Kicks Off Momentous Year With Bold New Song "Buzzkill" Out Today – Listen Now An Amazon Music 2025 Artist to Watch, Lanie Gardner , is making waves and setting the stage for a groundbreaking year with the release of her fiery new song, “ Buzzkill ,” available today via BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville. With its sharp tongue and unapologetic attitude, “Buzzkill” is an anthem for anyone who’s dealt with that one friend who always seems to stir up trouble.   Listen to “Buzzkill” here .   “I wrote this song about a friend who had a habit of bringing around the textbook ‘mean girls,’ the ones you could see coming from a mile away. They always had bad intentions,” Lanie shares. “He’s as stubborn as a mule, so we all figured we’d just let him be. But me? I like a buzz when I’ve caught it. So somebody had to say something—and you bet your ass I did. And I put it in a song. I give you ‘Buzzkill!’”   “Buzzkill” quickly became a fan favourite during Lanie’s live performances and after an outpouring of requests across her platforms, she’s excited to give fans an early preview of what’s to come from her highly anticipated sophomore album, due later this year. The rebellious, no-holds-barred track showcases Lanie’s fearless authenticity, delivering a message of self-empowerment and unflinching honesty.   As she heads into 2025, the CMT Next Up Now Artist will hit the road supporting Corey Kent on his Black Bandana tour and make her debut at Stagecoach, performing alongside headliners Jelly Roll, Zach Bryan, and Luke Combs.   Recognized by the  Recording Academy as one of 2025’s Top 25 Artists to Watch and Absolute Radio Country’s class of 2025, Lanie has quickly become a rising force in Country music, blending her timeless roots with a bold, rock edge. Her debut album, A Songwriter’s Diary , released in October 2024, was hailed for its deeply personal, all-original songwriting, cementing Lanie as an artist with a unique voice.   Lanie’s career skyrocketed after her cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “ Dreams ” went viral, amassing over 54 million views and resulting in collaborations with David Guetta and MORTEN. She further solidified her place in the spotlight with her song “ Chasing the Wind ,” which was featured on the Grammy-nominated Twisters soundtrack alongside major acts like Luke Combs and Miranda Lambert. Lanie’s summer performance at CMA Fest and her tours with powerhouse acts like Jelly Roll and ZZ Ward marked just the beginning of her rapidly growing success.   With raw emotion, genre-blending appeal, and unapologetic authenticity, Lanie Gardner continues to captivate audiences. As she prepares for a year filled with new releases and thrilling tours, Lanie is undeniably one of 2025’s most exciting breakout artists to watch. Check out more from Lanie: Instagram  |  Facebook  |  YouTube  |  TikTok

I had the chance recently to chat with Will Huse, vocalist and guitarist of the Los Angeles folk-pop quartet The Late Great Charlie Borski. The band just released their debut album, Watch Out For Spiders , via Mannequin Vanity Records this past Friday, July 2nd. Will and I discussed where the band's name originated, their recently released debut album, all the way to briefly talking about their current tour of the Southern United States, and so much more! Who is The Late Great Charlie Borski, for anyone who doesn't know? Will: We're a "theatrical folk-pop" band currently based out of Los Angeles, California. We've always had quite a few members rotating in and out, but we're anchored by our core four members, Will Huse, Blaire Lynn Strong, Nick Stanioski, and Lucas Coleman. While on the subject, where did the band's name originate? W: The Charlie is a reference to many great Charlies of history. The Borski is in reference to Rite-Aid's cheap brand of vodka. The "Late Great" is in reference to my sobriety and is a celebration of that drunken bastard version of me being dead and gone. How would you describe your band's sound for anyone who hasn't heard your music before? W: Well, we like to call our genre "theatrical folk-pop," if that helps at all. There's a strong folk/Americana feel to a lot of what we do. Sometimes it's a little country, sometimes it's a little punk, and sometimes it's a little show tune-y. It features vocals, acoustic and electric guitar, bass, drums, piano, synth, banjo, and some trumpet here and there. Mostly, I'd describe it as a group of friends from all across the States coming together to laugh, cry, and tell stories through music. What makes your music “theatrical”? W: A solid chunk of us come from a musical theatre background, and it really shows when we perform. Most of what we do has a dramatic flair to it. It's also theatrical in the sense that the music is really about telling stories similar to a play or a musical. What is the meaning of Watch Out For Spiders -the title of your debut studio album- that correlates to the thirteen tracks? W: At surface level, it's really more of an insight into the last year of our lives. The property that the album was recorded on was covered in spiders, and it's a warning we were always calling out to each other. I think every one of us endured at least one spider bite in our time recording the album, some of which got pretty gross. On a deeper level, spiders are something that can symbolically be good or bad. That's what this album is. It's a journey through life's ups and downs. Songs tackling love and hardcore partying, as well as heartbreak and battles with sobriety. There is one spider reference to watch out for during the album. Listening to the album promo, the album really covers a vast amount of folk subgenres, who are your influences? W: The four of us each have such varied areas of music that we love and pull from. That being said, we often find singular songs that we enjoy as a group. "Barrett's Privateers" by Stan Rogers being at the forefront of that topic. Some of our influences are Big Thief, Modest Mouse, Nathaniel Rateliff, Dave Van Ronk, Bon Iver, Stephen Sondheim, The Mountain Goats, just to name a few. I love the dynamic of having a male and female singer juggling the lead vocals, it really leads to so many possibilities on this album and on any future tunes, was it always something the band wanted as an aspect to your sound? W: It was something we figured out pretty quickly. Blaire has been with us since the beginning, and as we were figuring out who we were as a band, we realized that having two voices would not only benefit our sound but also our storytelling. Blaire has one of those voices that people want and need to hear. She's capable of such nuance, and her voice has such versatility. We're really lucky she's willing to share that gift with us and hasn't ditched us yet. Love ya, B! Do you have a favourite song, or songs, from the new