A problem shared: The reality of hitting the road as a DIY band from Belfast

Beth:

For the uninitiated, which will be most of you, we are Problem Patterns, a DIY feminist, queer punk four-piece from Belfast, Northern Ireland. We formed in 2018 in a bid to find a healthy way to channel our rage and frustration at day-to-day news events and navigating the world as queer people. We tackle serious topics such as femicide (Northern Ireland has the second highest rate of femicide in Western Europe), the state of the healthcare system, and the sexism we face in the music industry. 

It’s not all doom and gloom, though; we genuinely have the best time writing and performing together and like to think that anyone who watches us has a good time too — our tongues are usually firmly in our cheeks. It’s much easier to charm and disarm someone into listening to your side of the story if you can make them laugh while doing it. We also don’t really give a fuck what people think, which seems to be working for us so far. 

Being a band from Northern Ireland obviously has its ups and downs. Government investment in the arts here is the lowest in the UK, at £5.07 per capita, in comparison with Wales, where it is more than double that, at £10.51 per head. But the music scene here is shifting and changing for the better, shedding the ‘boys’ club’ vestiges and genuinely embracing diversity. Obviously, there is a long way to go, but it’s been gratifying to see. 

We’re a relatively large fish in a small pond here, and that has its advantages. I think we get taken seriously enough and have the means to make some real change in our wee scene — maybe that’s just blind optimism with a dash of ego, but I’ll remain hopeful.  

Playing live is probably my favourite part of being in a band, we get weird with it and just try to make each other laugh — it’s nice to not take things too seriously and inject some levity when we’re usually singing about some pretty heavy topics. 

But to play live, you’ve got to travel to places where people might want to see you. I don’t think any of us realised that being in a band is like being business partners, being married but also being siblings — which is a very strange relationship. You have sleepovers as an adult when most people stop sleeping over with their friends in their teens. I think I’ve spent more time sleeping in hotel beds with Ciara than I have with my wife! 

We watch countless hours of whatever nonsense is on hotel TVs (favourites include Married At First Sight, I Think You Should Leave, Bob’s Burgers, Gogglebox and a random supernatural reality show with Jack, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne which prompted our tour manager Brendy to peruse ghost-hunting equipment on eBay). 

Touring means spending half our lives in service stations eating crap meal-deal sandwiches and drinking Lucozade Sport, but it always feels like a grand day out with your mates. Cruising along the M4, with the Top Gear Driving Anthems playlist blasting through a rented Vauxhall Corsa’s sound system, it does feel like living the dream a little, even if we’re in the red moneywise and have a flight at 6am the following morning. 

One stumbling block we’ve faced when touring is the Irish Sea, our greatest nemesis, the Lord Farquaad to our Shrek, the Dr. Evil to our Austin Powers. Its sheer existence costs us a fortune. Anyone involved in live music will know how difficult it is to make money from touring, but if you throw in around 3,000 square kilometres of water, you’re already operating at a loss. We simply can’t hop in a car and drive to a gig in England like our mainland peers, something most promoters seem to forget when asking us to pop over to London for a gig (“Is a door split OK?”). We’ve got to book flights or a ferry, which means either driving hours out of our way to a ferry port, or booking instruments onboard. 

We spend hundreds of pounds to gig on the mainland, typically much more than our fee, meaning touring isn’t lucrative, and we all still work full time. Sorry to anyone with band aspirations of flashy cars and champagne breakfasts — unless your parents are minted, it’s not gonna happen! 

A workaround for this is that we’ve met and become friends with some of the soundest and most generous people in mainland bands, who are happy to lend us backline [stage equipment such as speakers and drum breakables] for these gigs in exchange for us returning the favour if they have a gig in Ireland. As long as you’re not picky about breakables or amps, it’s a cushy deal. 

Community really is the saviour of DIY bands like us. If we hadn’t met bands who share our ethos and love of making an unbearable racket, such as Norwich’s finest group, Other Half, or Birkenhead’s best bois, Crapsons, we honestly would’ve given up the ghost. 

This inevitably leads to some miscommunication, but what’s a punk show without a little chaos? We played a small run of shows in England last year and had arranged to use house kits where possible. When we got to the venue in Manchester, surprise, surprise, the promoter wanted to know where our backline was, and the venue didn’t have a house kit. 

I think for any other band this would’ve led to complete meltdown panic stations, but for Probby Pats it was just another Wednesday night. The support band, Mere Amore, all went to a local music college, and honestly made us feel about 70 years old and very uncool. Bev and Ciara essentially kidnapped these youngsters and drove to various parts of their music college to try and nab a kit for the evening. Eventually, a tiny jazz kit was loaded into our rental car (beggars can’t be choosers) and we were all set — success!

