‘You wouldn’t be wearing a geansaí there’

By the time Irish sludge-metal titans Ten Ton Slug finally touched down in Botswana, they’d been on the move for the better part of a day - Dublin to Doha, Doha to Johannesburg, Johannesburg to Gaborone. Twenty-one hours, three continents, four security checks, and a half dozen or more dodgy airport coffees. When the baggage carousel shuddered to life, it spat out everything except one bass guitar.

When bass player Pavol Rosa told airport staff, they inspected the tag as if it were a cryptic crossword clue. In Dublin, the Slug lads had been assured their gear was checked straight through. Now came the grim announcement from the dreaded conveyor-belt abyss: 'We can’t find it'.

So began the most Irish possible introduction to Sub-Saharan Africa - standing in a hot terminal, sweating through, and hoping Pavol’s guitar wasn’t enjoying a solo world tour without them.

Gaborone itself was calm - “totally different,” says frontman Rónán Ó hArrachtáin, Cornafean-born Gaeilgeoir and architect of riffs heavy enough to flatten a small building.

“It was mad," he says of all the travelling, "but we knew where we were going was going to be totally different - something new. We were just like, ‘Bring us wherever’. It was all part of the experience. It’s nice to hit two different continents as well.”

At the airport the band - Rónán, Seán Sullivan on guitars/vocals, Slovakian-born Pavol Rosa on bass, and drummer Tommy Carolan from Castleblayney - linked up with Tshomarelo ‘Vulture Thrust' Mosaka, the beating heart of Botswana’s heavy metal music scene.

Their chats had begun months earlier, after the band fell down a rabbit hole watching a Vice documentary on Botswana’s underground metal culture. Slug reached out; Mosaka wrote back; Culture Ireland signed off. A global cultural exchange was born.

Miraculously, Pavol’s lost bass resurfaced the next morning. With all gear accounted for, the band began the five-hour trip to Ghanzi for their first show: a Halloween warm-up at HillTalk Night Club. Because desert temperatures hovered between 37 and 39 degrees, the gig kicked off at dusk and barrelled through until dawn.

“You wouldn’t be wearing a geansaí there,” Rónán laughs.

Crowds drifted in from nearby pubs until the venue swelled. Hype men ricocheted around like human fireworks. Reggae blurred into death metal; metal blurred into more metal. Slug eventually hit the stage in the early hours.

“Everyone going mad, people jumping around, reggae bands, death-metal bands—it went until half-four or five in the morning,” Rónán recalls.

Their Irish-language track Mallacht an tSloda shook Botswanan air for the first time.

“The reaction was brilliant,” he reports.

The next morning Slug dragged themselves toward Maun - quickly christened “Maun-aghan” by Rónán in honour of drummer Tommy Carolan’s Farney roots.

Slug were third on a stacked bill, but overhead a thunderstorm rolled in. Police appeared, and the stage had to be moved indoors to a covered shelter. The gig soldiered on - until the police returned, this time responding to a complaint from a rival venue that the show was “stealing their crowd”.

“It's just become another part of the story for us to tell, ” Rónán says.

Rather than sell their merch, the Irish band simply handed it out. As they left, Rónán heard Slug’s album blasting from two separate cars in the car park—drivers ten metres apart, both discovering the music for the first time.

“That was a class moment.”

With gigs wrapped, the band headed to Hippo Lagoon, where nearly fifty hippos wallowed behind their accommodation. The following morning delivered a twelve-hour safari: leopards sunning themselves, lionesses ghosting through the scrub, elephants drifting in the rippling heat.

“Totally unreal,” says Rónán.

Next on the agenda was a 10 hour roadtrip back to the airport. The alternating naps were interrupted when three donkeys wandered across the road. A swerve, a thump - one animal caught the edge of their vehicle. Rónán jumped out to check if it was okay, but the donkey had vanished.

Unsure where they were, the band drove another two and a half hours before locating a police station to file a report.

“We explained we were an Irish band. They had great craic—looked us up, listened to the music. We told them it was government funded culture trip and apologised for hitting their donkey and got back on the road.”

Days later, Rónán was back in Cavan, MC’ing Scream For Me in Blessing’s Bar. The atmosphere oddly familiar. Incredibly, in the crowd he met a man from Botswana and greeted him in his own language.

Botswana closes a monstrous year for Slug: their debut album Colossal Oppressor (featuring Karl Willetts), an eight-country European tour (including a van-scorching incident), and a vinyl run that sold out within days.

Rónán hints that 2026 will be louder, stranger, and they'll possibly travel even farther. The band are already shaping four or five new tracks. Are they heading further afield?

“We’re keeping it under wraps,” Rónán says. “We just want to play more festivals and release new music.”