album that has stuck with you since writing/recording Watch Out For Spiders ? W: "Celestial Love Breakdown" and "Murphy's Waltz" are both truly special to us. They're both songs we have been playing live for a while, and both have grown and ebbed and flowed sonically. Adapting all of these songs from live versions for the record has been eye-opening to us as creatives. Specifically, these two we feel came together in magical ways. We're very proud of both of them as standalone productions as well as integral parts of the album as a whole. Was it a challenge in any way recording the album in a studio in the brunt of a global pandemic? W: Honestly, I think it's what got us through it all. A few months before everything had shut down, we started building a home studio in what we started calling "Blaire's Basement." Which was really an unfinished unit in the downstairs of the house that Blaire was living in, in Los Feliz, that we more or less broke into. As the world seemed to fall apart around us, we came together in that space and started recording music. It certainly had its challenging moments, but overall it was an extremely beautiful and rewarding experience. You must be eager to hit the road on your Southern US tour coming up next month? W: I don't think we could possibly be more excited. We're definitely a band that lives for that onstage magic, and the lack of it these last fifteen months has been maddening. Finally, given that we're based out of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, have you ever performed in Canada before? If not, have any plans to? W: Unfortunately, we haven't had the pleasure. Travel between countries still seems a bit up in the air these days, but we would love to make it up there someday! Thanks for the time! Hope to see you in Winnipeg at a show sometime in the future! Is there anything else you may want to add before you go? W: If you have the time, we'd love it if you'd give the album a listen from front to back. It's designed to flow together, and you'll get the most out of your listening experience that way. Also, be on the lookout for our upcoming music video, err short film for our song "Champagne." It'll be out in the next month or so, and it's a really ripping good time! Check out more from The Late Great Charlie Borski: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Last month, I had the pleasure to speak with Charlie Angus, the frontman of the alternative country/folk band Grievous Angels. He is also a sitting federal Member of Parliament of the Timmins—James Bay district (Ontario). The band released their much anticipated eighth full-length album, Summer Before the Storm , on January 15th. We discussed the brand new album in great detail. From what differences there were from their past seven albums to now, their influences, collaborations, and much more. As well, we did touch on their storied thirty-plus-long career from busking on the streets of Toronto to performing in dingy bars, all the way to touring western Canada in 2014. Photo by Raul Rincon. How did it finally come to fruition to write and record the first Grievous Angels record in eight years, was there anything with the pandemic that lead to its conception? Charlie: Life always has a way of getting in the way of the band. But the troubles of life have always brought out the best in the Angels. And nowhere is this more telling than on Summer Before the Storm , which some are calling a roadmap through this era of uncertainty and dissonance. So first off, we never thought there’d be an 8-year break since our last album. We were pumped by the release of our last album, Great Divide, and the western tour in 2014 that followed. But then I got fully consumed by my work as MP for the north. In my absence, bassist Tim Hadley stepped up as bandleader with his own side combo Bad Tractor. In 2017-18, he invited me to play some shows with a variation of the Angels. We had so much fun that it got me writing some new songs. The album was recorded literally in the summer before the COVID crisis. There are a number of dark themes being confronted -conspiracy theory, social upheaval, refugees, environmental crisis. You’d think we were channelling the year that lay ahead. Instead, I think I was picking at the dark threads that have been weaving themselves into our lives over the last few years. COVID has just made those threads that are in our world so damned obvious. Grievous Angels released their brand new full-length Summer Before the Storm on January 15th. How do you compare this record to any of the previous seven releases? Anything different this time around that sets it out from the rest? C: This was the first Angels album that was largely put together on the floor of the recording studio. We had initially hoped to record just a couple of songs but once the band was assembled I could feel the incredible energy of the musicians to get as much accomplished as possible. It meant pulling together new and old song ideas and seeing if we could whip them into shape. I did a lot of the writing in between takes. Over three days we recorded nine tracks. For example, “House Where Love Died” is a song that had been kicking around for a long time but it never felt right. We decided to give it one go-through with a big change-up -Janet Mercier and I would treat it as a duet. It became a couple talking to each other about their breakup. In my head, I heard a sad ballad but the band decided to put a rocking drive to it. Boom -the song sprung to life. It made the cut. That‘s how the whole thing came together. The songs, lyrics, and musical groove formed in an atmosphere of almost magical spontaneity. You can feel it as you listen to the recording. Once the initial session was finished I was really pleased with what we had accomplished but I had a nagging feeling that a key song was still missing. I was haunted by images of truck convoys of grown men raging against Greta Thunberg, a teenage environmental activist. At the same time, I was inspired by the incredible Indigenous youth marches that were shutting down Canada in the months prior to COVID. With these thoughts in mind, I began writing the lyrics for the song “Summer Before the Storm.” In January 2020, we went back into the studio to put it together. At the time, the musical sound was just a sketch in my head. We did a lot of experimenting thinking we would have the time to come back and do retakes. But then came to the big COVID shutdown. The rest of the year was spent working long-distance with engineer/producer Nik Tjelios on mixing and getting the songs to sound right. We realized we had an enormously strong base to work from, and the focus shifted to placing the songs into a coherent ambient and thematic form. Are there any particular artists and/or acts that you have listened to regularly since a young age