into your music is what it's all about and it's what makes all the rest of the bullshit worthwhile."

thanks to laura for typing up the article

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