Into this world we're thrown

Slightly Stoopid, Moon Taxi, The London Souls and More Share Best & Worst Gig Stories

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Dierks Bentley had one of the most humbling and hilarious tweets earlier this year:

It’s just so hard to imagine a super star grinding in an empty bar, but pretty much every single band small and large has played an empty bar in their career. It’s a rite of passage.

The past two months, I’ve had the good fortunate to interview some incredible bands that have traveled the globe. With the above tweet in mind, I asked each band for their best and worst gigs of all time and their answers were nothing short of entertaining.

Best Gigs

Slightly Stoopid
Rymo (drummer)
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“That’s a hard one. For me it’s the big festivals. We did Lollapalooza a few years back and that was really special. We were playing with some bands I really like, like Social Distortion and M5. Green Day headlined I think. It was nice to be able to finish the show and then go watch all the bands that you grew up with and being inspired by. All the festivals are my favorite for that reason. We saw Robert Plant last year at a festival. Blues Traveler. All kinds of different bands. A lot of variety.”
Moon Taxi
Tommy Putnam (bassist)
tommy-putnam

“When we played Bonnaroo in 2012, that was the biggest audience we’d ever played by a lot. There was a lot of pressure to come out and deliver, and I felt like we delivered. That was the biggest moment boost we’d ever gotten. “

 

 

 

The London Souls
Tash (guitar/vocals)
Chris (drums/vocals)
london-souls

Chris: “One that sticks out to me that I thought was cool  because it was surprising was in Valencia, Spain, where we just were this summer. It was our first time playing there and it was like 200 people in this small club. We were headlining. It was just a bunch of Spanish people who were big fans of ours and we had no idea existed. They were singing along to our songs and most of them couldn’t speak English and packed this place out and were just superfans and Loved it. I was not expecting it all and it really made me happy to see that.”
Tash: “Yea, that was a great one. I’m going to go with that one.”
Chris: “I could rattle so many. Like playing in Belgium, we played the same stage as Paul McCartney at this festival in front of 10-15,000 people. His whole crew saw our set and was talking to us after. I kind of lost it. It was pretty cool.”

 

Earphunk
Mark Hempe (vocals, guitar)
hempe
“Jazzfest is one of my favorite festivals because I was going to it when I was in kindergarten. That’s definitely the hometown festival so that will always be one of my favorites. We got to play it a couple years ago and it was one of the coolest moments I’ve had musically – if not the best.”
Zach Deputy
(Vocals, guitar)
Zach Deputy

“Oh wow. You know what. This really random gig in Lake Murray, South Carolina. It was just epic. I was playing on a boat and it started raining like cats and dogs. You would think the gig would be over because I was in open air, but like 20-30 people put this tarp over me as it was raining like crazy and I continued playing for 20-30 mins. All these people on the boat and sandbar were dancing like crazy. In the water they were dancing and in the boats around us. Rain everywhere. It made everyone dance more. Those twenty people around me were dancing while holding the tarp over my head. It was just like a ridiculous, epic experience. It might have been 10 years ago but I still remember that moment being so awesome.”

 

Dangermuffin
(Dan Lotti – Lead vocals)
 [YouTube mix]

“I really enjoyed the stuff out West. We’ve had some significant festivals. We did one in Bend, Oregon. That’s probably the most beautiful place I’ve been to in this country that I really enjoyed playing. Just a wonderful vibe on a Sunday afternoon. The view from the stage. We played the Les Schwab Amphitheatre. And it was like a few thousand people and it was great.”

“But then some of the smaller gigs where the songs mean so much to them. There was a woman who recently lost her son to addiction and she was saying one of the songs that I wrote on a rainy afternoon on Folly Beach, The Giver, …she’s explaining what that means to her and if I can play it. So you play it and right there she’s crying. That was in Tennessee. As an artist, sure, you want to be big and sell lots of tickets, but at the end of the day if you can have your song mean something like that and help someone, that is really meaningful.”