Alanah: 

I’m very mindful about the band’s potential carbon footprint when attempting these trips to the mainland, but we’re working with what we can. We don’t have enough personal leave to book an additional day off work so that we can sit on the ferry for several hours every time. It’s also quite the price hike to take a boat from Belfast to Birkenhead compared to a one-hour flight to Liverpool. You have millionaires in private jets flying for 15 minutes when they could have been driven in their luxury tour bus; it’s a far cry from us sharing a bag of sweets while being crammed into a budget flight. 

There’s a reason why a lot of our English, Scottish and Welsh friends in bands don’t make the journey to Belfast and Dublin. They see the price total of getting their van on the Stena Line and it just looks like a barrier. We’ve been able to do it for so long because we’re not particularly precious about our backline, although I appreciate why many bands would be. We’re happy to borrow anything as long as it works — and sometimes it doesn’t and we find something else. 

One particular trip to London in 2023 became one of the bigger tests for us working in this system. It started off with a win for us: we were flying from the easily reachable Belfast City Airport rather than Belfast International, which most people here will tell you is nowhere near Belfast. That was about as good as the travel portion of this trip was going to be for us. The flight was delayed, which isn’t really out of the ordinary, but in this case we had already boarded the plane. We sat on the tarmac and had fallen asleep by the time it was taking off. 

Prior to leaving, we were aware of the London train strikes, and we should have had plenty of time to get to the last departure. Unfortunately, because of our hold-up in Belfast, we arrived at Gatwick to crowds of people panicking. The trains had gone, the buses were full, and a taxi was the only option. We waited over two hours for two to show at once, and even though one of them had been cancelled, it still charged Bev. We left Belfast at 5pm, and by the time we arrived at our London accommodation, it was near 1am. This probably doesn’t read as that big of a deal, but we were awake only a few hours later as we needed to collect our backline first thing in the morning. 

Our friends Bob Vylan were very kind to offer equipment to us, but with London being as massive as it is, it was quite the trek to meet them. Thankfully, they gave us a lift back to the nearest Underground station, and our spirits were lifted in time for the show. 

We supported Fight Like Apes at their St. Patrick’s Day party and had a great time, especially given the day that it was. Even though I don’t drink, it was a great atmosphere, and my bandmates were enjoying the free cans from the rider. The gig ended, and we needed to get some rest for our flight the next morning. 

Unfortunately, there hadn’t been a lot of planning as to how we would return what we had borrowed. So, Ciara and I piled everything into another Uber and took a 90-minute round trip to Bob’s house, accompanied by much grovelling for showing up at his place at 2am. 

Once we arrived back at our hotel, we squeezed in a few hours of sleep before needing to head to the airport to return home. 

The entire trip was less than 48 hours, but I feel like I aged several years. The money we ended up spending on taxis in that time could have gone towards some better-timed flights, but we always have a new lesson to learn in this band. This isn’t a pity party at all, rather a cautionary tale. If you’re going to try our method, be extra prepared for the bumps.

Being able to put a call out to borrow people’s personal (and, at times, expensive) belongings is not a light ask, yet it is a system we have continued to pull off so far. We are grateful that we are given that trust. We have built such genuine connections where we have people willing to help us in so many ways. We have always offered to return the favour and hope that some more bands take us up on it soon enough. It would be great to help more of them come to Ireland just as much as we want to go elsewhere.

One thing that I won’t budge on is making sure that we have proper accommodation when we are touring. At the very least, if you are staying with friends, bring an air mattress. If you are willing to sleep on floors for 14 days in a row, I applaud you, but I am chronically ill and hurtling towards my 40s. The only way that touring has been at all realistic for me is knowing that I’ll have a bed and a hot shower to soothe the post-gig aches. This is especially crucial when the schedule can be chaotic. 

Most of the time, it’s the four of us crammed into one room, and sometimes we are treated to splitting between two. We’re not racking up any points at Hilton. While some may romanticise a life on the road and think of matching bathrobes and room service, we’re taking what we can get, whether that be a few bunk beds above a pub or a wall-to-wall curtained room that was most definitely designed for swingers.

There have been plenty of occasions, as previously mentioned, where we are flying in for a very short time, and the humble shower has been a lifesaver. 

Last year, we made it to the finals of the Glastonbury Emerging Talent competition. We had played a show in Dublin the night before, and Bev’s car broke down. Beth and Bev brought everything home, while Ciara and I took a bus back to Belfast. None of us got home until nearly 2am, and we were up for the airport at 5.30am. 

We flew to Birmingham and made our way to Pilton. Once we had checked in at the venue, we ended up finding a nearby hotel just to have a nap and a shower. Our actual accommodation was about an hour’s drive away, and it wouldn’t have made sense to make that journey with the schedule that we had. Everything closer to the venue was either booked up or couldn’t accommodate the four of us. 

