Fearless Vampire Killers – 4th ROAD BLOG from the “Revel Without A Cause Tour”

The death pop band, Fearless Vampire Killers, are currently on the “Revel Without A Cause Tour” with William Control and Davey Suicide. While they’re on this tour, they will be writing an exclusive blog for us. You can check out the band’s fourth entry, after the break.

DAY 19 – As Cold As the Cold Wind Blows

Up until this point in our adventures we’d been fairly fortunate when it came to the weather. We landed in sunny California, the sunshine-good-times continued as we made our way across the south of America and the east coast, thus far, had been fairly mild. But, being November and all, that could only last for a short amount of time: Winter was coming, and it finally came for us in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

I remember jumping out of the van full of vivacious vitality only to be struck in the face by the icy cold wind of winter’s kiss. Ouch. So, wrapped up in our finest warm-givers, our teeth chattering and knuckles whitening we made a swift and speedy load in to the venue and sat tight – waiting for the chill to be purged from our bones. The gig that night was at a club called The Note, owned by one Bam Margera – famous skateboarder, jackass-tronaut etc. etc. When I found out it suddenly gave the whole night a sense of nostalgia as the skateboarding inner-teen inside started to internally fan boy. Hell, I used to spend hours playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 playing as Bam – I think I’d forgotten that he was a real person. To top it all off the man himself turned up just after we played! It was a bizarre evening that took me back to a time long forgotten before I locked myself in my room trying to play like Matt Bellamy when I used to dream of skating like Margera and Mullen.

DAY 20 – Do buffalos dream of sirachia sauce?

It was another cold-assed day and we found ourselves back in New York state playing The Waiting Room in Buffalo. The night was pretty bangin; there was music, there was excitement, there was free wifi – and for a struggling band in a foreign country you can’t say fairer than that. But my favourite part of the evening was actually the venue’s personal menu. I know, I know, I know it’s come back to food again. Not even food, the fracking menu! To explain myself, the reason this menu struck is because it was packed full of terrifically terrible food/band puns. Sink your ocular teeth into these pun-chunks:

Every Time I Fries
Friez Ferdinand
Bacon 182
Meatallica
Co-cheese and Cambria
Vegan and Sara wrap
AC/DCheeseburger
The Notorious B.I.G Mac

That’s not even the full list, just a few of my favourites and I print it here in part because I can’t think of anything massively different that occurred that evening, but also for all those closet lovers of disgraceful pun-foolery such as myself. If they tickle your punny bone please post a few of your own creations in the comment box below, we need more puns in the world people – let’s do this.

DAY 21 – Wooly Potter and the Alt-Press Prince

The Cleveland date of the tour was a very special for us as we got to, for the very first time, visit the Alternative Press offices. No we hadn’t just dropped by willy-nilly to beg them to make us super-famous-rock-n-roll-stars (much) of course, we’d gone to be interviewed with William Control about the second album recording process and anything else that popped into our heads. Look out for an online video that’ll be up fairly soon and expect bizarre air guitar producing tips and the word “wank” to pop up A LOT.

Anyhoo, once that was all wrapped up we made our way to the Agora where the gig that night would be taking place. The air was bitter and the landscape was both industrially desolate and naturalistically beautiful as Lake Erie stretched out beside us like an unnervingly calm sea. Then there was the snow, the first snow of the tour. It just made everything seem magical, and considering we English folks only ever seem to get snow in February (and sometimes April) it was a real treat.

HELLO CLEVELAND!!!

The night ended up with me somehow dressed as a blonde, bespectacled Harry Potter (or if you will Wooly Potter) so you can tell that the whole thing went rather splendidly. Mischief managed.

PS. Shout out to Hiromi (I hope I spelt that correctly!) who came all the way from Japan just to see us play and came to each show for the next three days. Seriously what a trooper!

DAY 22 – Bottom’s Up, Chowsers Down

Being our first ever American tour every day had its own significance as we explored places that we’d never experienced beyond the frame of the silver screen. But the Chicago show held special significance as we were all set to reunite with our recent tour-mates – The Super Happy Fun Club.