that has helped influence the band’s overall sound? C: The Angels formed at the same time as the Skydiggers. We learned our chops in the same Toronto clubs and played numerous shows together over the years. We always wanted to do something with them. Getting Andy Maize to join us on a number of tracks was a real thrill. Recording with Andy has been on our bucket list for a long time. Another artist we loved was Ron Hynes. Our accordion player Peter Jellard learned the Ron Hynes song “Iron Workin’ Man” at a kitchen party years ago. It was part of our setlist back in the bar band days. It was only recently that we learned that Ron -the man of 1,000 songs- had never actually recorded the song. Few of his fans even knew about the song. We were determined to get our version down as a tribute to him. As an active member of the Canadian Parliament, I take promoting, performing, and touring an album -if touring was still an active possibility- is a lot different than it was before winning your seat in 2004? C: The Angels built our sound as a live band. We started out street busking and playing punk rock dives. We played folk festivals across the country as well as shit-kicking country bars. Our last tour was in 2014 -playing our way up from the Vancouver Folk Festival to Calgary where I was invited to be guest host at their summer festival. Politics has obviously taken a huge bite out of the touring and gigging. My focus is serving a region that is bigger than the United Kingdom. Even though we don’t play many live shows the anarchic spirit of a Saturday night bar band sound remains rooted in how we approach entertaining people. I host an annual show at the Horseshoe Tavern every year where I invite a variety of artists to play on the bill. When the COVID crisis lifts we will love the chance to play this album for a live audience. Looking back on your already storied music career from busking in the streets of downtown Toronto in the mid-1980s, performing in venues, and all the way to performing duets with the late-former leader of the NDP party Jack Layton, what has been your most cherished moment along the way? C: Over the years, we have had the opportunity to play with some incredible artists at folk festivals across the country. I remember incredible shows with artists like the Waco Brothers, Buddy Guy, and Utah Phillips. But I think of some of the best memories were when we were playing five sets a night a northern punch-out bars or playing without microphones on the back of a truck at a picket line. We have been privileged to watch the lives, dramas, and celebrations of people being played out on the dance floor in front of us. I write their stories in my songs. No offense to the middle class or wealthy people, but I find the lives of working-class people so much more real and interesting. I didn’t get into songwriting to explore my own feelings. My focus is always on the struggles and hopes of the people I am fortunate enough to meet. Last year we played one of our most touching shows when we were flown to an isolated northern reserve to spend a week with the survivors of the St. Anne’s residential school. They weren’t there to hear singer-songwriter stuff. They wanted an old-fashioned fiddle dance. We were joined on stage by some great Cree musicians. We played a night of country and fiddle tunes. It reminded us that music is an incredible gift. It can bring healing and build community. The lineup of Grievous Angels has changed over the thirty-two years together, are there any new members in the group that appear on Summer Before the Storm ? C: The Angels remain rooted in the three key members: Charlie Angus on vocals, Tim Hadley on bass, and Peter Jellard as a multi-instrumentalist. On this album, we invited bluegrass singer Janet Mercier to join on a series of duets. This has been something the band has wanted to do for a long time. Tim put the rest of the band together. Some like Ian McKendry are members of Tim’s alter-ego band Bad Tractor. Ian not only played killer guitar, but he did the arresting artwork for the cover. While society is certainly having quite the large conversation on topics of conspiracy theories, climate change/global warming, mental illness, and violence, a few of these topics have yet to be addressed largely in music. Why did you feel inclined to write a majority of an album on these topics? C: The song “The Morning After” opens the album. But it wasn’t planned for the initial recording session. I wrote it on the morning after the killings of Parliament Hill in 2015. Part of the song is about the dissonance and dangers of conspiracy theory that led to this terrible killing: “On the morning after we woke from a fever dream where the world had turned flat and we learned just what this nightmare means.” But I wrote the song to capture the incredible social solidarity and bravery that I witnessed on that day. As we deal with the aftermath of the violence in Washington, this song is feeling very prescient. But the reality is that I presented an unfinished version of it to the band in the studio, and they gave it a ferocious drive. That led me to tightening up the lyrics. Those lyrics feel very real right now. Once the album was done I realized that the songs were interwoven with repeating themes -war, conspiracy theory, refugees, [and] climate crisis. But those songs were held together by strong feelings of hope, solidarity, and just plain human decency. This all came together in a studio in the summer before the COVID storm. Honest to God, we didn’t set out to present a political analysis of the times. But what I have learned about the power of songs is that sometimes they touch the root of things we feel but don’t know how to articulate. Are there any particular tracks from these aforementioned topics that if you’d like listeners to hear before all, in theory, they don’t listen to the entire album? C: I would suggest people listen to “All Night Depanneur.” A depanneur is a corner store in Quebec that sells wine and beer. The song is about trauma and memory set in the depanneur during the endless snowstorm of a Canadian winter night. I had the idea for the scene for years but had never done anything with it. During a break in the recording, I filled in the blanks with lyrics and chords. The use of a minor chord on the chorus transformed it: “ When I see the snow I see Saravejo and a village burning by the road.” The band learned the parts in the backyard on a beautiful summer’s evening. We went in and recorded it in two or three takes. I think the sensitivity of the acoustic instruments and the group vocals captures the haunting power of this song. Finally, I’m sure it’s stressful trying to release any type of new music during these unprecedented times. Has it impacted the process of releasing Summer Before the Storm in any way, shape, or form? C: