Walk On Mars - CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the pop punk artist, Walk On Mars, shares one of her stories from being on the road. You can check out the story below:

Going on my first big tour was a dream come true. I was set to perform in 24 different cities across the country, sharing stages and networking with a ton of cool artists who are now some of my closest friends. I traveled to so many new places, and the one I was especially excited for was Las Vegas. However, no one could have guessed that Vegas would be where our wildest story would unfold, and not for the reasons you’d think.

Our headliner’s RV, which acted as a mobile green room, transportation, storage for most of the equipment, and our home for the entire tour, was parked "safely" surrounded by cones in a parking lot—or so we thought. We stayed in a hotel after playing our highest-selling show, then attended When We Were Young Fest, meaning we were away from the RV for a weekend. One morning, some people went to check on the RV... and it was gone. Vanished. Just like that, a 12,000-pound vehicle filled with instruments, merch, personal gear, and god knows what else had disappeared without a trace. Panic mode kicked in fast. I mean, we were in Vegas, a city where anything can happen, but who steals an entire RV?

Thankfully, one of the crew members had wisely placed an AirTag on some of the equipment, more as an extra measure of safety. He tracked the RV to a parking lot outside of a sketchy-looking casino. When we finally pulled up to the scene, it felt like we were walking into the aftermath of some bizarre crime thriller. The RV was trashed—beyond repair. It had clearly been broken into and turned into some kind of makeshift drug den. There were syringes, empty bottles, feces in the toilet, smelly women's underwear (that were not mine, but I was the only girl in the RV), strange stains... you get the picture. And, as we had feared, a lot of our stuff was missing. Instead of driving to our next destination, we spent over a day in DIY hazmat suits cleaning the vehicle to the point where it was so spotless, you could lick the floor (though I wouldn't recommend trying it).

Cut to a few months later, the headliner of the tour checked out the video footage on his 360 camera that was left behind in the RV when all of this happened. That was when we got to see the faces of the people behind the crime, wearing our headliner's merch (how nice of them, right?)... along with our belongings in an alleyway.

And after all that, I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. It became the story that defined my first big tour, and I got to make these memories with my best friends, who I love to death. If anything, this experience proved that I can handle whatever the industry throws at me from now on, because it doesn't get worse than finding dirty underwear on your bed that isn't yours.

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