Still slaving away in the ‘real world’ with the rest of us normal folk, it’s been a busy couple of months for Royal Headache.

The Sydney-based punks are managing to fit in international touring while holding down nine-to-fives on the side.

“I'm working right now,” laughs lead guitarist Law. “We've all got the nine-to-five jobs still going on. It keeps you grounded. I just do IT work in an office. Shorty [drums] works for the City of Sydney as a town planner. Our bassist [Joe] works for a fashion label and Shogun [vocals] is in a call centre.”

Despite their ‘normal’ work schedule, Royal Headache have already managed to tour the US twice within the last year.

“The first time we went over the LP ['Royal Headache'] had just come out and no one really knew who we were, the crowds were pretty small. But this time around we sold out a couple of shows and that was a pretty big eye-opener. We sold out gigs in Chicago and New York. We didn't really realise but in the space of like four months we just kind of exploded over there.”

The band's future plans include more intercontinental travel as well as supporting a certain well known American rock duo on their upcoming Australian tour.

“We're going on tour with The Black Keys in October. It's going to be pretty interesting because the places we'll be playing at will be massive. Entertainment centres and that, like 10,000 plus people. So yeah, we'll see what happens,” Law says with a nervous laugh.

The band’s formation followed a well-worn path half-a-decade ago.

“We all grew up in the Sydney punk scene and we've known each other since about 2000. We all used to play in each other’s bands and hang around with each other and stuff. I broke up with my band in 2007 and Shorty broke up with his around the same time. We met up at the pub one night and we were just like 'let’s do it'.”

Royal Headache play the Converse Acts Of Disruption Brisbane gig August 25. RSVP to the free event at facebook.com/
converseaustralia