Worst Gigs

Slightly Stoopid
Rymo (drummer)
rymo[YouTube mix]
“We’ve had tons. (laughing). It’s hard to pinpoint one. The worst ones for us is when we see people get hurt. We’ve had fans get hurt at shows and the band stops. There’s been a few events where we’ve had some weird injuries from people stage diving and people trying to get on stage and just head banging on speakers and literally passing out. Those are the worst for us because we want people to come and enjoy the show. We don’t want people getting fucking hurt. We do like to get a little crazy. You know…we play a little punk and get a little of a mosh and have a good time. We don’t want to see people with crazy injuries. That’s not our style.”
Moon Taxi
Tommy Putnam (bassist)
tommy-putnam[YouTube mix]

“There weren’t any performance wise. Worst thing that ever happened to me was we were playing Forecastle and my bass just quit working. We kind of have a rule, no matter what happens, we always finish the song. So, that was brutal. But, we had an entire tour dedicated to all of our worst shows. They were attended by 0-5 people on average for about 50 shows. And every one of those was basically the same tunes we’re playing now.  We’re playing to 1-2 people a night for an entire summer. You just kind of have to tuck your head down and just keep playing hard…and you question why you’re doing this.”

 

The London Souls
Tash (guitar/vocals)
Chris (drums/vocals)ls[YouTube mix]
Chris: I gotta think about that one. There are some good ones.
Tash: OooO I got one. I’m thinking about when we played this festival in the Northeast. It was a bad day in general. We saw a Klan parade basically. So, we’re playing the show…can you finish the story? There were confederate flags.
Chris: It was a bunch of angry white dudes in pickup trucks on the way to some Black Lives Matter rally at City Hall. It was obvious what they were there for. They didn’t have hoods but it was the only thing that they were missing.
Tash: We were trying to setup for the show. Chris and I are a duo.
Chris: We were dealing with production people who were incompetent and talking down to us. That’s what happened at this festival. They didn’t have their shit together and were super condescending.
Tash: We’re a duo. Chris and I both sing. In order to sing, you have to hear what you’re singing and the notes that you’re singing. It’s important we both hear ourselves. When literally a piece of equipment is not on and someone is condescending telling you it is on and dismissing you … that you don’t exist as a human being. That was one of the worst days. We just wanted to put on a good show.
Chris: Yea, it was kind of a dark day. (laughing). It ended really well because the festival got rained out. Everybody just partied … the musician friends. It was just one thing after another. “Man, this day really sucks.” When you have days like that you lose hope in world. How can the world be full of so many ignorant, violent assholes?  (laughing). We’re just trying to make people happy and they wouldn’t let us do that.
Chris: I saw a funny meme for daylight savings, “Don’t forget to set your clocks back 300 years tonight”. It’s funny but it’s not.
Tash: (laughing) You gotta laugh.
Chris: It’s a crazy time we’re in. You gotta be able to laugh.
Earphunk
Mark Hempe (vocals, guitar)
earphunk
[YouTube mix]

“I can’t really call anyone out like that, but I will say one of the worst shows we’ve done was one we were really looking forward to. We were opening for a really huge band, and it was a very nice theater. State of the art everything. We were really excited to play. The production staff there particularly couldn’t even hardly get through soundcheck. They had to hold doors just so we could stumble through a half ass sound check and come show time all the monitors are super jacked up and the mixes are terrible. You’re struggling to get through a set that you’ve been looking forward to a lot.“

 

Zach Deputy
(Vocals, guitar)
Zach Deputy [YouTube mix]

(laughing) “I’d say Birmingham. I went in there the first time and it was like four people. It was so horrible. Four people and I think two of them were working. It was the littlest show I’ve ever done. So, we stayed out of the market for two years and I didn’t want to go back to Birmingham for a very long time. So we go back there two years later and I said, ‘There’s no way it can be as bad as it was the first time.’ (laughing). We went back. There was two people. (laughing). The worst show I ever played was Birmingham for two people. I think I played 30 minutes and then I hung out with those two people and gave them free merch. Birmingham has my worst and second worst show.”

 

Dangermuffin
(Dan Lotti – Lead vocals)
 [YouTube mix]
“I know the answer right off the top of my head. Nothing against the town, but it was in Starkville, Mississippi. It was so poorly planned. They didn’t have a sound man. Nobody knew what was going on. So, when we finally play, in the middle of our set, it’s about to turn into a dance club, so they’re bringing up the VIP lounge onto the stage in the middle of our set!!! This is a long time ago. (laughing). Looking back, it was brutal. Oh God. We couldn’t even get the stage wired. They said to show up at 2pm and we ended up not playing til nine, so we spent the whole day there. It was a little bit like hell. The town itself is historic and has a good vibe, so nothing against it.”

 

Check out our full interviews with each band, which include videos, pics, and of course some great Q&A.

 

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