Sean Rowe – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the singer-songwriter, Sean Rowe, shares one of his stories from being on the road. You can check out the story, after the break.

During the making of my last record which was cut in Eau Claire, WI —I was paid an uninvited visit from this stranger “Doug.” What follows is 100% accurate according to my memory.

I didn’t really know any of the crew (engineer, musicians) until I arrived at the scene. I had voluntarily opted to work with strangers on this album who I knew were very competent and I had heard their work on other albums. I thought the not-knowing them in person would add a kind of built-in risk to the situation. In other words, I was hoping to create something interesting out of the weirdness of it all.

There was a moment during the recording where I was sitting on a picnic table just outside the studio — a converted old barn — just resting my voice a bit when I noticed a silver minivan pull straight through the yard on the grass towards me. My initial thought was that this must be someone that Brian (engineer and owner of the studio) knows well. Who else would have the gall to avoid the driveway and drive straight over the lawn right to the picnic table?

The van came about 2 feet in front of me and stopped. The window came down slowly to reveal a chunky, bald dude probably in his early 60’s who was almost too relaxed. I remember he was casually chewing one of those thin, coffee-stirring straws.

The first words out of his mouth were, “you all makin’ music in there?”

The second thing he followed with was “You ever been on TV before?”

Now, it wasn’t just from the words themselves that gave me the creeps but more so in the overly relaxed way he spaced them out. My immediate thought was: either this is an anomalous relative or friend of Brians or… this guy is a lunatic and is here to kill all of us with one of the assault rifles or hunting knives that is for sure laying in wait in the back of his van. He said his name was Doug.

I asked him if he was ever on tv before and Doug said, “yeah, I was on David Letterman back in 1993. Actually, I was on David Letterman twice. I’m able to pour 2 cans of beer into glasses without using any appendage on my body.”

He said one or two other insignificant things and then that was it. He drove off.

Brian heard the car peel out on the lawn and exclaimed, “Hey who the fuck was that?”

“I thought you knew him,” I said.

Fast forward to 3 minutes later when I googled the words: Doug, cans of beer, stupid human tricks, 1993, and sure as shit, I found Doug! That was the guy!

It’s clear to me that Doug was very proud of his early fame and was very interested to share his trophy memory with anyone who would listen. Actually, It didn’t matter if they were asking to hear. Doug would find a way to find YOU! I just happened to get lucky that day.

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(photo credit: Joe Navas)