Well, we finally finished the ABR tour alive. I think we left White River on day four and drove some insane amount of time to pick up with the tour again at the Calgary date. Luckily the rest of the tour went swimmingly and all the shows on the way home were great. Got to hang with a ton of great friends as well: Jon from Grave Maker, Marshall from The Warriors, Greg from Amber Pacific...even super scene-celeb Timm from Trial/Wait In Vain/Panic Records came and hung out, ate some Po Dogs, and showed us around Panic HQ before the show in Seattle!
For the past three weeks we've all been hangin' at home and getting ready for our new record, "Burning at Both Ends" to drop. Scheduling press, photo shoots, and a video shoot for the first single which will be filmed in LA next week. If you're in the area, submit an email and come be a part of it! Here are the details:
Hey everyone, SYG is making a new video and we're asking YOU to come be a part of it! Here are the requirements of what we'll need for extras:
-Please have your own transportation to/from shoot (it will be in the LA area) on Wednesday, May 4th.
-Come dressed in "prom" attire: tux/suit or dress with alternate options, 80's looking clothes & accessories would be good to bring as well if you have them
-Send a picture of you in costume to sygcast@gmail.com. This will be how the director decides who he needs for the video and will also be how you receive info for the shoot.
-Please state whether you have any dancing skills or experience.
For example: "I am a skilled breakdancer and have performed in these videos/movies..." or "I am trained in salsa dancing. I took a class once." Any way for the director to learn more would be a huge help so please include a link to your portfolio or youtube video of you showing off said dance skills if possible. NOTE: dancing skills are NOT required, so don't feel like you need to do this if you don't have any! :)
-This will be an all day shoot so please plan on being available all day. Again, that's Wednesday, May 4th (subject to change)
...That's it, we'll see you there!
So that's what I've been up to. Dan, Jordan, Mikey and I leave Monday night to drive down to LA for the video, a photo shoot, and practice before we leave for our UK headliner with A Loss For Words & This Time Next Year, and a number of fests. Dates & tickets are available on our facebook page HERE (it takes a minute to load so please be patient!)
Van broke down again = stuck in the middle of nowhere = more free time = blog update!
Unfortunately, this equation also applies:
Van broke down again = everyone loses $ = we're bummed we don't get to play = people are bummed they don't get to see us play
Cost of repairs on this tour alone (before this one): >$2,000
One tank of diesel: $150+
Placing the responsibility and cost on someone else's shoulders: Priceless.
...Yep, looks like getting rid of our vehicle and just renting from now on would be the smart thing to do. All we want to do now is finish this tour and get home.
But first, let's start from where we last left off...
Sudbury show was a lot of fun. Hottest show of the tour and the power kept cutting out on one side of the stage for every band, but the crowd was great and everyone had a blast.
Yesterday we had a day off to make the 20 hr. drive to Winnipeg. About halfway through the drive, Justin was driving and felt some strange rumbling. No sooner had he announced it to the rest of us when the back tire flew off and went rolling down the highway! At first glance, this seemed like the worst possible conditions to have road troubles. We're in a snowy mountain pass on a two-way road with very few cars on it. Our luck quickly turned around when, within minutes, a Greyhound bus passed by and pulled over to offer us a ride into the nearest town...which just happened to be White River, Ontario, hometown of Winnie-the-Pooh and self-proclaimed "Coldest Spot in Canada."
So we've been stuck here since yesterday afternoon surfing the internet in the hotel and eating snacks from the gas station and the overpriced diner next door. I just paid $19 for subpar fettuccine alfredo because it was the only place open past 9 PM. This town is TINY. Even during the day, the only other dining options are A&W and the donut shop across the street. It started snowing about ten minutes after the wheel fell off yesterday and hasn't stopped since.
Nothing too exciting to report here. Tonight is the 4th show on our tour with August Burns Red and Texas In July, which runs mostly through Canada. Born of Osiris was supposed to be on the tour too but they didn't get across the Canadian border so they cancelled their dates entirely.
The drive out to the first show was insane. We left California the 25th. Four days, one van repair, and one massive trailer repair later, we arrived at the first show of the tour, having missed both headlining shows we'd booked on the drive out :( The tour kicked off for us in Williamsport, PA at a venue called The Hive. We'd never played The Hive (or Williamsport for that matter) before, but the show was great. We had a day off the next day so we drove, ate some Angelo's pizza at the Russin house with the Title Fight boys, then drove some more.
We'd never been to Quebec City before so that was interesting. Before the show Mikey and I walked around town and shopped and found some good food.
