7 Horns 7 Eyes / Stealing Axion – 2nd ROAD BLOG from their “The Dual Destruction Tour”

7 Horns 7 Eyes and Stealing Axion are on their “The Dual Destruction Tour” with Awaiting The Apocalypse. While on tour they will be writing periodic blogs for us. The second one can be read after the break.

Blog written by JJ “Shiv” Polachek IV of 7 Horns 7 Eyes

Hello friends, it’s my turn to dispel all my thoughts and feelings on this touring business that we’ve embarked on. We’re driving through the desert as I type this, and, suffice to say, the past few days have been very interesting.

We played a couple bars throughout California, some chill bros came out just for us which was pretty rad, Brad. I got to go to Oakland, which was kind of a big deal because my friend Shane will never shut up about how much he loves the Raiders, even though he knows nothing about them, or football in general. He literally is just in love with the concept of the Raiders. Not the players, not anything they do, just the idea of the Raiders being a thing that exists. That being said, he swarmed me with texts about pay-paling me 50 bucks to get ~exclusive~ Raiders merch from Oakland for him (there was no such merch to be found).

Oakland was a weird experience overall. Lots of homeless bros doing stuff, and according to my band-mates, the promoter pulled his pants down while having a taunt-off with some guy. ALSO it’s important to note that the band that played before us was like watching a time machine that only half-worked. 35-40 year old dudes in full “fukk u dad” nu-metal gear (knee-high striped socks, work shirt, ironic tie “because I’m mocking THE SYSTEM”, fingerless gloves, etc.) trying really hard to sound like a mix of Korn, Mr. Bungle, and System Of A Down. The singer kept talking about how he HEARS VOICES IN HIS HEAD and he’s ABOUT TO SNAP so you DON’T WANNA MESS WITH HIM (all while whisper-talking, of course), and also about how “SOCIETY IS FUCKED UP, MANNN, and we ESCAPE through the POWER of MUSIC!!!~~~”. I told my girlfriend about him, and we both agreed that he was Emo Dad (I know you guys remember Emo Dad). It was amazing in the sense that it was like watching a train wreck, where the train is convinced that by crashing into a dive bar it’s getting back at The Man.

SO THAT WAS PRETTY COOL, then we went to San Diego, and everything went really well and there were constant Anchorman quotes all around. We got free pizza, and I had the best beer I’ve ever tasted (Pliny The Elder), and I met a cool duder who was in Abigail Williams for a tour or two, and we talked about how Katatonia has breakdowns and if you deny that, you’re just being dumb. He got way drunk and hugged me a lot, and I think his friend touched my butt at least once. So yeah, that was a thing that happened.

THEN WE WENT TO LA. Here’s the thing about LA: nothing to me. Ryan has some awesome relatives in the area with super-alpha-level housing situations, so we got some steamy showers and solid sleep hours, but after that we had to deal with the stress of playing a show in LA. After dealing with a parking lot attendant who looked like one of Frank Barone’s friends at the spa he always goes to (from Everybody Loves Raymond, come on, you have to be catching these allusions), we had a GRAND OLDE TIME figuring out how the hell to arrange everything with the crazy lineup planned for the night at the Roxy. Then the real bomb got dropped. We discovered that the band opening for us and Stealing Axion, who up until then I thought was just some entry-level punk band (they were called The Hooligans, so you have to give me credit for that), was actually a group of……7-year olds. Playing AC/DC covers. Dressed up like Guns ‘N Roses. Yeah. That came as a surprise, and I still don’t quite know what to make of it. It’s worth it to note that, while we were loading in, these kids were running and jumping around the whole area, and one of them spouted what might be the single most Californian thing I’ve ever heard a child say:

“I’M FREE TO BE MYSELF!!”

Welp.

AFTER THE SHOW I chilled and talked with some bros I knew from many forums past (shout out to Brent and Carbonized Gnawing Mandable), and checked out that Soundcheck shop that Sumerian opened up. It’s actually really cool, it’s like Hot Topic but without the shirts based on internet memes and youtube videos that people haven’t cared about for 3 years. Honestly it’s a great idea and I’d love to see them open up more in other key places. The shirts are really legit, and they had the entire Eighteen Visions discography, which rules. Once I was done perusing, I made my way over to the Rainbow Bar and had a really great time with some Century Media cats and our main men in Stealing Axion. Also Andrew from The Devastated was there, and he was really chill. Good dude, backtard.

Apparently this bar is known for having celebrities visit, so Brandon, Hot Pie (I call Phil from SA that because he reminds me of Hot Pie from Game of Thrones), and I made a game of associating anyone remotely celebrity-looking with any celebrity that comes to mind. At this point I had 2 gin and tonics, and Brandon was sipping down a Jack and Coke, so we were convinced we had seen at least 3 different forms of Lemmy, Lenny Kravitz, Mark McGrath, Bono, and Creed from The Office (with black hair-dye). Aside from our shenanigans, we got to hang out with Nikki Law and Sarah Kinne from Century Media, and they took good care of us (via paying for our pizza and booze, and not hating me for thinking every Metallica song they played in the bar was “Fight Fire With Fire”). CM really is a great family to be a part of, and it’s always fun to touch base with them when we get to California. It was a fitting end to a very strange night, with nothing but good vibes all around.

So now we’re on our way to play in Tempe, AZ. We’ve been trying to follow a specific semi to creep the guy out because our van is deeply in love with his truck. If you saw them together you’d ship it too. If you don’t know what “shipping” is, look it up and get into it. It makes boring things way more fun to create commentary for. I hope you get something out of these deeply philosophical and paradigm-challenging concepts I’ve put forth, and also I hope you come to any shows we play near you because we want to look popular so the girl in 5th period will agree to go with us to prom. This is Shiv from 7 Horns 7 Eyes, signing off…