We’d toured with them just a few weeks prior on Madina Lake’s UK farewell tour and become bosom-budz and they promised us warm beds to sleep in and wholesome food and bodacious brews to line and irritate our stomachs respectively. So we arrived a few hours earlier at their keyboardist, Pat’s house to find that he’d cooked for us a slap up feed of pre-thanksgiving delights! We happily devoured as much turkey, sprouts and pumpkin pie as we could whilst regailing each other with amusing, saucy tour anecdotes. Our batteries recharged we set off down the streets of Nolan’s Gotham towards The Bottom Lounge, where we would crank the night up to eleven.

Funnily enough, our Super Happy Fun Lunch was not the only culinary delight we would be treated to that day. We were schedule in to have an interview with a YouTuber chef, asking us about life on the road, how long we’d been a band blah, blah, blah. Anyway, the piece de resistance was that after the show we would be treated to a meal cooked especially for us as an antidote to all of the junk food we’d been stuffing our faces with. EXCELSIOR! We sauntered off the stage, sweaty and excitable post-show and sat down in the lounge’s adjoining diner, waiting with baited breath wondering what would be plated up. Let me just say that it was the best free meal I have ever had. Damn tasty nosh that was as fancy as it was delicious – definitely not the sort of thing we get to eat on tour or at home for that matter! I won’t go into too much detail as the video will show you exactly what I’m talking about, but our drunken ramblings and gigglings will show you how much we enjoyed it!

Again with our heads held high and our bellies filled in a surprisingly nutritious way, we disappeared into the night, drinking and having a super happy fun time with the club of the same name. We gave not a thought or care to what tomorrow might bring. Oh what happy fools we were…

DAY 23 – Hard Luck and Weird Bucks

There is always a price that comes with letting ones hair down. You can’t let loose and strut your funkay stuff without paying for it somewhere down the line. The only question is when: When will that karmic retribution come, to restore order to the emotional cosmos. The answer was about three later when the antidote to Chicago’s fun and care-free hijinx was a hella long journey across the Canadian border to Toronto. The longest, earliest, drunkest drive of the tour was, shall we say: not a “barrel of laughs”. It had more in common with a barrel of monkey vomit turning and churning around in a seemingly infinite cycle of bad timez.

Our first hurdle was the border control customs agency. We were pulled to be checked out and naturally, even though we had all our visas and documentation, you start to worry that they’re going to refuse you entry. There’s a brief flicker of fear that makes you so self-aware that you start thinking that maybe you are guilty of something after all. Maybe there’s some weird Canadian law that you’re in violation of that they will throw the back at you for. “Sorry you’re not coming into Canada today because you’re a scruffy lookin’ fella and we don’t take kindly to scruffy lookin’ folks round these parts.” Luckily the only problem we had was growing insanity as boredom crept in and nestled inside our craniums as time ticked by in the bare, clinical waiting area. No joke, I was so bored that I read my passport several times. Once is more than enough! Of course in the end we got away scot free, and hit the ground running hoping that there were no more hiccups down the road…

Second slice of home-fried bad luck was when we hit some SERIOUS traffic coming into Toronto. We were stuck in traffic for so long that we only arrived at the venue 15 minutes before we were supposed to play. We’d smeared on a bit of make-up in the dark van so we were kind of ready(ish) in that sense but we went into turbo mode getting all our gear loaded in, set-up and checked in record time. Surprisingly I quite enjoyed this show because of how rushed and unprepared it was. It made the show feel very relaxed and pretence free which I get a kick out of. I’d like to give a shout out to our friend Tompa who popped by to be our familiar Canadian face and the girl who noticed that I was mic-checking with Pippin’s song from Return of the King – made my night!

Our night was so rushed that I didn’t feel we really get to see much of Canada or experience all that much of it which was a shame. But for any of you folks back in England who’ve never been I just have to mention the Canadian money. I know it’s a strange thing to get excited about but the Canadian bills are ridiculous: They are plastic, partially see-through, waterproof and tear proof. I was even told that the $100 bill has a scented maple leaf emblem on it (although this may well have been a simple lampoon).

Canada we hardly knew ye, but we will return and see more of you yet, NEVER FEAR!

Stay tuned for the concluding chapter of this series of tour blog expect:

DRAMATIC TWISTS

EXPLOSIVE CONCLUSIONS

JAW DROPPING EXULTATIONS

And much, much more…

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