The dark side of supporting bigger bands: finding out that former "idols" are idiots

Devin Townsend was one of the nicest guys I got to hang out with. We showed up early at the show, went to Pizza Pizza and talked about how those guys in Physicist were assholes. (The show flyer was Strapping Young Lad w/ Physicist).

I got to meet Paul Bostaph and Tomas Haake (i have pics somewhere...) when Slayer was touring with Meshuggah. Both guys were awesome, gave long interviews (for a magazine we worked for), told really fucked up road stories and gave us tons of swag.

Jeff Walker bought me beer when I was underage at their gig with Pitch Shifter on the Heartwork tour.

 

Yeah Dev seems like a really chill dude, I met him briefly at Ozzfest.

 

The only detail I can add is that he always performed in a dress, not that he was a cross-dresser or whatever. In fact, he was pretty "normal". as far as as "normal" goes in the SF rock music scene . . .

 

'Ala the Melvins?

 

Yeah, as far as stage attire goes . . .

 

I bet King Buzzo is an awesome dude

Anybody met him?

 

What's that singer's name? I've been talking with a singer from SF recently about working together, and I'd rather avoid bumping into someone unreliable.

 

I'd be surprised if it's the same person. The one I knew was in the late 80's. In any event, I can't recall the name, but you can go by the band name . . .

 

Actually, of all the bands we have played support for, I can't say any of them acted like assholes. The biggest band was Motorhead and Lemmy was a fucking star.
The closest it got to trouble was with Buck Cherry, but that was more because we were acting like jerks and sprayed them with champagne (we were celebrating our managers bday), they obviously weren't in the mood for partying.
But later on they warmed up and were nice, their sound guy was really cool.
There are a couple of other bigger names we toured with, a very famous swedish band (not meshuggah, or metal for that matter) that were also nice guys but not particularly talkative.

 

mike terrana ,tony mcalpine , andy timmons...GREAT MUSICIANS and FUCKING AWESOME people.

 

Nightwish and Paradise Lost are all great guys, I didn't run into anette, she must have been doing woman things after their set...

all the guys in the Absence are really cool, some dudes and me were talking to them before and after their set opening for Amon Amarth. Opened for Symphony X/Echoes of Eternity and all of them are great people. The only guy I'd ever met who wasn't a really cool guy was Petri Lindroos when Ensiferum was playing in detroit, but it was like 3 AM and he was dead tired, so It's okay.

 

I can understand both sides of the situation. Being away from your family and loved ones can be hard sometimes on touring musicians and sometimes you may even catch them/us on a bad day. I have been guilty of being a hermit after shows when I'm having a shitty day and unintentionally blowing off fans or local bands who just want to chill and maybe have a beer. Some musicians are just jackasses though. I've played with a few and no I won't mention any names. haha!

 

Sometimes even after the small shows we play I just want to get home and sit in front of the TV so I can definitely understand both sides.

The last band I met was Virgin Black, great people. Rowan is a bit quiet though, and I'm rather introverted so you can guess how that goes. I'm not sure if I posted in this thread before, but probably the coolest guys have met have been Rob Lowe at a Candlemass show and the old singer of Darkane, he's a reallllly cool dude.

EDIT: Yep, already mentioned Rob

 

Rob Lowe was pretty cool.

Jeff

 

Yeah, Joe Payne can be a real jerk sometimes.

 

Especially when you ask him an annoying math question and he just looks at you funny.

...

Fortunately he doesn't eat souls often enough to be a threat.

Jeff

 

one of the nicest people i've ever met is Gus G, i talked with him for a while and showed him my ESP tat and shit. cool motherfucker. same with Satriani, cool as hell. There are upstanding guys and not, and what i've noticed is THE GUYS THAT ARE REALLY KILLER AND EXPERTS WITH THEIR INSTRUMENTS ARE USUALLY THE NICEST GUYS TO DEAL WITH. Satch, Vai, my dog Darrel (RIP i miss you), fuckin Loomis, Willy Adler, Chuck Schuldiner, Chris Broderick, Kirk WIndstien etc etc.

what killed me was after a Pantera concert one time we saw Dime himself picking up and stacking those police metal barricade thingys by the tour van. a job usually given to roadies while the band is getting fucked up off black toothed grins. stand up fuckin guys man.

 

Last time DH came through, Rick and I were helping the band put stuff together and Dino was going off about how he solved a Rubik's Cube when he was unusually young... I then told him about the computer scientist who recently proved that any arbitrary cube could be solved in 23 moves or less (perhaps it's lower now) and he just looked at me funny.

Jeff

 

Some friends and I did an opener for Mushroom head a few years back and they were all really cool to us. We spent all of our money on gas to get to the show(flint michigan) and were really thirsty after playing, the guys from mushroom head bought us some beers and hung out with us after their set. They were all great guys.

 

i don't know very much about proper music theory. i found what works for me and kind of ran with it. it was a very foreign question to me. haha