Hung out with our buddy Pat Moore yesterday in London and he took us to a sweet poutine place called Smoke's that serves veggie poutine and we met a very drunk guy who decided to strike up a conversation with Justin and Jr. the entire time we ate haha.
Now we're in Ottawa. Last time we were here was years ago on the No Trigger, Daggermouth, Hostage Life tour, so I'm gonna go walk around and check out the city.
Well, I'm finally finding time to update this thing. Things have been super busy for the past couple weeks. On top of the usual band happenings, we've got a ton of stuff going on with the record coming out in June. PLUS I found out right before I came home that all my roomies are jumping ship by the end of March, so I had to plan an unexpected move and find a place to keep all of my things until I find a new residence (I didn't) in the ten days I had at home...fun stuff.
Anyway, here are some highlights from the rest of the Parkway tour. My phone erased everything about 30 times on this tour so a bunch of pictures I took of sweet stuff are now gone forever. I may be upgrading to a new phone soon, my BlackBerry isn't cutting it.
First things first – here's the video of Mikey and our ex-guitarist and expert handyman Dave Yoha building our new tour vehicle that I promised last time. I still don't know what to call this thing. It's not quite a van or a bus...it's like a mini bus!
Not much to report about the middle of the tour, other than almost dying driving through the snow and rain every night. The most memorable part was probably in Montreal when members of the tour all pitched in to pay Marshall of The Warriors $200 to play two full songs in a G-String. Here's the video of "Transistor." Watch it...if you dare.
Here's a pic of a fort I made with Anthony after we'd lost our minds driving through the night at some ungodly hour:
Here are a couple tour updates Vans had Mikey make for the tour...enjoy!
The East Coast was amazing as usual, but Richmond, VA was probably the best show of the tour.
Surprisingly, the next night in Charlotte, NC was the worst show of the tour for us. It's strange because they're only four hours from each other. Now, I don't condone fighting and try to avoid it at all costs, but at the Charlotte show there were a couple guys front and center for our set who did not enjoy our band to say the least. They were taunting us with insults and even threw a can of beer at us before instigating a fight with some of our dudes after the set. They lost. To add insult to injury, they were kicked out and missed the band they came to see. My guess is next time they'll think twice before sitting through an entire band they dont like's set just to insult/pick fights with them. So remember kids, just because a band's music isn't tough doesn't mean they can't kick your ass ;)
Anyway, the next night in Atlanta was great. Our friend Chris from Jimmy John's brought us all sandwiches and the set was a blast. Our friend Corey Emond was out with Ice Cube and our tours crossed so he came and hung out and bought us all pizza after the show (that's him on the right):
Here's another pic of the Fellini's pizza crew:
Unfortunately the road beast had an oil line issue and we had to leave it (and Justin) in Atlanta while we drove a one-way rental van through a hurricane to get to the TX shows in time. Glad we did because the shows ruled and we priceline'ed the sweetest room ever at the Omni in Austin and made a beeline for the hot tub as soon as we got there. Here's a pic of the hot tub crew:
While we were in Texas, Corey hit me up and told me that he'd gotten Ice Cube's son, O'Shea Jackson Jr. AKA California Heir, to wear one of our crewnecks onstage at one of the shows. Pretty sweet. California love!
Justin met back up with us before we headed out to El Paso to pick up our buddy (and former TM) Juan and join the rest of the tour party for "tour paintball" on our day off. We were too busy blasting at each other all day to take any decent photos or videos, but here's one pic of the SYG paintball crew, minus yours truly:
The Phoenix show was at some awful venue we'd never played before called The Nile, but it didn't seem to matter because our set was a blast. We couldn't wait to get to CA so we went swimming at a friend's then drove straight through the night.
The Hollywood show was a headache because not only was it the last day of the tour but the show was two tours combined (the other being another metal tour w/Whitechapel & The Acacia Strain), which only added to the stress of having what seemed like a million people we know at the show to hang out/talk business with; label people, friends, etc. Before our set, Kelly Paiste (yeah, like the cymbal co.) took us and John Robinson out to dinner at Asia de Cuba next door to the venue. It was probably the best dinner I've had so far this year. If you're ever near one and have a ton of money to spend I highly recommend it. They were both very cool people and very nice. Thanks Kelly!