COVID upended all plans for the album just as it has upended our whole world. What we learned from it was that timelines and deadlines don’t really matter as long as we have health and family. The mixing and planning of the album were dragged out much longer than any of us could have imagined, but I think in some ways, we were mixing and perfecting the album that was reflecting in so many ways the struggles we were seeing unfold all around us. I am hoping that for some this album will be a testament to a time of testing, at a time of hope. Thanks for the time today, Charlie! I hope you and the rest of the band are staying safe! Is there anything else you want to add? C: There was a time in the Angel’s career where it seemed we were poised to go to the big leagues. But life happens. Band mistakes, lost opportunities, the vagaries of fortune. It’s the story of every rock n roll band. But the band made a decision a long time ago that what mattered wasn’t success but the songs. We stayed together through the highs and lows because we care for each other as friends and love playing together. I think the album captures the integrity of the sentiment. As for looking back on a 30-year career of highs, lows, and dead-ends. I wouldn’t change a thing. Be sure to check out more from Grievous Angels: Facebook | Youtube | Bandcamp

Last week our own Mikey Jablonski sat down in front of his computer and had a fantastic chat with Patrick Miranda, the frontman of alternative rock/emo band Movements over a Zoom call. Patrick and Mikey went into more detail about the band’s forthcoming second album, No Good Left To Give , the album’s differences to their first album, the band’s future, and much more. How would you describe your music for anybody who may have never heard of you guys before? Patrick: I consider our band to be Alternative Rock. I think everybody has their own definition of what Movements is. A lot of people categorize us as Emo, Pop Punk. We are not a Pop Punk band. I don’t agree with that categorization. But I also understand that for many people that Pop Punk isn’t necessarily a definition of sound. It’s more so a definition of the community in which we tour in and are a part of. As a whole, I consider us Emo, Alternative Rock. I know you guys are planning on releasing your second album No Good Left To Give on September 18th. How do you guys think about this record compared to Feel Something ? What did you do differently from the last one? Patrick: I think that there is some significant differences in this album. Namely, the overall maturity of our sound has progressed so much more. The depth and the music as a whole to me is so much richer on this album. This album we really solidified our place in the world as musicians, songwriters, and how we write. I just think these songs are so much better than any of our songs we’ve ever written in the past. I think it’s a good start to a new era for us in being a more well-rounded band as a whole. As well as a band hopefully we are taken seriously and not just taken, quote on quote, Pop Punk. But more of a mainstream alternative rock realm. Hopefully getting to go to bigger festivals and radio play. At its core, it’s still Movements, but it’s just progression. How was the writing process for the new album? Patrick: It was a lot faster than Feel Something . We wrote Feel Something for like over a year, almost a year and a half. On this album, we wrote maybe like 6 to 8 months, somewhere in there. We tried some new things too. Before we went into the studio to actually record the full album I went out to the studio by myself to hang out with our producer Will [Yip] for like a weekend. We basically ended up writing six songs in that weekend while we were there. That was really cool cause it gave us so much to work with. So much depth to play around with where we didn’t have before with Feel Something because we didn’t have the time with Will that we got on this album. But overall the writing process was easier this time around. I know most bands have a musical direction they want an album to take. Did you think that you got what you wanted with this record with the performance? Patrick: Yeah. I think that this record kind of encapsulates exactly what we wanted to accomplish. Which was to show a progression to our sound and to show that. We are not the band that always puts out the same record every time. Were always going to be a band that grows and changes, it still keeps what makes our band, our band , and what makes us special. But were always going to try and progress because we don’t believe in writing the music that the fans want to hear just because that’s what they want. We believe in what we want to write and hoping our fans grow and change with us ’cause our tastes have changed. We wouldn’t write the type of music off of Feel Something these days cause that’s just not who we are anymore. When we write the next album it will be different than this album. What were the most challenging things to write for this time around? Patrick: I don’t know. There were certain subjects on this album that was new territory for me. Like finding the right way to speak about them was a little bit of a challenge. There was a couple of songs on the album where although I am singing lyrics that have like “I” or “me,” I’m not necessarily talking about myself. There are some songs I’m singing about the perspective of somebody else. Somebody in my life I’m close with. I’m kind of telling a story based on their experiences and their perspective. That was something I never tried before. That was definitely new to me. I think I was doing it justice and doing it well. I saw you guys have a range of influences of artists including Title Fight, Oceana, Thrice, and probably many more. Do you think any of those influences shined some light into the new record? Patrick: I think that they always will. Those are definitely some of our core influences that will always be prevalent in our music. I mean Title Fight is my favourite band of all time, Thrice is up there. Those are some of the things we will always have. I don’t necessarily know that you will be able to hear those influences in the music. If you can, great. But I think as a whole those are just more inspirations and influences that shaped our musical tastes. I know you guys just recently released “Skin To Skin.” How has the reception been from the fans with the new music? Patrick: Yeah. For the most part, it’s been pretty good. There have been mixed reviews for sure. I’ve seen people not like it. I’ve seen people who are fans of this band say things like, “I don’t like this,” “It’s too different.” I’ve heard people say, “It’s too similar.” I’ve heard it all honestly. Truthfully, I don’t care if people don’t like it. It’s my hope that our fans will continue to grow with us and you know this