Intent - CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, Jeremy Lambert, guitarist/vocalist for the thrash metal band, Intent, shares one of their stories from being on the road. You can check out the story below:

In November/December 2021, we were the support act for DRI on one of their USA tour legs. The tour started out alright, first few dates went really good. Then around night 4 or 5 our van farted out on the way to the next venue. We ended up getting a tow and hitching a ride and BARELY making it. We (not exaggerating) jumped out of our ride and had to get onstage. We were able to find a mechanic to repair the van early morning the next day, but for the rest of the tour we had no A/C (serpentine issue). Now that wouldn’t be so bad considering it’s winter but MAN, Florida still gets hot as hell no matter the time of year. So we were basically 5 guys in a swamp-ass inducing hot box for another week after that.

Fast forward to the end of the tour, we were all sick as dogs. Obviously the van conditions didn’t help at all but also being a vocalist, my voice had no time to repair itself between all the coughing and sneezing. We finally mustered all our strength and made it through the last show, packed up and eventually took off. Now in typical Intent tradition, there is no time to waste, so we usually just drive home in a straight shot. This doesn’t make for good sleep as the van is shaky as hell.

I had spent most of the 36 hour drive home trying to catch some Z’s. Nothing I tried seemed to work. I was wired. That wasn’t good either as I seemed to be the sickest out of all the other members. So EVENTUALLY I was able to fall asleep, but that didn’t last long. I awoke to our other guitar player at the time saying “Hey, where’s Braunson?”. Braunson is our merch guy. When that sentence reached my ears, I immediately jumped up. I guess what had happened was while most of us were asleep, Garrett (our drummer at the time, rest in peace) and Braunson had stopped to use a rest area. Well, Garrett drove off not realizing Braunson never got back in the van. I don’t think Braunson had his phone with him either because we were getting messages from strangers saying we left our buddy behind. By the way, the rest area they stopped at was a STATE OVER. So we had to drive all the way back to that rest area and pick him back up.

That tour was a total nightmare. I pretty much never wanted to tour again after that but obviously that wasn’t gonna happen. But yeah, everything that could have went wrong that tour went wrong. So bands, don’t leave your merch guy behind, and everybody wash your hands and take vitamin C tablets on the regular on tour.

Keep up with Intent on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Bandcamp, and their website.