The Beards Narrow Down Their Five Beardiest Moments Of Their Career

When your career as a band has been packed with so many highlights, and absolutely no lowlights at all, choosing just five was a tough ask. Nevertheless, here is our selection of our favourite moments from the last decade of being one of the world’s top 5 beard-related novelty bands…

WHEN WE WENT TO THE WORLD BEARD & MOUSTACHE CHAMPIONSHIPS

If you’re going to start an international touring career, you’d better start it right, and the rightest way we could think of was competing and performing at the 2009 World Beard & Moustache Championships in Anchorage, Alaska. As well as comprising the first ever Australian team to compete at the event, we also scored ourselves a gig at the opening ceremony, performing in front of the who’s who of the competitive beard-growing world. Whilst we haven’t been invited back since, probably because they discovered that we were a novelty band rather than a hard-line activist group, the trip remains one of the most memorable we embarked upon.

Us with World Beard-Growing Champion Jack Passion

WHEN WE FIRED OUR ORIGINAL DRUMMER

Finding a drummer with both a beard and a station wagon was a tough ask back in 2005, but we thought we’d struck gold when we hired John Beardman to plunder the skins for us. Unfortunately, when it came to light that he’d been wearing a fake beard right from the start, it was a matter not only of deep embarrassment for us, but of urgently finding a replacement drummer with an actual beard. Luckily, John Beardman’s son, John Beardman Jr, was able to step straight in and we continued on our path to beard-related musical dominance. (We strenuously deny any suggestion that the original drummer was simply our current drummer before he was able to grow a decent beard).

Johann Beardraven with original drummer John Beardman

WHEN JOHANN BEARDRAVEN FORGOT EVERY LYRIC

Life on the road can be tough, moreso when you consume as much alcohol as frontman Johann Beardraven does. So when we took the stage at Manchester’s famed Academy venue during 2014’s The Beard Album tour, it wasn’t a great surprise when he screamed a slightly-slurred “beeeeaaards” into the microphone to open the show, rather than the traditional “good evening ladies and gentlemen, how are you tonight?” It was even less surprising when he proceeded to forget virtually every lyric to almost every song, replacing them all with the word “beard”. The crowd were immediately on board, singing along with gusto, and needless to say it was one of the best gigs we ever did.

Johann Beardraven partaking in one of his few non-beard-related hobbies, alcohol consumption.

WHEN WE MET 17,823 PEOPLE WITH BEARDS

Over the course of 11 years and 500-plus shows, one of the things we’ve enjoyed most is being able to spend time with fans after the shows. It’s a great way to meet lots of great beards, plus we generally get congratulated a lot, which is great for our fragile self-esteem, and the bass player will occasionally get laid. We’ve been fortunate enough to meet tons of stonking beards over the years of touring, not only during and after our gigs, but also just on the street, where we will often seek out the nearest bearded homeless man and buy him a new suit.

Us with members of the Tactical Beard-Owner’s Club, a worldwide organisation of combat-trained beard enthusiasts.

WHEN WE ANNOUNCED THE BIGGEST BEARD-RELATED TOUR EVER ATTEMPTED

As strange as it may sound, a band can’t sing about beards forever, so when the decision was made to pull up stumps on our unlikely journey, it was an easy decision to sign off with the single biggest Aussie tour that we’ve ever undertaken. And while the Australian music scene will seem a little empty without a band singing songs exclusively about beards (although we’re still hoping that someone else will take up the mantle), we will be retiring confident that we have made the world a beardier place.

Beards.