Thursday, April 12th, 2012 marked the start of the assuredly epic Weedeater, Cough & ASG tour of the eastern states. To give you a taste of what you’re in for, here is an interview between Cough and ASG…very entertaining road stories, and you can imagine the musical chemistry that will be blowing up bars from Florida to Connecticut. Hopefully no stink bombs and/or fireworks will be dropped, but there will be a lot of puke…check out the interview below and after the jump…
Photo Tahlia Palmer
COUGH:
Alright. Let’s talk about this tour. Are any of these cities new to y’all? Playing any familiar venues?
ASG:
It looks like a 50/50 as far as cities visited….Johnson City, Ithaca, Lexington will all be first time encounters for us. It appears we will be in some mountainous terrain so we are already stressing our van surviving the tour. What kind of wheels you guys rocking?
COUGH:
We’ve just got an E-150 conversion van and we’re pulling a trailer that our friend lets us borrow. It works most of the time. We actually broke down the last time we played Johnson City and the most bizarre series of events followed. We had to get a hotel but at least there was this shitty dive bar nearby. So we go to this bar where some nu-metal band was wearing their own t-shirts and mourning the anniversary of the death of one of their members. Pantera comes on the jukebox and it sparks a debate about Dimebag vs. Phil. I had no part in the debate because, in the meantime, there’s a midget on the bar telling jokes about banging black dudes because their dicks are huge and she’s small. She actually made me pick her up after her set to put her back on the ground. Overall, everything goes fine and we walk out of the bar without causing a rumble with the nu-metal band. Of course, as we’re walking away they start talking shit like ‘Yeah, you better leave!’ Then some other redneck says ‘just so you know what you’re messing with…’ and shows us his police badge. Have y’all ever had any bad or awkward run-ins with the cops?
ASG:
Nice taste on the van, we also have a 2001 Ford E150 conversion van, black and gold, super creepy. I think you guys might need to take us to this little watering hole in JC, sounds like an adventure either way. As far as Johnny law goes we’ve been pretty lucky so far, no arrests, just standard mild harassment. We have had bad luck with angry Latino gangs however. On the last night of a tour in Reno, during load out we some how got caught in the middle of a gang fight. Our rental van somehow became the barrier between two sides fighting, with my drummer and I having to hit the ground to avoid being hit with bats, rocks, pipes…these cats had everything. In the end every window in our rental was busted out, glass everywhere, not a window intact. The real shitty part was that it was February and we had to drive all night to Sacramento to catch an AM flight back home. That’s about 4 hours up over the Sierras and Lake Tahoe in the winter with no windshield or windows, it was a bit chilly. Almost as cold as the reception we got from the rental car company. You guys had any life-threatening experiences?
COUGH:
Nothing as good as getting caught in the midst of a gang fight. All of our near-death experiences have been on the highway. We played Tampa one time and didn’t have a place to crash, so we stayed in the van outside of the venue. Unable to sleep too long in the Florida heat, we got a pretty early start on the day. As we’re heading north, riding in the middle lane, we see an SUV about 50-100 feet ahead attempting to change lanes. The problem with the lane change was that there was a fucking 18-wheeler occupying the space that the SUV aimed to occupy. It was unbelievable the way the big rig launched that SUV across the far right lane and off into the woods. Of course, the 18-wheeler starts to jackknife and we’re the closest vehicle to the shit that’s about to go down. This was our first time out with a trailer and David couldn’t have handled the situation any better. He calmly puts the left blinker on, checks his blind spot, and switches into the far-left lane to go around the semi which is turning sideways now. After we passed, he puts the right blinker back on and gets back into the middle lane. I don’t think he even commented on the situation until everybody else in the van was like ‘WHAT THE FUCK!’. What do you guys typically listen to when you’re cheating death on the highway?
Photo Tahlia Palmer
ASG:
Damn that’s some NASCAR shit! As far as highway tunes go, it’ usually a mixed bag, lots of Ween, old country, classic rock etc…usually not what we’re hearing or playing each night on a tour. You guys?
COUGH:
We listen to mostly country. We don’t have AC so anything twangy really cuts through when you’re burning down the highway with all the windows open. Now, seeing as you’ve known the Weedeater guys for a while (and anything could happen on the road with those guys), fill us in on some disasters.
ASG:
Let’s see some classic Weedeater moments…the first that comes to mind with Mr Dixie Dave would have to be one of our first out of town shows, probably 2002 or something. ASG opened, and once we were done I was having a good time rocking out, right in front of Dave, which turned out to be a bad idea. Back then, club owners would put a bucket or something on stage for Dave to fill up with his puke. At this show, it was like a bus boys dishes bucket. In the midst of some song, Dave’s doin his thing and promptly kicks the bucket of puke which went all over my face and shirt. I made it to the bathroom before my first gag.
