The Wonder Years appeal for support

US pop-punk band The Wonder Years have posted a heartfelt Myspace blog, asking for fan support after falling on tough times recently.

After buying - and subsequently losing - two vans for their current American tour with Streetlight Manifesto, the Philadelphia locals have been forced to take out a large loan to continue their playing commitments.

Band frontman Soupy (probably not his real name)  had this to say:

"It hasn't been the smoothest couple of weeks for The Wonder Years. Coming back from Germany, we got lost and missed our flights and had to spend $3000 extra to get home. Then we got word that our beloved WNDRVAN would never run again. We came across a new van we really liked... we laid down about $7000. Literally, the next day the van stopped working well. We took it back to the dealership. They basically told us they couldn't do anything.

I love my life. I'm not complaining or saying we have it bad because we don't. We count ourselves lucky for getting the chance to do what we do and we'll always be making an effort to stay up and keep moving. We won't be asking for donations or begging for any sympathy. All I'm saying is that we have a webstore and there's a bunch of cool shit in there. We know that a shit ton of you downloaded our record and I'm pretty fine with that but if you liked it, maybe buy a shirt or something now. We're going to make an effort to also get a bunch of leftover tour merch up there dirt cheap. The link is www.coldcutsmerch.com/thewonderyears and we appreciate all of you that buy something.... If you forward your order confirmation to wonderyearstour@gmail.com, we'll make sure to send you a personal thank you email because on days like these, it means a lot that you care about what we do."

Despite financial problems, The Wonder Years will be touring Australia in September, alongside Tonight Alive, Heroes For Hire and Skyway. They released their second album, "The Upsides", to critical acclaim early this year.