ARMS STRETCHED OUT ACROSS THE POND. Eau Claire-based punk group Arms Aloft
is heading out on its third European tour, as well as to support the European
release of its debut album, Sawdust City.

Exposed pipes, concrete floors, bad P.A.’s, crowds of sweaty kids squeezed in next to the washer and dryer, the weird and unidentifiable smells of an old basement: These things are all too familiar to the four guys in Arms Aloft, a punk band that got its start playing house shows in Eau Claire and is now a familiar part of the music scene in both Minneapolis and the Chippewa Valley.

This band – so used to the modest surroundings of makeshift “venues” throughout the almost eight years of its existence – is also the same band that’s currently preparing to go on its third European tour. 

Thanks to the Internet and sites like Bandcamp that allow music made by basement-dwelling punks in the Midwest to be discovered globally (and also with the aid of the camaraderie within the extended punk community) Arms Aloft has earned itself some helpful friends and an international following.

The first tour resulted thanks in large part to the guys in Arms Aloft hitting it off with and helping out UK punk band Calvinball during Calvinball’s U.S. tour.  Calvinball repaid the favor by then assisting Arms with booking shows for its first venture overseas in 2011.

"In Slovenia, we played in a former Yugoslovian military base, there was all these hangars that were just left empty. So these squaters kids moved in and turned them all into venues. On any given night, one is a techno club, one's a punk rock club, one's a metal club, one's a gay bar – all run by volunteer kids who also live there. It was amazing." – Arms Aloft singer/guitarist Seth Gile, on a notable show on the tour in Europe

“The drives were madness,” singer/guitarist Seth Guile said. “We drove from Paris to Prague. There were supposed to be shows in between, but they fell apart so we were like, ‘Let’s just hang out in Paris longer and then drive straight through to Prague.’  It was all of these 8-10 hour drives.”

“It was so raggedy!” injects lead guitarist Alex Bammel, but he says it with a smile on his face.  It’s clear it was a great experience. 

“Even the very first time we went to Europe there’d be one or two kids a night who knew the words to all our songs,” said Gile. “It was unreal!”

When they were approached by a booker in the UK about coming back again last year, they jumped at the chance.  The second tour was even bigger; instead of one or two kids singing along it was entire crowds of 100 or more at sold-out shows in Cardiff and elsewhere. 

On these previous two tours the band (also featuring bassist Isaiah Davis and drummer Jack Gribble) not only played throughout the UK but also had shows in France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands – and along the way had experiences they’re sure to remember for the rest of their lives: “In Slovenia we played in a former Yugoslavian military base, there was all these hangars that were just left empty,” said Gile. “So these squatter kids moved in and turned them all into venues. On any given night, one is a techno club, one’s a punk rock club, one’s a metal club, one’s a gay bar – all run by volunteer kids who also live there. It was amazing.”

Bammel added, “It was all fenced in and it looked horrifying from the outside but when you got inside it was just beautiful; it was probably the fanciest venue we’ve ever played in.”

This upcoming European tour is with some other friends Arms Aloft has made: Parisian punkers Guerilla Poubelle. The two bands will be touring together throughout France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, and Switzerland and will also be releasing a split 7” together that will see distribution in many of these same countries as well as the U.S. and Japan. Also on the docket for Arms Aloft is a European reissue of their first LP, Sawdust City. In other words, it is a safe bet that the band’s international following will continue to grow and that this upcoming tour will not be the guys’ last trip to Europe – or elsewhere:

“We’re hoping to get to tour Japan at some point,” said Bammel.

All of this doesn’t mean they won’t soon be back in a basement in Eau Claire, though.
“If we play to just five people at a house show in Eau Claire that’s OK because we want to play; if we play to  500 people in Paris, it’s because we want to play,” said Gile. “We just want to play.”

Learn more about Arms Aloft at www.facebook.com/armsaloft.