In this final installment of Kings Destroy‘s European tour diary, vocalist Steve Murphy steps in to wrap up the last several shows on the band’s run with Rosetta, taking us through five countries in six nights in the process. Since this is the final update and the tour is over, I’d like to send extra thanks to Murphy, to guitarists Carl Porcaro and Chris “C-Wolf” Skowronski, bassist Aaron Bumpus and drummer Rob Sefcik for their contributions along the way. It’s been a blast to read about their wine-addled gallivanting, and I hope to get the opportunity to do it again soon.

Also please note that the live photos for this entry were taken from links provided by the band. The shot of Murphy below is by Laura Bender, and the pics of Porcaro and Bumpus are by Diana Matthess. Please enjoy:

Vienna, Austria

I’ll pick up the tour diary from here. Drive from Prague to Vienna, Austria, overly long but we get in around 7PM which means we don’t have time to see arguably one of the most beautiful cities in the world… bummer. We load in at Club Arena… I see on the flyer Ufomammut, Red Fang, Electric Wizard are all playing here coming up. The venue is an old slaughterhouse comprising of four or five buildings in various states of disrepair — perfect for us. There is an opening band called Torn from Earth from Budapest. They rip through a heavy set that I dug. We are next. We are pretty tight by now. Locked in to each other. We are playing new songs probably half the set each night. We finish a 45-minute set to calls for an encore but there is no time. Rosetta step onstage. They have mastered the changeover on this tour and often start within 10-15 minutes of us. They are a great band. They’ve toured the world and have played 750-plus shows. I marvel at that knowing KD just finished playing show number 40 in our brief tenure. Just got news that David Bottrill will be mixing the album so pretty psyched about that. Requisite night out and crash to sleep. Tomorrow Budapest, one of my favorite cities in the world.

Budapest, Hungary

Whoa. What a stunning city. Think Paris with an edge. We got to the club early and had four hours to kill so KD and Armine from Rosetta found a large thermal spa which Budapest is famous for, paid 12 bucks to get in and had our fill of 15 different thermal baths of varying temperatures, the highlight being a large outdoor pool with a built in whirlpool that was about the size of a circle pit and moving 25mph filled with people going round and round. Carl went in it and as he was trying to exit crushed about four Hungarians because he miscalculated the speed required to exit the whirlpool — hilarious. Back to the venue for load in, food, sound check. Opening band again is Torn from Earth who are supercool dudes. They draw a good crowd. KD hits the stage with eight people in the audience. We kick it off with “The Mountie” and people start filtering in. Onto a new song, “Decrepit,” which is slow. Crowd is now three-quarters full and people are into it but tentatively. We have been told the Budapest metal scene is quite discerning, and if they don’t like you, they will let you know. Kick off “The Toe” with Carl in the audience and me climbing the stacks where we remained… Hmmm, Budapest starting to wake up. Straight into another new one “Casse-Tête” and now people are hooked. Ride out the set with “Old Yeller” and people are screaming for one more, so they get a sloppily-played “Dice.” Best show of the tour after Poland thus far. Late night for the band afterwards. Pretty much like every night at this point. The van ride to Croatia is a quiet one with guys licking their wounds from the night before.

Zagreb, Croatia

Croatia is not in the EU so we got caught up at the border for an hour, which wasn’t fun. Got into Zagreb and rolled into a DIY punk venue. Walked in and knew we were in trouble immediately. Warm beer in the fridge, bathroom that rivaled CBGB’s circa 1985 minus the glory. Loaded in and immediately left the venue to spend as much time as possible away from it. We found the nice part of town and sat at an outdoor cafe for dinner. Nothing like some cold local wine and beer to loosen up after a long drive. Go on at 10PM and play well for an hour. Set is now 70 percent new stuff. Made a bunch of new fans. A young lady came to the front and tried to stop the set midway through demanding that I come over to her in Croatian. I dismissed her with a wave away and then didn’t see her until after the set. I’ve had a habit of wearing white and orange polka dot socks pulled up this tour. She approached me in a very inebriated fashion to tell me that she had only wanted to pull my socks down. She then asked me for my dirty socks. That was a first. I offered to trade them for her underwear (tongue in cheek), to which I was told she wasn’t wearing any. After receiving that information I dutifully removed my socks and handed them over. It’s the small things in life. The night ends up with the band hanging out in a park with some of the locals late. These people were just thrilled to see a band from NYC and meet us and we were thrilled right back. Tomorrow a long drive to Comacchio, Italy.

