The Death Set – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the punk metal duo, The Death Set, shares one of their stories from being on the road. You can check out the story, after the break.

We were on tour with Girl Talk I believe somewhere in rural Illinois. We had 6 people crammed into the beaten-up old van we had bought for $250. There weren’t enough seats so two people would need to consistently sandwich between gear on a high shelf. It actually became the coveted sleep nook.

It was quite a “Motley Crue” consisting of band and driver: two Australians, a Panamanian-American and a Colombian-American plus a mohawk sporting rap duo we were also on tour with. Needless to say, we stood out at the bumfuck nowhere rest stops.

A couple of hours drive to the show we were pulled over by police… then more police… then more police… until we were surrounded by what must have been 10 cop cars pointing assault rifles at us. They made us all walk backward out of the van, lie belly down on the pavement while screaming at us, kicking our arms and legs out on the pavement. They then thoroughly rifled our van pulling everything apart. Unbeknownst to us, the previous rest stop attendee had called the cops after seeing some of us play with the tiny toy guns THEY WERE SELLING, calling the local cavalry saying we were armed and dangerous. The honest truth I believe is they saw a bunch of people who didn’t look like them and got scared.

Anywhoo… after riling through the van they find a tiny dime bag of weed and take our drummer to jail. Of course, we were not trafficking arms in between our music broken-ass equipment. Coming from Australia it was my first experience of why people have a disdain towards American police. The delusional disrespect they displayed was on steroids. The response was beyond EXTRA. We follow the police and finally find a sympathetic officer at the station who allows us to pay a $250 fine so we can leave. Our drummer then takes a shit in the police station toilet, doesn’t flush and we are off and make the show by 5 mins having to soundcheck after doors.

I think it was the next show that our “tour manager” drove into Canada “accidentally.” Of course, this means we have to cross the border twice, sniffer dogs and all to make the show which should have been two turns away. A dazzling couple of days.

Keep up with them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.