theriotbefore.com

Yep.

I have certain assumptions about the assumptions that people hold to about what it’s like to be in a band on tour. I assume that most non-touring folks get the bulk of their information about what it’s like to be in a traveling band from VH1 documentaries. When I tell strangers that I’m in a band on tour (I do this all the time. I’ll just walk up to someone out in public, said person just minding his or her business, give em a tap on the shoulder, then, “hey guess what?…”) I imagine that they’re imagining me, the night before, back stage, surrounded by hot chicks, everyone has teased hair, me in leather pants, no shirt, clouds of white powder fill the room like it’s a bakery, the rest of my band (Motley Crue or Poison) trashing our room at the Ritz. Often times I don’t try to correct their image of my life, because why not at least let them live vicariously through the fiction they’ve created? Why burst their bubble by telling them, that, well, I crapped my pants, I played to a crowd of fifteen last night, and I woke up on a dirty floor next to a pile of cigarette butts? They don’t need to know this. But, since you read this anyway and already have a pretty good idea of what our tours are actually like, I have no reservations further dismantling the stereotype in this blog. And that brings me to the point of today’s entry, which is dedicated to one of the most exciting parts of tour…eating. That’s right, eating. It is probably the most frequently anticipated event of the day, even if it’s not anywhere good. This is because most of tour is just sitting around the van, sitting around the venue, sitting around where we are staying, constantly trying to not be bored. And the easiest cure is eating. For example, when we left Lafayette, we spent a solid hour looking for a good diner where we could eat breakfast. That hour flew by. We talked about the chances of finding a diner at a particular exit, why there weren’t more diners, whether or not is was worth it just to stop and eat at Cracker Barrel, what we wanted to eat when we finally found a diner. And guess what? We found one. It was delicious.

I got pancakes and eggs.

Then, after breakfast/lunch (it was noon), we got back in the car and started the long drive to Fort Walton. When we have a far distance to travel in a day, the only time we really get to be outside in the sun is when we stop to eat or get gas, so there’s always this sort of post-food blues that settles over us when we pile back in the van after a meal. We know we’ll most likely be sitting there for the rest of the day, without a legitimate excuse to stop for at least an hour or two. It makes it worse when it’s raining, which it was, pretty much the whole way between Louisiana and Florida.

Though definitely not cold, it was cool enough outside to merit leaving the windows rolled up, which was nice because that meant it was quiet enough in the van for me to listen to an entire Bright Eyes cd all the way through. I’m pretty sure I was the only person excited about this.

By the time we pulled into Fort Walton, the sun was setting and in the sky, as John K. Samson would say, “a darker grey was breaking through a lighter one.” But we were in good spirits because, that’s right, it was time for dinner! Something to do! Rather than heading straight to the venue, we stopped by Cory’s friend’s apartment for an hour or so, and this gave us ample time to make dinner rather than buy it. I grabbed the vantry and got to work.

Vantry, if you’re curious, is a word I made up. It’s the combination of Van and Pantry, and, well, that’s exactly what it is. A few tours ago I figured it would be a good idea to start taking basic food with us and cooking it at the houses we stayed at, thus giving me a chance to cook on tour (something I genuinely like doing) and saving us a ton of money in food costs. At first the vantry was pretty basic, but it has now evolved into two milk crates worth of food and kitchen utensils. We have pans, pasta, knives, a cutting board, basic spices (mostly geared towards pasta), cans of tomatoes, pancake mix, biscuit mix, and anything else we feel like cooking. On the menu in Fort Walton was spaghetti. I cut an onion and a green pepper, sautéed that with a lot of garlic, added some cans of diced tomatoes, and dried herbs. It was delicious and cost about five dollars to feed six people.

We were then all eaten by the world’s largest shark.

Its teeth had lights, which made it extra scary and vicious.

Brett

I crapped my pants in Lafayette. Seriously. I haven’t really told anyone about this until now. It’s a little embarrassing. Actually, it’s a lot of embarrassing. After all, I am a 25 year old man, my pant crapping years a solid 20 years behind me, and it just doesn’t seem like something I’d ever have to deal with again. But, well, tour sometimes makes my intestines angry, and in Lafayette, they were pissed. Like real mad. I went for a walk before the show, and about a five or six blocks from the van, in a pretty quiet part of town, I had an overwhelming urge to pass gas. I stopped walking, contemplated the urge, then complied with the request. Except, as I quickly and quite unfortunately learned, the request had been a lie! I very disgusting lie! I was shocked by the deceit. My gas had been poo in disguise. Paralyzed, I just stood there, thinking about what to do. This was a situation I hadn’t encountered in decades, and the part of my brain that had once dealt with this matter had long since retired, moved to Florida, taken up golf, bought a bunch of crappy shirts with palm trees on them. I was out of luck, in a random town, and a solid half-mile from a public restroom. This has to be the least glamorous thing that has ever happened to me on tour. I ended up just standing there for a minute, laughing to myself, disgusted, angry at my intestines. After coming to terms with my predicament, I decided I needed to find a bathroom and get rid of the evidence. Unfamiliar with Lafayette, I just kept heading the direction I was already walking, hoping that I’d run into something soon. This was a bad idea. I just kept getting further and further away from any sort of sanctuary. It was uncomfortable. Really, really uncomfortable. After what seemed like an hour, but was probably closer to ten minutes, I found an empty Subway restaurant, and, well, I didn’t buy a sandwich. I went back to the van, sans underwear, and pretended nothing happened. I don’t know why I’m writing about this here. But here I am. Crapping my pants and telling the world. I hope my estimates of how few people read this are accurate.

