Whirr – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

This crazy story from the road was written by Nick Bassett, of the punk band, Whirr. You can check out the band’s story, after the break.

The craziest thing that ever happened on tour and let alone in my entire life took place over a few days in Colorado.

It was some time in mid January 2011 and we were on tour supporting our first record distressor, we played some DIY spot in a town called Sidewinder, it was a weird spot to play but the dude putting on the show had a hook up with a hotel near by and said we could stay there for free so we took him up on his offer.

We played the show to basically the other support band and a few of their loyal friends and sold a single record to the promoter who surely bought it out of pity. We didn’t mind though because we were siked on a place to crash.

After the show, Mac (the promoter) led us out to the hotel which he failed to mention was about an hour away, up a windy mountain road in the dead of winter. Once we arrived, all of us marveled at the beautiful Victorian style hotel that we’d be staying the night at, and forgot about the nuisance of driving an hour out of the way.

We entered the hotel and were greeted by the manager, who showed us around and told us we were the only guests at the hotel because the hotel was actually closed for the winter but due to his nephew (Mac) we were able to stay. We thanked him for his generosity and Mac showed us to our rooms.

The manager went back home and Mac was to stay with us. However, he told us last minute that he had a family emergency and needed to go to the hospital an hour north of us, but assured us he would be back sometime in the night or early next morning.

The seven of us were left alone in a luxury hotel in the winter of Colorado.

In the morning we awoke to a blizzard and no sign of Mac anywhere. The hotel was so far into the mountains that none of us had cell phone service. Also, this hotel still operated under the regular old style keys and locks and didn’t have wifi or any other sort of modern luxury, leaving us without any contact to the outside world.

We attempted to go outside and leave the hotel, but the blizzard was so intense that it was literally impossible to drive out without a snow plow.

The seven of us began exploring the hotel in search of food of any sort. We eventually found an empty kitchen area with plenty of canned food, (beans, soups, etc). Our panic was relieved a bit, and we all ate breakfast together.

Afterward we discussed our options and agreed that if the storm didn’t clear up in the next few days we would be forced to cancel the rest of the tour and head home because we would lose too much money missing shows all the ways out east.

Ryan (our merch guy) and myself decided to go walking around the hotel to pass time for a while and began checking out rooms and what not. It was entertaining for a while but eventually we explored all we could and time slowed back down to a crawl. We searched the hotel for the rest of the band but could only find Sergio, he was in the lobby area writing entries in a tour journal he was keeping and said everyone else went off exploring as well, we talked for a while and then left Sergio to his writing and went off to find the others.

We found the other four in a big open bar around the back bend of the hotel, they had been taking shots and were drunk when we showed up, they were rambling on about how they actually love the hotel and didn’t mind staying, we called them crazy and eventually went to bed for the night.

The next day was still storming and we realized we’d be stuck in the place for at least another few days and were going to have to cancel the tour. Everyone was a bit more on edge and irritable at this point and were getting a bit of cabin fever being stuck in there for three days so far, eating canned food, no outside contact and no end of the storm in sight.

Ryan and I were playing games of chess that we found in the back office of the lobby, when Joey came in the room saying he found a bike rack in the basement area, and had an old red ten speed with him. He said he was going to ride it around the hotel and we were excited to take turns. Joey rode off down the hall to the upper floor and me and Ryan walked back around in search of other band members.

We headed to the lobby where Sergio had been the day prior, he was in there once again writing in his journal. I made some sarcastic remark to him about still writing in it and he snapped at me and asked us to leave him alone. We took the hint and headed back to the bar where Loren, Eddie and Kristina were all drinking once again.

They were entirely wasted at this point and literally having conversations with each other about how it was a great party and kept shouting at the “bartender” (who didn’t exist) to keep pouring them drinks.

Ryan and I laughed it off and headed upstairs to try to get the bike off of Joey.

We found Joey in one of the bedrooms. We asked him for the bike but he seemed out of it and said he was going to bed. We were off put by his response, and asked him what had happened. After pressing him for a while he said something that I’ll honestly never forget. He said to me in a very still, yet very flat tone, “we’re not the only ones here”. Now, it’s hard to convey how eerie this was coming from Joey, but let me say that Joe is not one to fool around in serous situations like this, and is a terrible actor, so this made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up. I asked him what he meant and swore that he saw children in the hallway in the upstairs room, but that they had disappeared at second glanced. However, he claimed that he saw them once again on his way back around, only this time they were covered in blood. We told him he had to be fucking with us but he didn’t budge. Me and Ryan, didn’t believe it and figured he just had a severe lack of sleep mixed with bad nutrition but decided to go up stairs ourselves to see what this was all about anyway.

