Tyler Bryant & the Shakedown – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, Tyler Bryant of the rock ‘n roll band, Tyler Bryant & the Shakedown, talks about some of their crazy moments from touring. You can check out the feature, after the break.

When you’re on tour, you never know what kind of situation you’re gonna find yourself in. When I think about crazy tour stories my mind is flooded with so many different scenarios that had me thinking, “Is this really happening?”

One of the first stories that comes to mind is when we had a transmission bite the dust in Elkton, Maryland after finishing a tour with The Sheepdogs. We were listening to The Black Crowes and the sun was shining. We were heading home to Nashville and all was right with the world. Then the van stopped accelerating on the highway. That’s never a good thing. We had it towed somewhere and checked into a hotel. The guys in the band were really immersed in what was going on with football at the time. Maybe it was the playoffs? I’m not much on sports, so I decided to post up in the lobby and do my own thing. While I was down there, a shirtless man drug in his girlfriend who was foaming at the mouth. She was really in a bad way. She started seizing up right before the ambulance showed up. I had no idea what to do. The hotel staff didn’t really seem to know how to handle the situation either and her boyfriend was freaking out. Long story short, an ambulance showed up and the paramedics helped stabilize the situation. The shirtless man took off running as soon as the paramedics showed and as soon they got the woman to come to, she followed suit. I kid you not, she went from straight seizing up to running like a gazelle. To say the least, it was strange.

There was another time in Indianapolis that had me all sorts of twisted up. It was a full moon and the Indy 500 was going on, so the city was raging, to say the least. After our gig, I ended up sharing a hotel room with Caleb (drummer) and our tour manager. We had been on the road for a while and everyone was beat. They both crashed out and I stepped out into the hall to make a phone call. I don’t think the door shut completely behind me because when I returned to the room I noticed a bag that didn’t belong to any of us. When I looked up, I saw a man walking towards me. My adrenaline kicked in immediately and I started screaming, “CALEB, ARE YOU OK? WAKE UP!” There was a chair pulled right up next to his bed and I found that made me incredibly uneasy. The guy was watching him sleep. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but I ended up with my hands on the guy’s collar. We were way too close for comfort. I started screaming obscenities at him in between screaming at Caleb to wake up. Caleb was out like a light. I didn’t know what to do, so I started screaming “RAPE” in hopes that maybe someone from another room would wake up to come help. I screamed so hard that I blew a blood vessel in my eye. I kept saying “WHY ARE YOU IN HERE?” Then the guy said, “I was just watching out for the boys.” He took off out the door as Caleb finally woke up and turned the light on. We checked to make sure nothing had been stolen and I took deep breaths to try and calm myself down. The next morning our TM woke up and said, “How’d you guys sleep?” He had no idea.

Another story that comes to mind involves a Winnebago and a tour across Canada in the dead of winter. We rented the Winnebago in Texas and started the drive to Vancouver. We obviously didn’t pay much attention to our routing back then. At the time, we had never been on a bus before, so we felt like kings in that old busted RV. After about three hours on the road, I felt a thud and heard glass break. A hawk flew into the windshield and shattered it. Of course, it was late on a Saturday and all of the places that could fix the windshield were closed the following day. That moment foreshadowed what would turn out to be a disastrous tour in that RV that we ended up naming “Woody Hawkeye.” We got that thing stuck in the snow too many times to count. At one point there was a gas leak and I’m still thankful to this day our driver didn’t light up a smoke before we figured it out. We had a blowout in an area where no one had cell service, so our TM hopped in a car with a stranger who only spoke French. Luckily that man helped us get back on the road. The worst of it was when we rolled back into America. Getting back into America proved to be difficult when the border patrol found a little pipe that our driver had acquired on the journey. Our driver had disassembled it and hid the pieces throughout “Woody Hawkeye.” They came in with all the pieces in a bag and began to pat us down one by one. That’s a whole other story. When they finally started rolling again, the wind caught a crack in the roof just right. It blew a giant chunk right off. We could hear what was left of the roof slapping against the ceiling until it finally blew off as well. As unfortunate as that tour was, some of those memories are still some of my favorite ones to look back on. When you’re rolling with your buddies, it’s all good even when it’s all bad.

On the opposite end of the spectrum…

One of my favorite things that has happened recently was when we were touring South America with Guns N Roses. We had booked commercial flights to Santiago, Chile, but ended up catching a ride with GNR on their jumbo jet. There just aren’t many bands who tour in jumbo jets these days. I remember thinking, “If I ever have kids, I’m gonna tell them about this.” We were all smiles that whole flight.

I’ve collected quite a few tall tales over the years and am definitely looking forward to all the stories that have yet to unfold.

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