Comacchio, Italy

Three shows left. Long drive today. We’re used to it but it weighs on us at this point. The show in Zagreb was great. We are very wary of playing in Italy. Many members of KD have played Italy before to poor crowds. Rosetta has also not played Italy at all. We have a beautiful drive through Slovenia – wow, what a country. We arrive at venue at 7PM and it’s looking good: Nice club, big stage and DRI is playing here in a few weeks. How bad could it be? We haven’t had a bad show yet in terms of crowd. Rosetta has a loyal draw and KD seems to have a complementary sound and so it’s been a great tour. We find out there are five bands playing and that we go on at midnight. Great — the Adriatic Sea is a 15-minute walk, so we load in, set up and head to the beach for a 9:30PM swim and a bite to eat. Sun is still setting when we get there and it’s a nice seaside community. We are out of place with our black t-shirts and shorts and scraggly look. No worries, as we are immediately enjoying the Adriatic and the water temp is about 85 degrees. Awesome. We hit a seaside cafe for a bottle of chilled Italian wine. Awesome. We walk back to the venue and it’s empty. Uh oh. Some crappy hardcore band is playing and there is no one there. It’s 11PM. Ok first bad show. We’ve played enough shows to know this. There is a DJ playing bad hardcore music between sets. I ask him to play Black Sabbath during our changeover. He says no. I think to myself that’s perfect. I go to the bar and get five shots of Jeager, bring them onstage and we toast the crowd of 20 and drain them. We go on at 12:45AM and play five songs. There was an exceptionally long mic chord, so during the second song I walked off stage and straight behind the bar and sang to the bartenders – didn’t Italian opera singers sing in restaurants for food and drink? I guess that’s lost on this generation. I try to sing and serve at the same time but that doesn’t work out too well. The small crowd has smiles on their faces though and that’s a win for a show like that. Rosetta hits the stage at 1:25AM. They are a machine and rip through a set. Bad show — it happens — we take it in stride. We sleep at a seaside hostel wake up and hit the beach again as though we are on vacation. Two days to go. The Adriatic Sea cleansing away the poor memories of the previous night. Onward to Milan.

Milan, Italy

Second to last show. We find out the show is being promoted by same company that did previous show. Bummer. We are on autopilot though. We have an album to record and are focused on that. Inside the van the language being spoken is English but all in a sort of dialect that has alternative meanings. I realize that if anyone were to enter the van and ride with us right now they would not understand any of the conversations. Touring has a way of altering your mental state to a point that only your bandmates can understand you and each other. It’s an interesting dynamic. Drive, load in, sound check, go find someplace to eat. Club is in the middle of nowhere in Milan. The sound at the club is great though and that means something to us. We find a small local restaurant and have great fresh Italian food and wine. As we walk back to the club we see a rather large fire of burning tires in an abandoned lot. The entire area reeks and is smoky. It’s like a scene out of a war… It reminds us of the Bronx. We hit the stage and play almost all new stuff. It’s ours now and we are not tentative with it. The last six shows during the bass break in “The Mountie,” Aaron has been playing something different, usually Iron Maiden or Metallica. The last two nights he has been playing a Rosetta bassline. Rosetta pays homage to us tonight by playing the first 30 seconds of “Casse-Tête, one of our new songs. It does not go unappreciated by KD. Quiet night for a change. The tour is rapidly winding down and there is talk in the van of the hated “reentry” into our non-touring lives. We know what to expect but it’s still tough to deal with — the feelings of isolation and not wanting human contact upon returning seem counterintuitive but we all feel the same way.

Karlsruhe, Germany

Eight-hour drive to Karlsruhe is pain, but we drive through Switzerland. It’s stunning. We have been in 14 countries in 19 days and played 17 shows. Everybody has gotten along well. We roll into Karlsruhe with mixed feelings. It’s Sunday night so we have low expectations. It’s also raining. Wrong. Place has a great crowd and we summon a huge reserve of energy and basically just let it all hang out. Set ends with everyone playing in the crowd except Rob, the drummer. Perfect ending to KD tour. Rosetta gets up and rips the place up. Band has to load out and drive overnight to Brussels to catch an 8AM flight. It’ll take a few days for the tour to sink in, but from my perspective we achieved what we set out to achieve, saw some great spots, met the nicest people and got to play hard every night. Onto the next one!

When vocalist Steve Murphy of Kings Destroy — who’s hands down one of the most solid dudes I’ve ever come across in my doomly travels — first pitched me on the idea of a European tour diary, I was like, “Yeah, alright, I’d be up for that.” And I was, but I kind of figured that the band would be too busy drinking good beer and kicking good ass to actually follow through on it.