isn’t what they are looking for right now. I know that I have in the past I’ve been a fan of certain bands when they put out a new record, I don’t necessarily like it at first but then it grows on me over time. But then it grows into more of my favourite records. I hope that this happens with this album that don’t maybe like it that way. But at the same time, I’ve seen people who are really excited about it and are into the new sound. But as a whole, I’ve seen more positive comments than I have seen negative. What are your favourite new tracks off the new record? Patrick: My favourite song actually is “Skin To Skin.” But I have multiple favourites. Probably my next favourite would have to be the final song on the album, it’s called, “Love Took The Last of It.” It has an interlude before it that kind of like ties into that song. But those two as a whole I like the transition between them, I like the vibe that they put out. ‘Cause we live in these COVID-19 times, are you guys planning to do an online show on the release date for No Good Left To Give , or the near future at all? Patrick: It's something we are talking about. We will do something fun on the day of the release, but I don’t think it will be a live stream show. We’ll get on and interact with people at the very least. We have talked about doing a live stream performance at some point in the future. The issue is that our drummer lives in a compromised household. So it’s very dangerous for him to go and be around people cause it could put his family at risk. That is something we are really trying to avoid. Not any solid plans yet, but if we can do it safely at some point in the future we definitely will. Is there a song off the new record that you’ll be looking forward to playing live when you get the chance, Patrick? Patrick: I’m really looking forward to playing, “Tunnel Vision.” To me, that song is like a typical Movements song. There’s you know, screaming in it, there’s a lot of energy. I can already see the outro of that song being a huge part for a lot of people. I’m excited to see how that one translates. When COVID-19 is over. Are there any places you would like to tour that you haven’t yet for this album cycle? Patrick: Yes, absolutely! I really want to go to like New Zealand, South America. We were supposed to go to Brazil in 2018 or 2017, I don’t remember. But unfortunately, it got canceled. We haven’t been able to make it down there at all. There are a couple of other places in Asia that I want to go, including Japan. Any bands, in particular, you would like to tour with that you haven’t yet? Patrick: There’s definitely a bunch. I would love to tour with larger bands like Bring Me the Horizon. Even bands like Fall Out Boy. Even like a Jimmy Eat World tour would be dope. I have my mindset on bigger tours. If we could get on a Twenty One Pilots tour I would be ecstatic [laughs] but I don’t think that would ever happen. Finally, what are your guys’ plans for the rest of 2020 and looking into the next year? Patrick: Man… Were just trying to get through 2020 as quickly as possible and hopefully, next year brings better news. That’s the thing dude. 2020 is a wash, there’s nothing left to do. We’re going to put out the album. We’re going to promote it as much as we can and then we just have to wait. That’s it, that’s all that we can possibly do. Probably more merch drops and more Black Friday stuff. We have a tentative plan to have a summer tour next year. Sad our summer tour got canceled, we were upset about. We got it postponed to next year and hopefully, that means it will actually happen. If it doesn’t then it doesn’t. Check out more from Movements: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

PR BROWN / UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP So, you guys just released Flawed Design , which is awesome. You also just announced you’re doing the headlining Ontario shows with The Standstills before going out on tour later this year. What made you choose The Standstills? They’re friends of ours. We’ve played a few shows with them in the past. Last year I did a Canadian Music Week thing at The Horseshoe in Toronto and they were a part of that. They’re just a great band. They’re super great people and we get along with them really well. When we were booking these shows their name came up and it was pretty easy and great to have them open up these shows, for sure. You guys just wanted to start off at home before going out to the US, I assume? Yeah, that’s right. I mean we were originally trying to do something a little bit bigger in Canada, at least in Ontario to do a few more shows sort of starting up here, but yeah we have the three shows in Toronto, Ottawa, and Peterborough. We stopped it there and it seemed to be a good few shows to get started, get our feet wet because we haven’t really been out for a while. It made sense to do all that at home too, to keep it a little bit easier with friends and crew, yeah. In May you’re going out with Black Stone Cherry and Alterbridge. That should be a really kick-ass tour. Yeah, that’s going to be great, man. We are really looking forward to that. Alterbridge is awesome, Black Stone is awesome as well. I mean, we’ve done a lot of tours with them. I’ve done a lot of tours with them in the past. Yeah, really, really good bands. It’s going to be a great tour. We’re stoked about that. Apart from the new album, you guys also have some new members. How does it feel finally having Cale in the same band? It feels great man. I mean it’s been a long time coming. You know we grew up together and we played music together growing up. Our plan was always to be in a band together or something like that. It just made sense, you know. At the same time our original bass player, Corey, started working with Seether full time, so it just kinda made sense. I asked Cale if he wanted to be a part of it. Yeah, it was a no-brainer all away around, you know, and made really good sense. It feels great now that we’re actually doing it. It’s been a great time so far and looking forward to touring together, for sure. Did you guys get Cody through Cale, or how did that work out? Yeah, I mean Cody plays drums in Art of Dying, you know. Cody and him are bandmates in that band and aside from that we’ve been really good friends with Cody, he’s from our hometown of Norwood in Peterborough. We’ve known him for years and years and Art of Dying isn’t, at this point, doing all that much. All the guys are doing separate things. So yeah, with Sal from Staind being our drummer, there were some conflicting tour dates and that sort of thing. It just made sense for us to get Cody to jump in full-time because Sal has a lot on his plate. Cody hasn’t done any live shows with Saint Asonia yet, correct? That’s right, yeah. We did do an acoustic thing in Massachusetts in Foxborough a couple