ASG has been responsible for 2 cancelled Weedeater tours pertaining to injuring Shep. The one that sticks out is when Scott our drummer was doubling Shep on his bike. The group of us were drunk riding between the bars around the beach, Shep ate shit off the handlebars and broke his arm. Four week tour canned, sorry Tonedeaf.
Keko is a biter. Watch yer ass past 2 am. He’s also one hell of a mechanic, hopefully we won’t need him for that on this run but he’ s saved a tour before.
So are we gonna be able to have some cool tour barbecues or are you guys vegan hipsters? 🙂
COUGH:
Nahhhh. Our love of meat probably made us look like total assholes in Europe. We’d be arguing with the dude that drove us around (because he’d do something dumb) and someone would chime in with: ‘…AND THERE’S NO FUCKING MEAT! YOU TOLD THEM WE’RE VEGETARIANS!?’ To each his own though. We got to eat kangaroo in Australia. I’ve just learned that Big John will be joining us on most of these shows. He’s truly an unsung hero on a lot of tours. Are you familiar with him and would you like to share any stories?
ASG:
Yea big John is the shit, he’s always telling us to get more popular so he can do a tour with us because by day 4 he’s already losing his mind babysitting. What do you guys do for a living when you’re not selling $2200 in merch every night?
COUGH:
I work in a warehouse mixing paint for a huge corporation and print t-shirts on the side. David hustles paint occasionally as well as some construction/renovation work. Joey keeps America fat as a line cook at a local diner. And Brandon does landscaping. With such lucrative careers like these, I bet you’re wondering why we bother with music at all. The answer still escapes me. What about you guys? Any full-time movie/tv extras? I’ve heard Wilmington is a hot spot for those jobs.
Photo Tahlia Palmer
ASG:
Yea little Wilmywood is a hot bed for teen drama shows like Dawson’s Creek and One Tree Hill, although I wouldn’t recognize any of those folks. Seriously I don’t watch it. We do get a kick out of that Eastbound and Down show, they film that here too. Kenny and his boys frequent our local watering hole down here at the beach, seem like good enough dudes. However none of us have graced the silver screen I don’t think, actually wait!! Andy was a delivery guy in that 90’s movie Empire Records, it was filmed here as well. Other than that, I’m a commercial fisherman, Scott sells playgrounds, Andy helps construct those playgrounds, and Jonah does landscaping and home renovations. Yep we’re still holding out for that one hit before we settle down.
Are you guys in other bands? Or have members been in other bands, or is Cough the only one?
COUGH:
We’ve all played in other bands but nothin substantial. Mostly shit that didn’t require talent, so not much has changed. I still try to play music with a couple other good friends but it’s more of an excuse to get outta the ghetto for a couple hours. We probably oughta wrap this thing up pretty soon so I have one more question: Do you have any good tour prank stories? We went out with Buzzoven last year and, between Sleepy and Dixie, we were expecting to get fucked with pretty hard. Nothing happened until the last night of tour when Sleepy put his dirty socks on our windshield wipers. I once saw Weedeater let off a stink bomb during Struck By Lightning’s set, so I guess we got off easy.
ASG:
Let’s see pranks on the road, fireworks were the main arsenal for Weedeater back in the day. We played a show in Memphis with them and one of the Weedeater dudes chucked some black cats into the crowd but unfortunately someone got pretty badly burned. That kind of put a bummer over our Wilmington antics, maybe matured everyone a bit. ASG was on tour with the Sword in 2006 or something, and by the end of that tour we weren’t seeing eye to eye with a few of their members. So in Houston, we stole their water and Doritos from the green room, since they were going home the next day, and we had to stay on tour. They threw a big hissy fit, the promoter got involved, I think the cops were even called. Anyway, I guess we usually get along with the bands we tour with so pranks are at a friendly minimum. Look forward to meeting you dudes, see you in Charleston! Travel safe!
COUGH:
That’s bullshit. By the end of a tour you oughta have no problem sharing your Doritos with a fellow band. I don’t think we’re getting the snack hook-up, so we probably won’t have any snack drama. Hope you guys have a safe trip too. See you soon.
Weedeater/Cough/ASG dates:
04/12/12 Jimbo’s Rock Lounge, Charleston SC
04/13/12 Will’s Pub, Orlando FL
04/14/12 Churchill’s, Miami FL
04/15/12 The Atlantic, Gainesville FL
04/17/12 The Hideaway, Johnson City TN
04/18/12 Lexington Ave Brewery, Asheville NC
04/19/12 V Club, Huntington WV
04/20/12 Ace of Cups, Columbus OH
04/21/12 Cosmic Charlie’s, Lexington KY
04/22/12 Smiling Moose, Pittsburgh PA
04/23/12 The Haunt, Ithaca NY
04/24/12 Cherry Street Station, Wallingford CT
04/25/12 AS220, Providence RI
04/26/12 Mojo Main, Newark DE
04/27/12 Outer Banks Brewing Station, Kill Devil Hills NC
04/28/12 Casbah, Durham NC
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