Brett

Day 14, Lake Charles, LA

If you’re like me, you’ve probably spent countless hours laying in bed at night, tossing and turning, tormented by the seemingly unanswerable question, What is the night life scene like in downtown Lake Charles, LA? Well, you’re in luck, because I finally have the answer. Like Moses descending from the mountaintop, I can now approach the gathered, anxious and eager masses, my face aglow with the wisdom of infinity, and pronounce to you the truth, written in stone by the hand of God himself, that nothing, absolutely nothing goes on in downtown Lake Charles.

We pulled into the place at, like, 8pm, and it was an absolute ghost town, as deserted as my date to the senior prom (whole other story!). Even I, whose naturally inclination towards positivity and optimism normally dances out of me like Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, was worried. Then the bar where the show was at started playing Kid Rock over the speakers, and I pretty much abandoned all hope. I began my usual sulking. I am good at this. But something amazing happened while I was lost in my own personal cloud of self-pity, people showed up. Out of nowhere. Like Field of Dreams, people just materialize out of nothing the instant they were needed. Things started looking up. I was skeptical, but intrigued. In addiction to the Kid Rock, the show had all the potential for being awkward, because it wasn’t really a show at all, but rather an open mic night that the bar has once a week. We had some shows fall through and were able to get on this at the last minute, as the closing act. It was your typical open mic night style music. All acoustic acts, some good, some not so. But hey, it was a show. Better than nothing, right? Before we played I went outside to warm up my voice, and as I was doing so some guy staggered out of the bar (it was maybe 11pm), stopped right at the doorway, and puked on the sidewalk. Then, his work done, he about-faced and went right back inside. Downtown Lake Charles had this really bad idea to have kids paint pictures on the sidewalk with semi-applicable quotes attached, and it just so happened that the puker hit one of those dead on. The featured quote was by an anonymous sage who so wisely once said, “stop wishing, start wanting.” ?!!!! Huh? That’s the worst quote I have ever heard in my life. I have absolutely no idea what it means. But it was on the freakin’ sidewalk, written above some sort of bad drawing, and all of it had been puked upon. This felt right.

By the time we started playing, things got really un-awkward. Like to the point that it was awkward again. The pendulum had swung from one end of the spectrum to the other and we found ourselves playing our punk songs to a very mixed crowd, after an acoustic reggae band, in a rather full bar on an empty street, to people who genuinely appeared to be into it. Then, when we were done, people asked us to play more. Not an encore per se, I feel like an encore generally implies that more than six people are involved in the requesting, but still, we played extra songs to the delight of a few and to the surprising non-disgust of the rest of the bar. I still don’t get it; how this show went so well. Maybe it’s best that I try not to understand. Maybe it’s something that just can’t be fully comprehended. At the beginning of Moby Dick, Melville says that we see things spiritual like an oyster observing the sun, thinking that the thickest of water is the thinnest of air. And maybe, despite my best attempts at clarity of observation, I will always see our show at Lake Charles from the ocean floor. And I guess that’s ok. My original decree about Lake Charles, written in stone, has been shattered, and it’s been replaced with a more malleable and personal interpretation. One more forgiving. One more gracious. One more accepting. And at the entryway, puke on a crappy quote.

Brett

Day 12, Houston, TX

After recovering from our minor injuries, we left San Antonio and made the 3 hour drive to Houston that night. We got to Eric’s apartment/I <3 You Productions warehouse at 4am and promptly went to bed. It had been a long day. About an hour later everyone woke up to a room filled with smoke and The Beav freaking out while holding his pillow. His pillow was on fire. Apparently shortly after falling asleep he knocked his pillow off of the futon he was sleeping on and it fell against a nearby space heater. Luckily the fire didn’t spread and the pillow ended up the only burn victim.

Beaver started the fire! It was always burning since the worlds been turning.

Since the show in Austin, O Pioneers!!! was operating as a three piece band, courtesy of the members of the band, Paper Moons. They sounded amazing and I highly recommend that you check them out if you get the opportunity. My personal opinion is that the band has never sounded better, and the new songs rule. Our short few days with O Pioneers wasn’t nearly long enough, especially since they opted to drive back to Houston after all the shows in Texas. Hopefully we’ll get to go on a more sizable tour with them soon.

How many punks does it take to change a lightbulb?

One to change it and the other one to say that he liked the old one better.

Brett