of months ago, but that’s just about it. So it will be awesome getting you out on the road with you guys then. Yeah, oh yeah, for sure. Is there a song off Flawed Design that you’re looking forward to playing live? I mean we’re kinda working our set out right now for these Ontario shows. They’re headlining sets so they’re pretty long. We’ve been trying to figure out what songs from the new record we want to play. I mean one song we’re all excited to play live eventually is “Ghost.” A lot of us feel like it’s our favourite one to play. Once we get some sort of steady, long headlining sets, we’ll probably put “Ghost” in there. “ Ghost” is one of my favourites off the album. You wrote with Dustin Bates from Starset on that one, right? For sure! Yeah, Dustin and Keith Wallen from Breaking Benjamin. Oh, Keith wrote on “Ghost” as well? That’s right, yeah. He wrote on “Ghost” as well as on “Beast.” I think Keith Wallen is one of the underrated songwriters out there, so I’m glad he was able to be featured on Flawed Design . How did that collaboration come about? You know, the same type of deal. We know Keith really well because of Breaking Benjamin and that sort of thing. When we were putting songs together for this record, writing songs, we wanted to branch out and co-write with different guys and there was just a handful of guys' names that came up and Keith was one of them. A lot of the time you get messages from different guys saying “Hey, it would be great to sit down and write some tunes together,” and it’s not all the time you are able to follow up on that. I think I got a message from Keith to co-write, that was pretty much it when we started writing the record. We flew out to L.A. where he was and sat down in the studio and wrote a couple of tunes. I’m really glad that collaboration worked out. “Ghost” and “This August Day” are probably my two favourite songs off the album. Thanks, man. Yeah, “This August Day” is a really fun one to play too. It’s a bit of a different vibe for it and that’s what we were trying to basically accomplish, you know by writing with others like Dustin. Was there anybody you wanted to work with that maybe the timing didn’t work out or just really didn’t end up coming of it? You know what, not really. I mean there was a handful of guys I really wanted to write with and fortunately, I was lucky enough that I was able to write with them. I sat down and wrote a song with Raine Maida from Our Lady Peace and I’ve always been a big Our Lady Peace fan. So that was really cool and you know, it was really fortunate to be able to co-write with guys like that and be able to reach out and make something happen. So we wrote a song, it’s actually not on this record, but we’ll end up using it for something down the road. I’m really looking forward to hearing that song with Raine. “The Hunted” with Sully Erna of Godsmack had quite a while to get released, so I’m sure this one will be great as well. Yeah, that was awesome. I mean that song has been around for a long time and we kinda tweaked it, that sorta thing with a new producer. Yeah, really cool to have Sully on the album. After you're done your tour with Alterbridge and Black Stone Cherry, Staind is going to be on tour in the Summer with Disturbed. Should we expect a big Saint Asonia tour in the fall? The plan is to go out, actually, we’re announcing a big tour tomorrow [March 3, 2020], so yeah we’re pretty close to announcing that and that’s gonna put us out for July, August, and September as well for three months. Yeah, that’s going to be great. Staind is going to be out with Disturbed, that’s right. So I think when Mike goes out with Staind we will have somebody basically fill in for him. We’ve always pretty much assumed at some point he was going to go back out. Mike and I have had lots of talks about that. It’s great to see him going back out and I’m glad he’s doing that kinda thing, but he’s always a part of this band, for sure. There’s a couple of festivals coming up this Summer like Sonic Temple and Rock Fest in Cadot. Would Mike be doing double duty on those sets or would you still perform with a touring guitarist? I think we will have our other guy filling in for him, but at the same time, we have talked about having Mike come up to do a couple here and there. Playing on the same day, you know [Laughs], it will be a little bit tough for him. Those days are going to be long as he puts a lot into that set, but yeah, he will get up with us, for sure. It was a real pleasure talking to you Adam! I look forward to seeing you guys on tour later this Summer and I hope you have a great year! Right on, thanks, man! I appreciate it! Take care!

January 20, 2020 Bell MTS Place All photos by Mikey Jablonski.

Shared post with reasonablylate.com. Go give them a follow on Instagram . Visiting the Australian Country Music Hall of Fame. December 15th, 2018 Charleston, South Carolina The Royal American When you step on tour with Justin Osborne, Jordan Igoe, and Van ‘The Good’ Robinson, the road seems endless from the outset. Times are good at every stop and it feels as though there’s a full moon hanging over every city you pull into. Then one morning you wake up in Macon, Georgia, and the ride has ended. The crew disbands and this old train is set down to rest for some time to come. These thoughts swarmed me as I leaned over the railing of the Royal American patio with half a cigarette. I stared past the tracks out back, into the darkness beyond the reach of the moonlight until my focus was broken by an Indian bike being kicked into a growling start in the parking lot behind me. I didn’t know anyone there other than Van the Good, so I’ve stepped outside for a cigarette every 10 or so minutes. Van and I split a small bit of LSD and I watched the stars come out as I waited to feel the effects. The Royal American stage. Photo by Matt Harrison. By 1:30 neither of us felt anything, so we took a bit more. I had initially blamed my continual missteps on the drug as I walked around the bar, though it’s worth noting I had smoked a pack of cigarettes in four hours which will make your feet feel heavier and your fingertips grow cold. Van and I hopped into his van and took off through the night toward a recording studio for a party after we watched a couple of bands play at the Royal . The studio felt like some indistinct and indefinable piece of home you’ve never stepped foot in; familiar in an unfamiliar way. I wandered around briefly before settling into a spot on the couch and melting into the cushions. Not melting all the way into nothing, but enough to keep me planted there for the next few hours. I thought this damned acid is about as strong as a right hook from my grandmother and before I knew it, I was swept away and tangled up in the cosmic wavelengths that danced inside my eyes. Most of the night crawled by