INVSN – 1st ROAD BLOG from North American Tour with Minus The Bear

The Swedish band, INVSN, is currently on a North American tour with Minus The Bear and Slow Bird. While they’re on this tour, Dennis Lyxzen (vocals/guitar), will be writing a blog of his experiences on the road. You may recognize Dennis from his work in Refused and The (International) Noise Conspiracy. You can check out his first blog, after the break.

Touring. The States. For the first time. And again.

Coming over here is a strange sensation. You all take it for granted but even though we grew up with American culture in movies and in music and art and politics it is still foreign for us. We are new band with tons of experience. I’ve toured the states like 25 times which is a lifetime on the road. Sara did her first tour of the states in 1995. She is old school, for real. Since then she has returned on a regular basis. First she was with me in Noise Conspiracy a couple of times but then in her own bands and project The Vicious and Masshysteri. She was sleeping on peoples floors, eating at Taco Bell and just trying to get by. Andre was here a couple of time with hardcore thrashers Ds-13 and just ripping it up. Then he went together with Sara playing drums in the Vicious and our newest member Kajsa was with Sara playing in Masshysteri. Sara is the common denominator. She’s the one that toured with all of us before. Well, we have two new/Stand-in member that have never toured before. Patrick was here last year as a tourist. I meet him when we played with Refused in NYC. This is his first tour. Christina plays the keyboard. She’s never been in the states before. Ever. She does not seem fazed by it at all. But I am thinking that I will not let my jaded self-get in the way of their first time experience. I want to try to feel what they feel and see what they see. I want to be able to marble at how big and ridiculous and awe-inspiring this country is. How easy we recognize ourselves even though we grew up in a completely different part of the world.

Going over here was a disaster. We lost our luggage, tickets not purchased and no vegan-food on the flight. But here we are. For me it is the same old routine. Getting picked up at the airport. Find food. Eat. Sleep. Then it is time to go. It is an easy mission. Play for 40 minutes every night. Be on time and give it all you got. It takes a couple of days for things to really come together. We’ve only done 2 shows singing in English before coming over. We have a pretty new line-up and we are facing a crowd that has a very limited idea about who we are. It is fine. I like the struggle. Friction gives us energy. Gives us motivation. Keeps us on our toes. Minneapolis is fine for a first show. We are late to Milwaukee so we have to do a line check in front of an indifferent small crowd. But we play well. With energy and angst. Once we get everything working. St. Louis is good. A couple of dudes that have no understanding or concept of what we are is trying to give me a hard time. They can never touch me. When we are up here together we are more powerful than your ignorance and small minds! Besides, I have the microphone. How can you compete with that? Indianapolis is great. I meet an old friend and we play with purpose and meaning. DeKalb is a cool once we get started. The logistics on stage is a disaster. But if fuels us. Gives us energy. I am trying to think about how Christina and Patrick are feeling about all of this. They act like total pros. Like they’ve done this shit their entire lives. I feel lucky that I get to do this. That I get to sit in a van all day with these people playing music that we created together. We are just getting started. We have 3 weeks left and a good start.

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