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Horseburner Postpone European Tour Plans

You don’t need me to tell you these are uncertain times, but kudos to West Virginia’s Horseburner for being smart enough to pull the plug on what would’ve been a nightmare trip to Europe instead of going over there and being thoroughly screwed without shows or money, etc., because that’s the kind of crap that breaks up good bands. So better they put off the tour than do it wrong.

And hey, if you want to take something positive from the story below — it is quite a story — at least it’s not just COVID-19 that’s their reason. Apparently whoever was booking their tour — they seem purposefully not to name said individual or entity — just didn’t do it. That’s a rough one. They were set to play Ripplefest Cologne with a bunch of other good bands and I assume like the rest of existence that’s up in the air now as to whether it’s even happening, but yeah. From how they tell the tale, it’s easy to see why they’re waiting. It’s the right call.

Here’s what they have to say:

HORSEBURNER

When this band started touring, our goal was to make it over to Europe within 5 years. We’ve been actively touring since 2011. If you know us, if you’ve followed us, you know some of the struggles we’ve had. Life gets in the way of keeping a band together. And the older you get, the more difficult it is. People’s goals change. Their ideals change. To be honest, I think most people would call us idiots for sinking as much of ourselves for so long into a band that is still touring and playing some empty rooms. The truth is we are total idiots who believe too much in what we’re doing to give up. But we’re lucky that we’ve found like minded idiots along the way, like Seth and Matt and and Rob and Scott and Mike and Chad, etc, who share this vision and tenacity. So even though we’ve had to postpone goals along the way, we’ve continually refused to give up. And because of that refusal to give up, we finally got our opportunity to take our music overseas this year.

We now have the unfortunate duty to announce that we will not be playing Ripple Fest in Cologne, Germany later this month. I really don’t want people to think we just easily threw in the towel, so here’s what we’ve gone up against in the past few months. Hope you’re ready to get a sneak peak into the struggles of a DIY band.

Due to a laundry list of reasons that are not in the slightest bit his fault, we found out Seth was not going to be able to go. This was heartbreaking because Seth has worked his tail off for this band, and he deserves to have all the amazing experiences a tour like this should bring. But as sad as we were, we are lucky to have excellent friends. Scott from Bridesmaid was going to fill in for the tour just as he has many times in the past. Then one day Scott called with some potential terrible news and suddenly we didn’t know if he could go either. Strike two. After a few weeks of back and forth, some fingers crossed, and lots of positive vibes, Scott called and said everything was a go. Only now, we had a different problem. We only had one show (Ripple Fest).

The person who was hired to book the tour… didn’t. We were scheduled to be overseas for nearly three weeks, hoping to play as many shows as possible. As amazing as it would be to simply go explore Europe, we were going to work, not vacation. So as of two weeks ago, we had one show. The smart thing to do would have been to cancel as soon as we found out there was no tour. But we had already bought plane tickets and we’re not smart. So Ripple and Blues Funeral rallied the troops, and we had an amazing crew of true brothers and sisters go into hyperdrive, and as of yesterday, we had nine shows. Are we the type of people who will fly to a separate continent to play a handful of shows that have not even been advertised with insane drives due to emergency routing? Truthfully, yes. Yes we are. But now on top of all of this, some European countries are now closing off their borders and encouraging people to avoid public gatherings. So the show that came together in Italy was going to be canceled. And it really looks like other countries are going to be following suit in the coming weeks. There are too many uncertainties and too much risk of shows getting canceled last minute, and we’d still be sunk for thousands and thousands of dollars for renting gear and a van for the tour. Or even worse, getting stuck quarantined in a foreign country and not able to get home, not able to get back to our families or our jobs after the tour, and any other awful situation you can imagine. So here we are.

I don’t think any of us have ever been this disappointed. But we’re doing what we always do, we’re looking to the future. This is not the end of the road, this is just one more obstacle we’re going to overcome. We’re going to reschedule this tour, and as soon as we have news, we’re going to share it with you.

Lastly, we want to send our deepest gratitude to the folks who banded together over the last couple weeks and put together what should have been an amazing time. All our love to Buddy from Great Electric Quest and Mikaela from Loitsu Booking who did the bulk of the work the last couple weeks, Todd from Ripple and Jadd from Blues Funeral, Matt Bacon, Electric Avenue Music, Max from Plainride, Doza from Lightning Born, Tom from 20 Watt Tombstone, Nick from Stonecutters, and anyone else who tried to help us out. Lastly, to Howling Giant. Our plans for world domination will have to wait a few months, but we love you dudes and we’ll make this work eventually.

As always, we’ll see you on the road… in the US. Stay dirty.

Horseburner:
Adam Nohe – Drums/Vocals
Jack Thomas – Guitar/Vocals
Matt Strobel – Guitar
Seth Bostick – Bass

https://www.horseburner.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Horseburner/
https://horseburner.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/horseburner/
https://www.facebook.com/theripplemusic/
https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/
http://www.ripple-music.com/

Horseburner, The Thief (2019)

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