The quirks of traveling in the United Kingdom — driving on the left side of the road, the archaic architecture — are old news for solo artist Joe Driscoll. The Syracuse native and hip-hop wordsmith adopted Bristol, England, as his home when he moved there in 2005.

But Driscoll got a chance to relive his U.K. adventures when Funk ‘n Waffles owner Adam Gold and his Syracuse-based funk band, Sophistafunk, recently stepped foot on British soil. Sophistafunk joined Driscoll at the end of August for a weeklong U.K. tour, an event two or three years in the making.

“It was great to watch the boys go through all the things I went through when I first came over,” Driscoll said. “Everyone here in the U.K. knows my excess civic pride in Syracuse.”

The tour, which consisted of four gigs in as many nights, was surprisingly devoid of culture shock, said Sophistafunk emcee Jack Brown. Although he admitted there is a tremendous list of differences between playing shows in the United Kingdom and touring stateside, he said the music scene doesn’t change much from country to country.

“Once the lights are dim and the music starts, it’s just like being at home,” he said.

Four keyboards in tow, Sophistafunk landed in London jetlagged, but the band mates stayed up for two days straight when they arrived to fight off the time difference. Gold, keyboardist for the band, said their first planned gig was cancelled due to a gas leak, which allowed the trio time to catch up on much-needed sleep.

From Bristol, the band snaked through the United Kingdom, from a swanky bar in Newcastle, which Gold compared to the inside of a fancy yacht, to a street festival in Cardiff, Wales. Sophistafunk capped off its European trip with an appearance at the Shambala Festival in Northamptonshire, England.

“It was like a carnival meets a festival,” Brown said. “To actually play a gigantic festival in Europe, it really felt like we belonged there. We got really dialed into that music scene.”

Even though the band shed its short-lived Three One Live name early into its career — a play on the 3-1-5 Syracuse area code — Driscoll said U.K. concertgoers still used Sophistafunk’s hometown to dub its genre.

“They loved ‘em,” he said. “Some even said they noticed some similarities between us, and were referring to the ‘Syracuse sound.’ That made my week.”

Sophistafunk didn’t turn a profit during its stint abroad, but Gold said making money wasn’t exactly a part of the game plan for the tour. Brown explained that touring pays dividends by opening doors in markets that the band might not otherwise break into.

Embarking overseas for a tour is a long way from Sophistafunk’s early days, when Gold booked most of the band’s shows solo. Being on the road, though, is nothing new for Gold, Brown and drummer Emanuel Washington — Gold guesses the band plays more than 180 gigs in a given year.

Getting burned out happens, Gold said, though in the least drastic definition of the phrase. He said that just sitting in the band’s converted van driving 6,000 miles to the West Coast takes a physical toll.

“Out of 52 weeks of the year, we probably tour 48 of them,” he said. “When you do a five- or six-week tour like we’re starting to do nationally, it’s more stress on the body.”

Brown, who tackles the lion’s share of lyric-writing duties, chronicled Sophistafunk’s time on the road in a yet-to-be released extended play album titled “Freedom Is,” which he said the band hopes to release in November or December. He described it as a road EP that is “a snapshot in time of our recent travels out west.”

Especially for Gold, the founder and sole owner of Funk ‘n Waffles on Marshall Street, constantly touring demands striking a balance between keeping his head above water with both ventures. He said when he’s in Syracuse, he’s usually working on Funk ‘n Waffles – and juggling between the two is never easy.

“I’d love to put 100 percent into either one of them,” he said. “But I’d also hate to leave either one of them.”

Quick on the heels of a local gig at the Westcott Street Cultural Fair on Sept. 15, Sophistafunk will hit the highway for a tour that winds its way through Colorado, California and the Northwest before returning back east.

Brown said the band also plans to play at Food Network personality Guy Fieri’s birthday party for the second time in January — he met the band while filming an episode of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” at Funk ‘n Waffles last August — and hopes to make it back to England soon.

If the band does make it back to the United Kingdom, Driscoll said he is sure the country will welcome Sophistafunk back with open ears.

Said Driscoll: “They loved the U.K, the U.K. loved them. Mission accomplished.”

Published on September 3, 2013 at 11:59 pm