Combat Rock
It’s a summer evening at a biker festival in Germany. The beer is flowing, the atmosphere is upbeat, and the crowd are gagging for the artist soon to arrive on stage. Little do they know that said artist, Kris Barras, will end up almost killing the front row. Well, sort of.
Reeling from all the good vibes and a few too many strong local brews, Barras and his band play a killer show. Confident on stage at the best of times, tonight the singer/guitarist is practically flying already, so decides to take it up a level.
“I was loving it, I was having the best gig of my life,” the 33-year-old enthuses later. “On the last song, I decided I was gonna do a stage dive–and the front row was all middle-aged women! And I just fucking jumped. I tried to call people forward, a trick I learned off Ty [Taylor] from Vintage Trouble, but they were a bit confused and…”
He laughs, a broad grin flashing through a neat sandy beard. This Kris Barras is much softer than the steely, ‘game face’ version conveyed in the media, honed in part by years as a professional MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter. As we discover during a couple of days on the road with Barras and co, he moves between the two.
“So yeah, I killed the front row. With my ass,” he finishes. “I was a little bit sick off stage after.”
That was your first and only stage dive? “Yeah,