Ryan and I walked upstairs and began investigating the situation at hand but nothing turned up. We headed back downstairs and called it a night.

The next day Ryan and I decided to go investigating upstairs once again, we walked around the upstairs hallway and started going into the individual rooms, nothing out of ordinary seemed to be going on…until we reached a room toward the end of the hall and went in. Once we opened the door to the room it immediately felt muskier and the air was far heavier. Me and Ryan looked at each other and advanced into the room. Once nearing the end of the hall we noticed the bathroom door was open, we stopped dead still and waited to see what to do next. Just then, the shower curtain flung open and a woman glared at us and stood up straight. I swear to god I couldn’t make a sound or take a step back, she came out of the bathtub and walked toward us, her naked body exposed and covered in blisters and sores. She approached me and slowly ran her hands across my face, finally I snapped out of my trance like state and ran full speed down the hall way to the living room to tell anyone I could find what had just occurred.

I entered the area where Sergio was usually in but he wasn’t there, however his journal lay on the table open, for some reason I looked through it but all that was written in it for the last few days was “all work and no play makes Sergio a good boy” baffled, I turned around to leave the room to find the others but I heard screaming from upstairs, I followed the sound but along my way I saw the word “REDRUM” scrawled across the walls in what looked like a red crayon. The noise lead me to Joey who was in his bed yelping out “REDRUM, REDRUM!” I yelled at him to calm down but just then I heard a loud smashing sound down stairs so I took Joey with me and ran down to see what it was all about.

Kristina was on the opposing stair case with a butcher knife yielded in her hand screaming for Sergio to leave her alone, Sergio, was yielding a great axe and had the most demented smirk pasted across his face. I ran up behind him and told him to calm down but he wouldn’t listen. Eventually I was forced to trip him and he fell down the stairs. Kristina, Joey and myself went up the stairs to the furthest room and locked the door.

As we were hiding in the room, terrified and wondering what to do next we heard a voice calling from the hotels front door, Mac had come back for us and was shouting out for our attention, I heard him acknowledge Sergio, followed by a loud thud, a cry out and the sound of a collapse.

Like sitting ducks we stood in absolute fear.

Footsteps climbing the stairs at a slow pace began and there was no way we could brace ourselves for what would come next. Sergio arrived at the door and was trying to make his way in, we yelled at him to stop but he wouldn’t listen. Then all at once everything went quiet. CRACK! the blade of the axe came crashing through the door. Kristina began screaming and crying out but yet again the crack of the blade drowned her out. A hole had now been made in the door way the size of a VHS tape. Sergio pushed his face into the hole in the door and yelled out “here’s Sergie!”

Kristina and I knew we must make an escape if we’d ever want to see the light of day again, so we kicked open the window of the room leading to the outside. We sent Joey out first since he was the smallest, then Kristina and I followed, meanwhile Sergio had unlocked the door and was entering the room. I escaped in just the nick of time and jumped from the window into the snow.

We ran through the yard in the blizzard and into a maze made up of hedges. We figured this would be a great place to hide, we stuck together running through the maze but could hear Sergio enter the maze as well, he was yelling out for us at the top of his lungs. I knew if I encountered him it would be our demise so I hoped for the best and continued on. I found the end of the maze, and it let us out onto the other side of the hotel. We continued running through the yard,

Just then I heard a loud humming sound coming from the back of the hotel. It was Ryan driving a snow mobile! We ran toward it and asked where he got it, he told us Mac must have driven it up from town and that it was our ticket out of there. Eddie and Loren were already in the snowmobile passed out, so we hightailed it back down the hill and into town.

The next day we told the local media outlets about everything that had happened. They printed our story in the paper the following day but it was pulled from the shelves and a massive cover up was put in place. They said about Sergio’s disappearance that he suffered a fatal injury on a cycling trip and Macs death as freezing in the blizzard.

We never saw Sergio again after that but I assume he froze to death out there in all that cold.

Later Stephen King approached us about the incident, apparently a relative of his saw the newspaper and informed him of it and he asked us if he could write a novel based on the events.

Kristina quit the band shortly after.

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