but 3 am came out of nowhere. “Electric Feel” by MGMT came on only to be cut short as the room began to ride the waves of the tune. “Oh, come on! ” one person yelled at the DJ through the studio window. “Why. Why . Why ?” he hollered with greater desperation, only to be answered by the next song. I felt gentle waves coming and going. When they came, I felt lost in the drug, but unafraid. When they went, I thought about how none of what I just experienced will be even remotely replicated at home. The more I thought about tour, the less I wanted to leave. But even if I stayed, it will never be what it was. Just as I began sinking into this thought, I felt a gentle stirring in my stomach and my lips felt as though they had each blossomed open. Just as I began sinking back into the drug, someone I met at the bar asked if I’m alright. I told him “I feel great,” which I think may have been the truth. I don’t know if he believed me, but the uncertainty stirring within me could be due to the acid. I can’t help wondering what kind of madman I must look like as I sit here, staring around the party at things that are only taking place within the parameters of my mind. I stood up and wandered over to a group of people, looking to shed this aura of insanity. I struck up a conversation with a young, long-haired guy wearing a jean jacket. There’s no point recalling most of the conversation, but we laughed and joked a short while before he leaned in close to say something. “Do you fuck around with coke?” he asked in a hushed tone. I thought about it for a moment, and then another. “Eeh,” I said, “I think I’d probably ruin my life if I did coke, so I probably shouldn’t.” He looked almost surprised. “Good on you,” he said, raising his beer. I told him about the ride I was on that night and as we carried on talking, I felt another, heavier, wave hit the shores of my mind. As I felt it, I looked over at Van the Good as he sat down in a chair, running both hands through his hair as he felt the same wave strike the levees of his consciousness. The intensity of the LSD’s effects can’t quite be measured without taking into account a brief sleep,a pack of cigarettes and not nearly enough weed. It’s a delicate ecosystem, once you understand the nuances. A few days later I was talking to someone about their experiences with LSD. He told me he tends to micro-dose the stuff on a weekly basis. He said the drug plays a valuable role in the way he interacts with the world. “It opens my heart and it opens my tongue.” I sat back on the couch and watched a girl walk out of the room with the white lines. She wiped her nose with the base of her palm before she plunked down on the couch and began flipping through a colouring book filled with birds. I held no judgment toward her. After all, I’m the fiend tripping on the couch watching her. Which one of us is in a truer state of disrepair? Just then the front door opened, and 5’10” of what I expected most people in South Carolina to look like walked in with the December breeze. I made it to the door before it shut and slipped out into the darkness. The most bizarre thing happens when you step outside the thumping bass of music and the roar of talking and singing in this place. At first, you won’t even trust the fact there’s cement appearing in the growing crack of the door. As it catches on the latch behind you, you’re submerged in absolute silence. There’s hardly a recollection of the music, the people, any of it. “It’s something else, isn’t it?” a gentle giant standing outside said to me as I breathed the night sky. “The air is crisp, like biting into a fresh apple.” Stars glowed endlessly around us as we each looked off into the darkness. “I never want to be my own uncle,” I heard someone sitting on the cement ledge say between drags of a cigarette. “I don’t want you to be like me,” the fellow next to him replied. “Yeah, you’re my uncle,” the first man answered, shaking his head. Photo by Matt Harrison. Van and I came back to Rialto Row for the night. We each felt another wave come on as we looked around the room at the mural painted along the walls, the art all around us. Van left to go trip in his van and listen to Ever Since I Lost my Mind . I spent much of the early morning laying on the couch, muttering sleep-deprived nothings into an audio recorder. The effect of the drug faded, and as the sun began to rise, I grabbed a bicycle I’d seen in the backyard and went riding around the quiet streets of Charleston on that calm, warm, Sunday morning. The morning birds flew through the sunlight, singing the city awake. The neighbourhoods I peddled around were silent and serene. Riding a bicycle around Charleston, South Carolina is how every acid trip should end. For mostly logistical reasons, that’s not quite possible. I got lost for an hour or two before I found my way back to the compound. I slept that whole day on the couch in the Rialto Row house, only ever waking long enough to croak “what's up” when people came walking through. I awoke long enough to give Van the Good a hug goodbye before he climbed into his van and drove home to Columbia. I came back to life that evening and walked 45 minutes to downtown Charleston. I sat at Starbucks and rode their Wi-Fi long enough to do a final edit and post a piece I’d written over the few days prior. While I walked back to Rialto, through the dark, night-fallen streets, the end of the trip weighed heavier on me than it had at any other point. Justin picked me up the next morning to take me to lunch at a place that cooks BBQ just like his hometown. We passed around The Gift Bowl before we left and, after we ate, he gave me a driving tour of Charleston. “Some Swedish guy sent me this mix CD he burned,” Justin said while we drove around Charleston. “He put Hard Drugs on it. It’s just funny to listen to some 70-year-old Swedish guys’ mix. It’s called Hit the Hay, Vol. 10 .” When “Hard Drugs” came on, he skipped it and told me a little about it. The most he had to say about it on stage was, “This song is about how sometimes going through the worst shit can bring you closer to people. It’s also about how fucked up it can be to go to the hospital when you don’t have health insurance.” “My friend started datin’ this guy right around the time I got back from a trip with Meghan. We were real good friends, too. She was at my wedding. That dude was super possessive of her, and I felt like I was losing one of my best friends to this terrible relationship. She eventually got out of that relationship which was super good because he was a major shithead. He wasn’t even a shithead, he was just an asshole.” As he finished the story, we pulled onto the grounds of The Citadel. “When I first moved to Charleston, I got off the interstate and came straight to The Citadel. I’d never been to Charleston before I started going to this