In Transylvania, Romania, HORSE the band is finishing a show in a dimly lit venue that looks like an ancient subway tunnel. Brick arches reach out for the roof from the sides of the room. The attendees in the front row are lighting cigarettes.

One girl bobs her head side to side. Disinterested.

It’s not an enjoyable show – the band are so frustrated by the smoking that Engstrom steps out from behind his synthesizer, steals the cigarette from an audience member’s hand and throws it on the ground. He squashes it under foot.

Winneke cackles maniacally. The show goes on.

Immediately after their set is complete, HORSE the band have to travel approximately 900km to get to their next gig, in the Ukraine.

In 24 hours.

The band piles themselves and their gear into a rented, dilapidated van and puts their faith in Peter, a weary driver operating on just two hours sleep. To reach their destination on time, they’ll have to drive through a phantom country

unrecognised by the United Nations or any international governing body.

A country that isn’t a country.

Transnistria.

Transnistria doesn’t show up on many maps – type it into Google right now and you’ll be redirected to the eastern European nation of Moldova.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade recommends reconsidering your need to travel to Transnistria due to ‘high level of risk’.

The not-country – an ‘autonomous territorial unit’ – is a remnant of the USSR that runs along the Dnister River, sandwiched between Moldova and the Ukraine. It’s a Soviet time-machine, a pin dropped on a map trapped in the

late 80s.

Though it’s not recognised as a nation, it isn’t a lawless no man’s land. It’s a place with its own currency, government and constitution. Half a million people live there. Emblems and trinkets of Stalin and Putin

litter the province’s monuments and parks. A statue of Lenin guards the entrance to City Hall. Menacing.

The hammer-and-sickle marks the pseudo-state’s flag.

Its residents still love Mother Russia.

The roads out of Romania are terrible, filled with gaping potholes and lacking road signs, and the journey does not go to plan. Talking to Lachance via phone, he describes that journey to me as the most wretched drive of all the wretched drives.

“It was just dark, we couldn’t communicate with anyone. We were lost, thinking we’re going to end up in Transnistria and who the fuck knows what’s gonna happen… they could just steal all of our stuff.”

The band gets stopped at the Romania-Moldova border, where officials tell them that they will not be able to enter the country with their equipment because it’s simply too expensive. The band, with only four euro between them, bribe the guards

and continue on their way after three hours of limbo.

"It occurred to me that if we broke down out there we would essentially have to just convert the van into a house and live there.”

The protracted delay causes the band to be travelling well into the following night, missing the show they were going to play in the Ukraine. In the darkness, they reach the Moldova-Transnistria border but are turned back by the border officials

and told that if they enter the country, their passports and possessions will be confiscated.

“I guess American rock bands have literally never gone down that road. Eventually, with the help of our driver Peter they stopped pointing their grenade launchers at our vehicle but wouldn’t let us pass into Transnistria.”

They are redirected, told to drive around the rogue nation and enter the Ukraine another way. Peter is approaching a full day without sleep, stopping at gas stations and on the side of the road to ask locals for directions. He shows a passer-by

a map, but the man just scratches his chin and looks off into the distance, offering no reply.

The band, all five of them, are zombified in the back seat. Deprived of sleep, worried about the potential threat of straying into a sovereign state where their possessions will be stolen from them and disappointed that they won’t make their next

show, they’re exhausted.

Wandering husks trapped in a four wheeled prison with no way of escape.

Winneke plucks his thoughts from internal despair.

“It occurred to me that if we broke down out there we would essentially have to just convert the van into a house and live there.”

The tour hasn’t been easy by any stretch but this drive is the first time the mental and physical toll is apparent on every member, all at once. They just want to be at the next show. They just want to be anywhere but expanses of empty European

countryside, where the roads are made of dirt and even the GPS fears to tread.

This is no joke. Bands don’t do this to themselves as a joke. They don’t sing songs about Nintendo so you can laugh at them. They don’t travel to countries that you’ve never heard of for an Instagram post or a prank YouTube

video.

They believe in it.

As Winneke puts it earlier in the tour “All I really want to do in my life is love the people I love, experience all that I can and create some form of art that reflects both my love for my people and for my experiences that I’ve had in

life, whether they be good or bad, from child abuse to fucking touring the world – whatever it may be. I never, ever do shit for a joke, for humour or for funny.”