Kottonmouth Kings – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

This crazy story from the road was written by the punk rock band, Kottonmouth Kings. You can check out their story, after the break.

KMK has been touring for the last two decades, the extreme amount of rock and roll party and extreme debauchee would rival Motley Crüe. The tour bus is usually filled with smoke from sunrise to sunrise. One night we were traveling to Kansas City from Minnesota where there was more smoke than usual, only this was a suffocating thick black smoke, the song Black Smoke Off Long Live the Kings was created after this event. One of the members awoke from a stoned stupor to realize that this was actually a bus fire. The entire back lounge was engulfed with flames. The back engine had caught on fire. We exited the bus, while fire trucks and emergency units were dispatched. D-Loc, in a moment of panic and realization that the pound of weed he had just acquired from the Midwest’s finest grower, was still on the bus. Like a true weed superhero, he charged back onto the bus to rescue the stash. After emerging through the flames and smoke he raised the bag to the sky like a Super Bowl champ hoisting the trophy. We waited for hours for the replacement bus to arrive in Kansas City just in time for a level 5 tornado. I think it was God’s way of telling us to keep on rocking! The show was postponed a day. We played a sellout crowd in KC and continued onto the next city.

Another road story occurred in Michigan where we headlined a wakeboard festival at one of the Great Lakes. It was a beautiful sunny day, always great to have an outdoor show, BBQ, swimming and The Kings took the stage at 4:20. It was a free show sponsored by the regional radio station. As the day wore on, more and more KMK fans were descending on the event. The promoters had brought in some rinky dink portable stage and plastic barricades. It was already getting rowdy and there was talk about canceling the show, due to the risk. In the end, they decided that they would have more issues if the Kings didn’t play, so the Kings took the stage. Within 5 songs, the stage was completely over ran by overzealous fans and the entire stage collapsed under the weight of 200 people. It was a massive dog pile; the sound system was tore to the ground. Unbelievably no one was seriously injured. The show was over and we partied into the night.

It has been a surreal experience touring with the Kottonmouth Kings. The fans are a radical cross breed between punk rock and new age hippies. The kids you would find at Wall Street demonstrations. They are a very extreme living, extreme sports, and music loving crowd, that love weed, music and freedom. The shows are pure pandemonium, bodies flying everywhere. It’s a great party and needs to be experienced to be truly understood. Like the night D-Loc rode a Harley onto the stage in Texas, or the riot after a show outside Boston, the times the cops have raided the KMK bus… It’s been quite a journey. We have the most radical supportive fans a group could ever want.

The time our tour bus got stuck on the train tracks in Colorado with our tour manager taking it home from EastCcoast with a crew member, the train struck the bus and totally demolished the entire bus. The driver and guys got out just in time to witness the collision and it made the news. We will be hitting the road in 2015 & 16 to support Krown Power the new KMK record that dropped on August 28th.

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