5 Weirdest Moments On The Road With The Beards

Things are about to get hairy, because Australia’s most bewhiskered band is back on home turf and celebrating a decade of razor-free living. To celebrate The Beards monumental ‘Ten Long Years, One Long Beard Tour’ with Dallas Frasca we got the follicular foursome to run us through their 5 weirdest moments on the road.

1. The first time we went overseas was to the World Beard and Moustache Championships in Alaska, back in ’09. It kind of opened our eyes to what level of beard is out there because we’d never been overseas with the band and given that it was six years ago our beards were not as impressive as they are now. So basically to play in front of the world’s best beards and try and tell them about having a a beard felt a little bit like preaching to the converted.

It was great, but it was a little bit intimidating. Plus, the concept of the Beard and Moustache Championships is a little… well we don’t totally agree with it because for a start they have the moustache people and they’re making them feel welcome. But we also don’t really condone beards competing against each other and choosing one over the other. We like it to be the attitude that if you have a beard, you’re a winner. All beards are great and all beards are number one in their own beautiful way.

Watch: The Beards – Ten Long Years, One Long Beard

2. The first time we went overseas we were also approached by this group of guys called the T.B.O.C., which is the Tactical Beard Owners’ Club. It’s basically a worldwide club of bearded guys that are all military or ex-military or high level security – dudes that know how to kill people basically.

It’s like this worldwide thing and if you have a beard and if you’ve got that sort of background then you can join this T.B.O.C. where they organise these social events and there’s this network of people across the world. They approached us – sent us this very formal email, saying “We’d love to have you at this barbecue at this guy’s house who lives in Berlin.” He’s this Australian guy that was working in Afghanistan at the time I think.

We were too scared to say no and we rocked up and it was dudes – bearded guys – who were trained to kill. When we got there, they gave us this rundown, like a form of dossier for our gig in Berlin, detailing where all the exits points on the building were and what the vantage points were and what the temperature was going to be on the day and when sunrise and sunset was.

It was full reconnaissance stuff and this dude had a shed full of guns. It was different. They made us members – not official members, but honorary members. Again we were too scared to say no, so we went along with it, but again it was intimidating.

Watch: World Beard Day 2014 with The Beards

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na5P_Lae134

3. I remember once at a gig, I think it was in Manchester, there was a guy without a beard down the front. That was pretty weird. Had to get him removed as you could imagine. He got dragged away out the back – not sure exactly what happened to him, but I’m sure he’s either been forced to grow a beard or dead. Either way I’m fine with it.

4. There was this girl in the news a little while ago and she was in London and had some kind of disease – well they call it a disease, I call it a blessing – but she actually had a full beard and she came out. She had some sort of hormonal imbalance and she actually grew a full-on beard – a decent beard – and she’d recently come out in the media and said I’m no longer going to shave, I’m going to be proud of who I am, I’m going to grow this beard and be myself. Which obviously we were thrilled about when we saw it because people love to send us beard-related news articles on Facebook and Twitter, so we’re all over it.

And we were performing in London last time we were there – the song All The Bearded Ladies – and she appeared at the front of the crowd! That was pretty cool, so we went down and said “Hi” and gave her a hug and she had a full-on beard. We do often get women with fake beards and they’re often really good fake beards, but this was the first time with a girl with a full-on beard.

Watch: The Beards – All The Bearded Ladies

5. We basically encourage people to touch our beards – if you see our beard, that’s what they’re there for, to get touched. But somebody approached Nathaniel Beard with a big pair of scissors once. He came up to him after a gig when we were just milling around and he came up to him and produced this pair of scissors and held them up to his face and says “It could happen just that easily mate.” We were like “What’s going on?!”

That’s a true story – they brought these scissors specifically to the gig to threaten us. It was really bizarre. They were full-on shears (the story gets exaggerated over time). So as much as we do encourage people to stroke our beards and we have our beards out there as kind of a free-for-all, it can be a little bit risky. There’s people out there that want to trim you down to size – with their shears.

Watch: The Beards – Strokin’ My Beard