Just in case we have some new people looking at this. We did this campaign called Challenge Swound! a year or so ago. We basically got people to challenge us to do anything they wanted, within reason. We’d then film our attempts at completing said challenge and post the results online. We had around 1000 entries submitted overall, so obviously we couldn’t try them all. We did attempt over 30 of them though, succeeding to a modest level. We even got a pretty good write up in the Guardian!
I thought it’d be good to introduce new fans to a few of these and point them in the direction of the website. So, here are five significant ones that I think would make a good starting point.
The Big Mac Challenge: this was the first challenge we attempted. I say ‘we’ but I actually mean ‘everyone but me’. I had recently turned vegetarian so was able to give this delight a miss. Not that the end product resembled meat in any way. This was two years ago and Lloyd has not had a Big Mac since.. for real!
The Great Mosh Challenge: Rowan and Lloyd volunteered for this one. They did it in our practice room but stupidly forgot to take any music with them so had to make do with the 4 tracks that Rowan had on his iPhone. They hardly fell into the ‘finest of metal music’ guideline that had been set. Lloyd had to use crutches for two days after claiming his body had broken and was unable to move. Both of them couldn’t use their neck or turn their head for a week.
The Blind Treasure Challenge: I think this one is our most viewed video on youtube but I have no idea why. This was pretty stupid but actually good fun. The same place we filmed the We Are A Danger video. We weren’t very good at it.
The 3 Man Skateboard Challenge: We got a lot of comments from people saying this was ‘the gayest thing’ they’d ever seen. We were pretty determined to do this one and it took a while. The reaction at the end was genuine excitement as we’d been trying for a few hours. I have no idea why I was wearing a Christmas hat. It was in April I think.
Find The Loch Ness Monster: This was the most hardcore challenge but also the most fun and was a good excuse to trek up to the hills Scotland for a few days. Rowan drove all the way there (in one go) and all the way back (in one go). His stubborness resulted in around 20 hours of driving in 3 days. We met up with our pals from the band We Are The Physics in Glasgow, drank lots of Irn Bru and swam in the Lochs. Doesn’t sound that much fun on paper does it. Check the video - we split it into two parts cos it’s pretty long.
There you go. Sorry if you’ve all seen these a million times before. Writing this has made me remember how much fun these were to do and how much I enjoyed that summer. I’m going to try and persuade the others to film a few new ones for old times sake. That’s probably a bad idea. Let us know what you think.
Bye. Joe
