Justin Baron – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the pop artist, Justin Baron, talks about some of his crazy moments from touring. You can check out the feature, after the break.

I once told JLo she couldn’t have my couch.

A couple years ago, I was insanely lucky enough to open up for Ariana Grande, Calvin Harris, and Jennifer Lopez for “KTUphoria” at the now defunct IZOD Arena in East Rutherford, NJ. This was going to be my biggest audience to date, something like 15,000 people, so I was as excited and humbled as can be. Day of the show, I get there like 6 hours early because, fuck it, if that means I might run into Ariana Grande in the halls at some point, I’ll get there early and eat stale Cheez-Its all day if I have to. Anyways, there were like 10 people in our group that day and zero seating in the dressing room except for this glorious black leather couch. Kind of like the couches you see in those “casting couch” videos, or so I’ve been told. Not that I’ve ever watched those videos. Why are you judging me?

So there we are, all crammed on this one godsend of a couch instead of on the filthy floor, which I can only imagine contains the DNA of John Mayer when he pulls out and screams, “I’m gonna Continucum”, or something like that. Then I hear a knock on the door. Is it Ariana needing an emergency back rub, perhaps? No. It’s “Todd”, one of JLo’s many handlers and he needs something from us. “JLo needs your couch,” he says flatly. “Umm…what?”, I ask, confident I misheard him. “JLo needs your couch right now. She’s sound checking and she needs your couch…so we’re going to need you guys to get up”, he explained getting ever-so-slightly agitated. But here’s the thing. I had been at the venue for like 5 hours at that point. JLo’s rehearsal was running quite long and I had already been told we might not get a sound check anymore because of it (holy shit, right?). My stomach was full of Cheez-Its at this point. My butt hurt from sitting one cheek on the arm of the couch because my large-and-in-charge trumpet player took over a healthy portion of the sitting area. My band, oddly enough, doesn’t like sitting on John Mayer cum-stained carpets. So all told, I was in no mood to acquiesce to Jenny from the Block. Todd was not pleased. He left in a huff and a slight smirk appeared on my face.

Moments later another member of her team, “Jeff”, knocked aggressively on our door. And I think it’s widely known that Jeff’s are an evolved form of Todd’s. So Jeff says, “Look. You’re holding everything up. You have the only couch here and JLo needs it right now!” “But Jeff,” I say defiantly, “most of the other dressing rooms have couches, why don’t you ask any of the other artists?” I know. You’re wondering why I know that. Well, we were there crazy early, so I MAY have scoped out everyone’s dressing room and momentarily considered hiding in Ariana’s closet to surprise her. Thankfully, I decided that was insane and creepy. So Jeff yells, “She’s on stage right now and we need the goddamn couch!” “No,” I said, “I have a lot of people in here needing to sit. And there are plenty more couches. Might I suggest having JLo use a futon?” For reasons beyond me, he did not find that funny and storms off. Now I’m feeling indignant. Defiant even. I’m taking a fucking stand for openers everywhere. No more can millionaire headliners take your couches from you. I will be your voice.

So then fucking “Ron”, the final evolution of JLo’s Pokémon management staff, swings open our door. “Get the fuck up, we’re taking the couch, let’s go,” he commands. At this point, I was slightly concerned Ron was either going to strangle me because JLo ordered it or die on the spot after the impressively large and throbbing vein on his neck bursts. “No,” I said, doing my best not to blink. He stared at me for what felt like an hour, clearly attempting to telepathically inform me that I’ve begun a blood feud that can only be settled by dueling. Then I thought how cool it would be to duel JLo. But this was not the time to daydream. Ron’s face had now turned into a violent shade of scarlet red. It was kind of beautiful, to be honest. “Fine,” he squeezed out through pursed lips. And off he stomped, likely to explain to Jennifer that he had been bested by someone who can solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 2 minutes. And yes ladies, I am single

So J-Lizzle, I’m sorry I wouldn’t give you my couch. Blame John Mayer.

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