Todd Kessler – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the singer-songwriter, Todd Kessler, talks about some of his crazy moments from touring. You can check out the feature, after the break.

Back in 2013 my band was on tour in Austin for SXSW and were trying to save money anyway would could so when we got hooked up with a place to stay for two nights we were pumped. A work colleague of my wife had a friend with a house in Austin who agreed to house the six of us and we were thinking we had it made a whole house! We pulled up and were excited as the neighborhood was nice and the house looked great until we walked inside. Our host was at work but he left a key so we got inside and after figured out who was sleeping where started realizing that there was something a little off with this house. It was so dirty! Imagine a house from an episode of that show “Hoarded: Buried Alive” but with all of the stuff gone from the house and all that is left is a layer of dust, dirt, and grossness over everything. That was this house. I think we all kind of laughed it off at first, we were just glad to have a free place to crash, plus we had to get ready for our shows that day so we got ready and went downtown for the night.

We got back late from our shows and went to bed. Our host was already sleeping in his room with his girlfriend and as soon as we walked in we kept hearing her cough. Like not just a little cough but more of a “do we need to call 911” cough. We thought maybe she had a cold or something so brushed it off. The next morning before heading out for our day of shows our keyboard player Molly took a shower and upon exiting the bathroom proclaimed she knew why the girlfriend was coughing so bad. There was mold everywhere! That’s when we started to really see the dirt in the house. Oh well, we thought, we can make it one more night.

The night we got back late again and our host and his girlfriend were passed out on the couch in the family room with some fast food bags surrounding them. We politely woke them up as our guitar player Chris was sleeping on the couch. We all went to bed and thought that was that. Until the next morning when Chris told us the grossest thing yet. He was sleeping on the couch and at some point switched positions moving his head from one end of the couch to the other. Once he had switched sides he slid his hand under the pillow under his head and…squish. His hand landed in goo! A lake of goo! It was dark so he couldn’t see what it was so he ran to the bathroom to see that his hand had landed in…ketchup. KETCHUP! Our host had used his couch as a plate for his french fries and ketchup. Suffice it to say we got out of there pretty quick the next morning. After another long day of shows, we left Austin that night and made it to Dallas where we found a motel. It was clean but there were cockroaches, which at the time was just fine.

Keep up with the artist on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!