RED FANG

Man, I’ve been slacking on this blogging thing this tour. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you about our amazing adventures as we pillage the countryside, it’s just that there hasn’t been that many adventures to speak of. This tour has a great line-up, totally bitchin’ folks and great rooms but the drives have been brutal. Far bigger than a normal tour. Sure, every tour has a couple that make you cringe, but the amount of road we have to cover daily would have even the most road-scarred trucker calling his meth dealer. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no bitching coming from this camp, it’s just that I really don’t have much to tell you about unless you want to hear about how bad David’s farts smell or how a little piece of you dies when you catch yourself getting excited about truck stops that have diet Mt. Dew on the gun. Here I’ll give you a couple examples of what usually happens on tour and what’s happening this time around: New York, NY 3/25/11 Every other tour: Roll into town, grab...

Two Words: Wicked pissa! —Coyle Tour To Live!

Okay I have a lot of ground to cover here, so I’m going to give you the CliffsNotes version of the last couple days. St. Petersburg, FL. 3/20/11 -After getting the van fixed, we miss the New Orleans show and have to drive twenty-two hours straight to make St. Petersburg. By hour fifteen the van started to smell like energy drinks and sadness. -We rolled into town with just enough time for a cannonball our blues away. -John decided that I should be in a Danzig cover band and comes up with a new genre of rock for me to start called “Bumcore.” Orlando, FL. 3/21/11 -The stage was so high off the ground that the boys had to spend a day at base camp to get acclimated, then hire a Sherpa to continue on. They almost had to leave David to die when he twisted his ankle on an empty oxygen tank that one of the previous bands had left behind. -An ex cage fighter explained to David and Bryan why the best weapon in a street is a human turd on a stick. (no joke) -In continuing with the theme of this t...

(Note: I didn’t have time to take a lot of photos the last few days so, feel free to make up situations and places in you mind. While you’re at it why don’t you picture David dressed as a Shaolin monk, Aaron as Yahoo Serious, Bryan wearing a monocle, John as Genesis era Phil Collins and shave twenty pounds off me and add the rugged good looks of the 8o’s era Marlboro Man.) Dallas 3/17/11 Well it’s starting to become a theme on every tour, van trouble. No matter how much we spend on the damn thing before we leave, something goes wrong. New brakes, radiator, and tranny? The piston return springs need replacing and that can only be done with a 7” gangly wrench, which has to be choppered in from the Bahamas. It never fails. So when the van went completely dead on us as we pulled off the freeway in Dallas no one even panicked. It’s getting right up there with me losing my phone in the van three hundred times, john forgetting his camera somewhere and at least one trip to the ER/ doctor on th...

We were about an two hours out of San Diego when I decided that I was going to partake in my new favorite activity, Photoshopping my face over the faces of my favorite bands, listening to their live albums and pretending the people are cheering for me at the end of every song. The only problem was that my computer was dead and John was charging his phone, so I plugged in the new one-to-two plug we got for the van’s lighter, put in the DC adapter and John’s phone into it and commenced to live my rock and roll fantasies. A couple minutes into it we all started smelling something funny and it was agreed that it must be the new asphalt that we were currently driving on. That was until I noticed the smoke billowing out of the dash. Luckily the five years I spent living in an oxygen free environment while I was training to a double secret Navy Super S.E.A.L came in handy—I ripped it out of the dash and threw it directly into my lap. The next twenty seconds or so were similar to Benny Hill sk...

Los Angeles, CA 3/13/11 After bedding down for an extravagant three hours of sleep in San Francisco we jumped in the car and headed south to L.A. where we met up Lady Time aka/ Lady Fang aka/ Lizzy, Felicia, Ellen, Maureen, Meagan and Sera who were in town to be part of the studio audience for America’s Funniest Videos (yes, it’s still a show and yes they love it. I don’t get it either.) We all go to watch as Forgash tried to do his best Frampton Comes Alive impression: After the show our old friend Rynne invited us back to her place, which doesn’t sound that cool unless you know that Rynne is the longtime sweetheart of Danny Carey . Now I don’t want to sound like we are lining up to swing on Tool’s nuts like a bunch of spring breakers on a Lake Havasu rope swing but Rynne and Danny are two badass motherfuckers. You wanna talk about people that have every excuse to be assholes and are the nicest people ever… and I don’t want to splash their shit all over the web but the guest house...

Well good god damn! It seems like forever since we’ve been out here on the ol’ dusty road, and you know what? It feels good. Real good. The last time we were out we had a little fender bender so we had to get a new van this time around. But getting a new van is no knee-jerk purchase like a face tattoo or an artificial heart, this is something you have to think out. After months of crunching numbers, Gallop polling and blind taste tests we bought the exact same van we wrecked. But in light blue. (Cue the Jefferson’s soundtrack). WE knew we made the right choice when we were already at a garage within one-hundred-fifty miles. Luckily it was a minor adjustment and we were on the road twenty minutes later. First stop was Weed, California where we met up with Danava who we’ll be touring with for the first four shows of the tour. We got a couple rooms and headed for the nearest watering hole to knock back a couple. I for one am pretty excited about touring with these guys because my long t...

Hey blogosphere!! Aaron here!! First off, I have to warn you this is going to be a long post. I only post on here like once a year, so when I do, I like to really "go for it." So for the last few years, in addition to playing with Red Fang, I've also had a regular 9-6 (sometimes 8-7) job working at Laika Entertainment - the people who brought you Coraline. I worked in the Puppet Department on Coraline for about a year, had some time off (Prehistoric Dog video / self-titled album / Clutch Tour, etc...), then went back to work on the feature they are currently shooting. Because of a non-disclosure agreement, I can't tell you anything about the new movie except that it is going to be totally amazing!!! And also awesome. Anyway, because our tour schedule this year is so crazy busy, I had to leave Laika early. This is awesome because it means Red Fang is kicking ass right now, but it is also sad because I have truly loved working at Laika and have become very close friends...

Holy shit, what a party! If you think playing a rock show on a boat is one of the most awesome things you could ever do, you are right. Something about being on a boat makes everyone happy - it's like you're on vacation. Throw in some loud jams, cold brews, and enthusiastic rock fans and you got yourself one hell of a bitchin' party at sea! The folks at Google HotSpot put this shindig on, and they did a bang up job. The show was free and all-ages. All you had to do to get a wristband was follow @HotpotPDX on twitter to find out where they were giving them out, get off your ass and go grab one. Free. All ages. On a boat. Totally bitchin. I shoulda known it was gonna be a magical night when I saw this double rainbow over the Portland Spirit. Woooaaaahhhhh...... Thanks to everyone who made the effort to get wristbands and party with us. It really was an amazing night. For those who missed it, you can catch a glimpse of the mayhem here . Like many live videos, ...

House parties: As a teenager it was all we lived for. You and a hundred of your closest friends crammed into a cat piss scented basement or cleared out living room, trying to put down as many beers as you can before they get warm and/or your asshole friends that only brought one tall can start bumming them off you, hoping that the band you came to see will get to play before the cops show up to shut it down and being really stoked that it’s not your house when you notice the underage girl rolling around in a pile of her own sick on the kitchen floor. We’ve been missing all that, so when our friend Jessica told us the building she was living in was getting demolished and she wanted to go out in style, it was on. We also took the opportunity to film the performance part for the new video in the same spot, which almost shot us in the foot. The filming took place from about 12:00-4:00 and by 1:00 the cops were already there. Just due to the playback over the crappy speakers hooked up to...