A theft in France stripped Organectomy of gear, money, and passports, but an overwhelming wave of fan support kept the Kiwi death metal band on the road.
Drummer and driver Levi Sheehan spoke to the Herald from Warsaw, Poland, during the band’s 30-date European tour alongside metal heavyweights Aborted, Crypta, and The Zenith Passage.
“We’re living in a Mercedes Sprinter van that’s been converted for bands. Plenty of bands have toured in this exact same van before,” Sheehan said.
The theft occurred shortly after the band played a show in Lyon, France. After driving an hour north to Audincourt, Sheehan parked the van around 1.30am to sleep.
“I woke up at 8am at the gas station, got coffee, sent some messages on the WiFi and hung out. Then I went to wake the boys up to start the drive and realised that all of our bags were gone, basically.”
Among the stolen items were Sheehan’s backpack, which had “literally all of my clothes, all my toiletries, my digital camera, my passport”, as well as vocalist Alex Paul’s bag, which contained his passport, laptop and spare phone.
Most devastating of all, the band’s merch cash box containing about €2000 and the sample pad that runs Organectomy’s entire live show were both taken.
“The sample pad runs our whole show – all our samples and backing tracks. I had it backed up on a USB which was also in the bags that got stolen.”
The loss forced the band to cancel a show in Switzerland due to the risk of being caught without passports at a strict border.
“Switzerland has pretty intense borders,” Sheehan said.
“If you got caught by border security, they’d basically deport you and kick you off the tour.”
Instead, the band drove straight to Munich, skipping only one date before getting back on the road with the help of a community rallying behind them.
“Thankfully, we got a Givealittle page set up pretty much asap,” Sheehan said.
“We realised we had to cover emergency passport replacements and replace the sample pad, which was critical to get back on the road.”
The fundraiser was set up by the band’s other guitarist, who remained in New Zealand during the tour.
“We didn’t really have any sort of idea how successful or unsuccessful it was gonna be,” Sheehan said.
“So the fact that it reached its goal was completely overwhelming.”
The outpouring of support came from fans and friends all over the world.
“It was incredibly overwhelming to see the amount of support from fans and friends worldwide, to help us out and stay on the road, representing New Zealand music,” he said.
“There’s not many New Zealand bands, let alone New Zealand metal bands, that get the opportunity to do this. We’re pretty much proud to represent our country.”
Despite the early setback, Sheehan said the tour has otherwise been a great success.
“The other three bands are real cool. Crypta from Brazil are an all-female thrash metal band, Zenith Passage from the States are awesome dudes,” he said.
“There’s a real camaraderie. Once we told everyone in the tour group chat what happened, there was just an immense outpouring of support, suggestions, ideas. Unfortunately, this happens more than it should on the road.”
The band are currently in Warsaw and plan to head to Bruges, Belgium, before collecting their new passports in Germany and heading to the UK.
As for the tour itself, Sheehan said: “Honestly, it’s been great, man… We’re stoked we managed to replace the music gear and continue the tour, which is pretty rare. We’re pretty stoked about it.”
Recently, Auckland Zoo put down an Antipodean albatross. Now another bird was put down.