A SCOTS musician and entrepreneur has told how the nightmare of Brexit has been a “bomb” in his life – leaving him unable to tour and posing huge problems for his online merchandising business.

Iain Kilgallon performs with punk band Beerzone and previously toured with them across Europe, in hundreds of shows in the US, as well as Australia and Russia.

In addition, he works with Celtic folk/punk outfit The Placks, who have been gaining airplay in the States, on stations including the giant Sirius XM, which has 30 million subscribers.

Kilgallon, from Dunoon, has also been running an online business designing and selling embroidered band merchandise – Mainstage Merch – and five years ago started Punk on the Peninsula, a four-day punk/folk/alternative music festival at several venues, which was the biggest event in Dunoon after the Cowal Gathering.

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But Brexit – combined with Covid-19 – have conspired to put a stop to both these activities.

Kilgallon told The National: “Radio stations here don’t really play much in the way of punky-type music, but if you go to Europe, America, Australia or Japan it is massive.

“My little merchandising business started to get a lot of orders from across the world with about a quarter of sales coming from EU countries.

“But then Brexit came along like a bomb exploding in my life and has more or less decimated my income when you throw in Covid-19.”

He first noticed the problems with Brexit when he started receiving complaints from his regular EU clients.

“Normally they would receive their orders six or seven days after I sent them. But I started getting calls from some of them who were absolutely raging because it had gone from six or seven days to five, six or seven weeks for their orders to arrive.

“It’s crazy. I get orders from Australia, Canada or New Zealand and they’re delivered in between five and seven days, but I can’t trade with people, comparatively a few miles away.”

Aside from these woes, touring with the band has become even more problematic, starting with the £1000 fee for a "carnet" permit to take a vehicle into the EU, coupled with endless delays at every border, where luggage and equipment has to be unloaded and weighed time and again.

“One band had to pay £1000 for their carnet, a permit to drive their vehicle in the EU, and they were only playing in France. And a friend told me if your appearance fee’s less than £8500 per show, it’s not worth playing any shows in Europe, and for vast majority of bands that’s completely pie in the sky money,” said Kilgallon, adding that bands such as theirs would not normally be booked if their fee was any more than €1500 (£1260).

“Boris Johnson and co were approached by the EU to bring in a special visa to make things easier for musicians and artists, and he knocked it back.

“Johnson’s not going to change anything anytime soon, because he doesn't live in the real world.

“We all knew Brexit was going to be bad, but it’s 10 times worse than what most people thought and a lot of people think that he’s still hiding under the Covid excuse.”

Kilgallon added that being unable to tour or sell his merchandise because of Brexit and with Covid affecting his local music festival, there was still sunshine on the horizon: “A friend and I are now trying to launch a clothing business that offers bespoke uniforms and embroidery for schools, bands, industry and sporting organisations.

“As we are based in Dunoon, we have named it Breakwater Clothing, and we start trading next week.”