I think that about wraps it up. Such a fun tour and I hope we get the chance to tour with the Parkway Drive guys again soon, great dudes and crew. I'm home now and it's been raining all week but luckily I found a 30 minute window of sunshine yesterday between the intermittent showers to move some of my things into storage without them getting ruined, hooray! We leave tomorrow morning to head out East for the August Burns Red Canadian tour. Another metalcore tour...I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes!
DISCLAIMER: I can't make the text on this entry larger for whatever reason because Google is stupid. Sorry for the eyesore.
Greetings, ppl of teh internetz. We're a little over a week into our U.S. Tour with Parkway Drive, The Ghost Inside, and The Warriors at the moment and I had the sudden urge to resurrect my blog from the dead and distant past. I'm going to try to keep the updates as regular as possible on this one (though I make no guarantees!) ...Video clips coming soon, enjoy!
Mikey had been working on the van with our old guitarist Dave for over a month (video update coming soon) while the rest of us finished up the new record in the studio (check out a montage of us at the height of our studio insanity here). He and I drove it down from the Bay Area to put the finishing touches on the interior with Junior before the tour started...but not before I discovered this little gem tucked away in the Ambrose family kitchen hahaha
This tour has been a lot of fun for everyone thus far. The first week we had the pleasure of hanging with our good friends in Gravemaker, as they were opening the tour. We weren't sure what to expect from the crowds on this tour because we sound pretty different from the rest of the bands on the bill but it's gone well for the most part. The first show was at Soma in San Diego. My dad came out and we got Thai food before the show, which I then went on to puke up right before our set, but other than that it went over great. Here's a pic from backstage:
The next day was Glasshouse in Pomona. Before the show we went to Native Foods with my friends Tom & Cathy. Tom's got a pretty impressive gun rack in his house.
We drove straight through the night from Pomona to "Da Bay" which was nice because I got a little sleep in my own bed, ate some Taqueria Cancun, and our buddy Doug hooked it up with some gear from the upcoming Rebel 8 Spring 2011 line. Stoked, thanks Doug!
...I could show you what's behind this door, but then I'd have to kill you.
All of the CA shows were great. The SF show was at the DNA Lounge, a venue I've been to a number of times but we've never played. The show was incredible and it was great to see so many friends and family come out and hang. We were all bummed to leave our home state, but we were excited for the next city; Vegas!
For whatever reason, the rest of the bands on the tour had a show with Retaliate that day, but we had the day off. So, in true SYG fashion, we headed to Vegas early to get our gamble on! We booked a couple rooms at the Flamingo hotel and they weren't able to add beds to our rooms to accommodate everyone, so they just moved us to a King-sized suite on the 26th floor for free instead! We definitely didn't mind.
We happened to be there on the same weekend as Magic, a fashion/clothing convention held in Las Vegas, so we had a lot of friends in town. We got dinner at P.F. Chang's with our friends Rob and Lisa, then Mikey and I lost our usual $200 on the casino floor while everyone else who gambled made money.
The House of Blues show was better than usual for us...no fights! Our good friend Jon Gula moved out to Vegas this past year and we got to see him for a bit. Jon is the ex-vocalist for one of our all-time favorite metalcore bands and past tourmates, Turmoil. Jon also did guest vocals on "Gaia Bleeds." After the show we went out with Doug, Josh, and Ricky from the Rebel 8 crew to a Famous Stars & Straps party and hung out for a bit before we had to start the drive to Salt Lake City.
The show in SLC was another good one, and yet another rarity for us with no fights :D There was a massive snowstorm and the transformer outside blew up, causing the power to go out during The Warriors' set; which was kind of crazy for a second because the entire venue was standing in darkness for about a minute straight. It didn't fully come back until about halfway through TGI's set, so the security guards had to illuminate the pit with flashlights so that people wouldn't get broken noses. Outside, it snowed about 6 inches throughout the course of the show, which made for an interesting drive to Denver afterwards. Before we left we ate at this place called The Pie Pizzeria which was incredible. If you ever find yourself in SLC, do yourself a favor and check it out!
Luckily Denver was a bit warmer, which made up for an otherwise uneventful show for us.
Kansas City was a little better. We went to our favorite local sandwich spot, Mr. Goodcents. My total was $6.66
We got to hang out with our buddies Tissue and Jason Shrout and the show that night was fun.
The next night was St. Louis at Pop's. The venue owner also owns the strip club next door so we all got free admission, which was convenient because it's the only place within miles to find food, so we all headed there for lunch before the show.
After the show we drove through the night to Cleveland (which is where we are now) so we could eat a delicious lunch at Melt: home to the best grilled cheese sandwiches I've ever had.