Ciara decided to just call a nearby hotel on a whim and chance her arm. This was a case where we agreed to split the cost ourselves because we were all wiped out. It was a twin room meant for two, but thankfully they allowed it based on our specific circumstances — perhaps they could hear the exhaustion and took pity. We were in that room for no more than two hours total, and the receptionist kindly offered us a discount. 

I genuinely think this was the only way that we made it to the set time in the evening. We only had two songs to play that night, which landed us a spot on the Park stage, but you do have to wonder how it may have gone had we not managed to squeeze in some proper rest. Personally, I was still barely scraping by, but those two hours likely prevented me from passing out on stage in front of the judges.

It’s only been recently that we have been able to afford these things as a band and not from our personal pockets. There have been times, especially at the bigger festivals, where we’ve been offered free camping, but that is not accessible for some of us in Problem Patterns. You’ll also find that, depending on the venue, you may not get a green room, so you’ll be yearning for that personal space some days. It’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity. Your wellbeing is worth it. 

Bev: 

I think everyone would agree that travelling together is pretty much the ultimate test of any relationship — plenty of friendships have been tried in the fire of a holiday together and failed. 

Well, touring together is an even bigger test. I’m not trying to tell you there haven’t been hard times, but the good times have definitely outweighed the bad, and having a tour on the horizon still feels like looking forward to a girly sleepover every time.

Going back through my diary, our first-ever band sleepover was in 2019 in Portrush, a seaside town on the north coast of Ireland, playing the iconic Atlantic Bar (may it rest in peace). Memories include Ciara hurting herself falling on stage after trying some kind of stunt during ‘Mediocre Man’, singing our hearts out in the car on the way to our mate’s ma’s house, brushing our teeth together for the first time, and sitting up gossiping ’til the early hours. And that’s been the pattern with touring ever since.

On tour, we’ve developed our own wee routines, we each have our own roles and responsibilities, we’ve learned each other’s habits (good and bad), and we each have our own way of negotiating extra leave from our day jobs and making it work.

I am the travel planner, booking all the flights and accommodation. I also drive, and Ciara sits up front to navigate and keep me awake by sharing conspiracy theories late at night, while the others fall asleep in the back or listen to us like it’s a podcast. Ciara takes on tour manager duties (when we can’t bring one with us), remembers the name of everyone we’ve ever met and is also the band’s security — she ain’t afraid of confrontation. Alanah is the foodie — she finds us the best and most delicious places to eat. Beth is our 365 party girl, constantly making friends in all places, high and low. She’s also our on-call stand-up comedian for when we need to stall during the set for technical difficulties. 

I’d say I also play the role of class clown — the others have way too many videos of me doing stupid stuff, like on our way home on the ferry after playing with Le Tigre, we were all exhausted from all the emotions that come with supporting your idols, and we did an episode of our hit social media show Beth Reviews a Beer, where I try my ‘first’ Guinness, thinking it was soup and dipping my crisp sandwich in. We were all on our funny half-hour crying our eyes out.

When it comes to essentials on tour, Ciara’s always cosy in a leopard-print fleece, Beth always has a Dad cap with some ridiculous slogan on it (e.g. “this isn’t a beer belly, it’s a fuel tank for a sex machine”), Alanah’s got her lemon plushie Beth won in a claw machine for her, and I’ve got my ‘Mary Poppins’ backpack that can somehow hold my pedal board, our merch and everything I need for a few days. Then here’s the extra juicy details: when we sleep, Beth grinds her teeth, I clench my jaw and slurp on my mouthguard, Alanah gasps, and Ciara talks to herself. We’ve got used to it.

We have a few different ways of killing time while travelling. One time, in particularly bad motorway traffic (England, your motorways are soul-destroying, I don’t know if you know this?), we decided to play Truth or Dare. We found out each other’s deepest, darkest secrets, Alanah had to eat a frozen pea (she had hurt her knee and was icing it — typical Problem Patterns luck), and I had to talk in a French accent for 45 minutes — humiliating!

Another good game I would recommend to any bored band on the road (or any person travelling, tbf) is the ‘recreate the album cover’ game, where you basically try your best with the limited space and props available in the car to recreate the album cover of whatever you’re listening to using your selfie camera, and then get your long-suffering tour manager or social media followers to vote on who did it the best. Depending on what comes on shuffle, you’ll get some extraordinary results! Yes, as you can see, it’s all about the sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll on tour with Problem Patterns.

As the others say, we are forever living and learning, and living and learning, and living and learning. When we feel like we’ve finally made sense of how to make touring work, something else will go wrong. But when it all comes together, and we get on stage and connect with other people who are just there for the love of music, particularly our brand of noisy punk music with heart behind it, there’s nothing like it. 

And there’s no one else I’d rather be with in another airport, another cheap hotel room, another motorway, distracting each other from missing our WAGs, our beds, our pets and our washing machines, on the way to another gig that may not pay off financially, but absolutely pays off on every other level.