More the fool I, and rarely have I been so thrilled to play the fool. Below, bassist Aaron Bumpus checks in from the road as Kings Destroy opens the Red Stage at Sweden’s Getaway Rock Fest and continues their European run with Rosetta. If you’ve missed the first installments of the tour diary, click here.

Dig it:

Berlin-Prague
Official tour song: Scorpions, “Winds of Change”
Official tour mascot: Paul Stanley

After another great show at Magnet with our tourmates, Rosetta, Kings Destroy says farewell to Berlin and heads north to Sweden. My mind begins to generate a rather long list of bands that were born in this country over the years, and I start to think, “What metalhead wouldn’t be psyched about going to Sweden?”. Especially when said visit involves an insane event like Getaway Rock Fest.

Driving up from Berlin to the ferry, we hadn’t slept much in the van. So once we boarded the ferry, I put my head down and was out within minutes. I did wake up a couple of times to take a peak outside at what appeared to be small glacial structures. An ominous mist rose off the top as we crept by. Fucking metal, indeed.

Onward…

After a second blown rear tire in three days (this time on Rosetta‘s van), we continued on to Linköping, where we made camp for the night. We would get an early start in the morning. Of course, delays are inevitable sometimes. Without getting too detailed, I guess it’s fair to say we may have put a little too much faith in our GPS. Once we figured out a way to get to a much more reliable road, we hauled ass to Gävle with Captain Murphy at the helm, and arrived at the exact time we were scheduled to set up for soundcheck. The view from the “Red” stage at Getaway Rock Fest was a sight to behold, adjacent to the river, blue skies and a clear sunny day. Since we opened the show on our stage (with Rosetta to follow), we weren’t expecting much of an audience. This was the earliest set we’ve ever played (2PM), but sure enough, people started making their way over to rock with us. Good times on that stage — always nice to have a bit of room to run around. Well received, and we had the rest of the day to hang out, drink beer and watch some of the other bands.

The highlight for me was at about 4:30PM, when I was lucky enough to catch Suicidal Tendencies set in its entirety. I watched from the frontlines singing along every word like an obsessed angst-filled Dogtown teenager. One can never get tired of watching Cyco Miko bug out on stage — dude never seems to run out of energy. I can honestly say, with four stages, 12 hours of bands, blond headbanging as far as the eye can see, and of course, t-shirts of all kinds, from obscure local favorites to the usual hall of famers (Iron Maiden wins the t-shirt popularity contest without question), I’ve never seen anything quite like this. The magnitude of such an event is pretty unbelievable, until you witness it for yourself.

Spent some time hanging out with the guys from Weedeater, who are some of the nicest dudes, and always entertaining both on stage and off. You know what? I take back what I said earlier. The REAL highlight of my day was watching the Weedeater cats commandeer a forklift from the stage crew, going full throttle towards the backstage area, then Dixie riding the lift all the way up to the top and back down, all without spilling his beer.

Saturday’s headliner: none other than the legendary Yngwie Malmsteen, who has not slowed down one bit since Rising Force. Sweden’s prodigal son returns, in triumph, to unleash the fucking fury in his homeland. Now that’s a sight I never thought I would get to see.

After a quick ferry ride followed by a 16-hour drive, we’re back in Germany for a show in Hamburg. Our overall weariness from the drive may have added to the extra-slow set we delivered, making it appropriately doomtastic. We made friends with some of the locals who accompanied us to a metal bar in the neighborhood where we spent the majority of the rest of the night drinking beer and filling up the jukebox. Lots of laughs as we stumbled back to the venue/apartment where we were staying.

Before I tell the story of our arrival in Prague, I should mention we just had our third flat tire in a week (the second flat for Rosetta‘s van). In order to make the gig, we had both bands pile into one van with all our gear, and fucking tore ass across the German border. Pretty intense. We knew we were going to be late, but “the show must go on,” as they say. We didn’t mind playing a relatively short set so the Rosetta fans at Klub 007 would get their money’s worth.

It was also C-wolf‘s birthday yesterday. I can’t think of a better place to celebrate the man and the legend that is the C-wolf. The next morning, we took a walk into town. We really haven’t had much time to go out and explore, but I’m glad Prague was one of the three we’ve been able to check out. Old cities are something of a fascination of mine, and I’ve been fortunate to see several on this tour. Little by little, we’re creeping closer towards the end. It’s really starting to sink in that this thing is almost over. But, with six days left in the tour, there are bound to be a few more adventures.