military school. Because of that, for a while, I didn’t even like Charleston. Eventually, I realized how awesome it is.” We drove deeper onto the property. “Alright, here it is, dude. The Citadel. This fuckin’ place. If you’re a freshman, you have to shave your head and walk in the gutters. This was my introduction to Charleston.” “Sterile,” I said, looking at the pale grey walls of every building. “Oh yeah,” he said, staring at it. “Super sterile. Kinda fun though. But eventually, also just a huge pain in the ass. They have all kinds of obstacle courses n’ shit back there. Oh shit, the road’s blocked. Oh well, that’s good. It cuts our Citadel tour down a good bit, anyway.” The old Swede’s mixtape carried on with a light rock jam with a gentle piano solo. “You guys got some cool ass trees,” I told him as we drove through an old part of town. “I was bikin’ around while I came down on acid, lookin’ at the trees, having my mind blown by ‘em.” “You were bikin’ around on acid?” he asked, excited. “Dude, that’s the thing to do around here! That’s what the ACID BOYS is all about. We’d each take acid and as soon as you’d start to feel it, we’d be like, let’s get outta here ! We felt like this crazy sort of warrior troupe. We weren’t brawling at all, but we’d go downtown and look all the tourists in the eyes n’ shit. We’d wear crazy shit and stare people in wedding parties in the eyes. We were doing it just to kick back and we accidentally expanded our minds in the process. We’d do this thing called the Ron Paul No Hands where you stand up on your bike and just throw your hands up while you go.” He threw his hands in the air, off the steering wheel, to give me the full effect. It was only minutes later we came to a slow stop on a quiet residential street. The Ron Paul No Hands. Photo by Matt Harrison. “Alright, here she is,” Justin said as he threw the van in park. “Panther’s flag in the window,” I said to myself as we walked up to the Australian Country Music Hall of Fame. A lot of the stories Justin told from on stage about the early days of SUSTO took place in this building, or, at the very least, while he lived here. To some SUSTO fans this place is a Holy artifact. Justin knocked at the door, but no one answered. We walked into the backyard and up the balcony. Still no answer at the doors. Justin climbed out on the edge of the balcony, 25, maybe 30 feet off the ground, to get to one of the doors on the second floor. “Meghan would kill me if she saw me doing this,” he said as he climbed back, taking a nervous peek down as he did. “You know that song that starts “ Ashley’s smokin’ a bong?” I wrote it out here on this balcony while I was livin’ here.” Crawling around the Country Music Hall of Fame. After a few more minutes, we gave up on entering the building. The members of SUSTO were waiting on Justin at Rialto Row for the first full band practice since recording Ever Since I Lost My Mind. He gave me his phone while he drove and had me send a text to the group chat to say he’d be late. We drove across a long white bridge, toward the coastline. Justin pointed through the passenger window and said, “there’s an old bylaw in Charleston that you can’t build higher than the churches.” I looked over to where he pointed, at the city of Charleston, at a dozen or more church spires peeking overtop every building in sight. We stopped at the end of a quiet road and walked down toward the water. He pointed off in the direction of the secret spot on the beach he and his friends like best. We walked down the beach, past the million-dollar real estate, to the ocean’s edge. We each stared off into the apparent infinity between us and the other side. “Put your hands in it,” he said as he knelt to rinse his hands as we stood in a half-inch of water. The Atlantic Coast. Photo by Matt Harrison. He walked out further and I followed his lead. All of a sudden, like something from an old sailor’s tale, the ocean came back our way ferocious and deep and before I knew it I was up to my ankles in water. We ran back up the sand as fast as our soaked shoes would let us. “Aah!” Justin yelled, laughing as we walked back up the beach. “Sorry, dude. I was too stoned, and I just kept walking into it.” We drove to Rialto Row and met up with James and the rest of SUSTO. My shoes were sopping wet with ocean water, so James offered to dry them for me before I left. We each smoked a bit of weed and hit the road. “Alright,” he said in his gruff voice, with an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips, “we will do this quickly and efficiently. That is the name of my game. Don’t you worry about shit.” He said this all with his typical straight, matter-of-fact, tone of voice. Rialto Row. Photo by Matt Harrison. “Canuck, before you go, I’m gonna help hit you with some OutKast that’ll blow your mind,” he said, again, straight and matter-of-fact. “Welcome to your OutKast Education.” “West Savannah” came on, and we drove down the street. We went by James’ house where he pulled my shoes apart and threw them in the dryer, offering me a pair of slippers in exchange. As we got back in the car, OutKast still playing, he told me “I suspect you’re going to go through a good bit of post-tour-depression-type-shit once you’re back home.” I laughed and agreed with him before I thought about it a moment longer and fell silent under the music. “I’m gonna take you to see something that’ll really make ya think,” he said as he turned the stereo off. He took me to a civil war cemetery. It was large, seemingly endless. He showed me the graves of the men from the first successful submarine strike. He took me down roads I wasn’t sure anyone was meant to drive down, past countless tombstones. Brothers, fathers, friends. We drove in silence for some time past those great fields of tombstones. “Before we go, let me show you the biggest asshole who has ever lived,” he said as we carried on down a small dirt road. “His name is MaClinsky. The, and I mean the, biggest asshole in the history of the world.” We pulled up to a Mausoleum, the biggest tomb site in the cemetery. The name didn’t say MaClinsky, but that wasn’t the point. “A regular grave wasn’t good enough?” James said, looking from me to the building that likely cost upwards of a few hundred thousand dollars. “You’re just as dead as the rest of ‘em,” he said, staring at the building as we slowly pulled away. Once we left the cemetery, the OutKast Education resumed. Driving around Charleston. Photo by Matt Harrison. We pulled up outside Rialto Row and waited until the band finished running through “Last Century” before we went in and I grabbed my bag. “What a tour,” Justin said, smiling. “Unbelievable,” was all I could say. I gave him a hug, said goodbye to James and the band and headed out to catch my Uber. I arrived at the airport around 3:15 and was still somewhat stoned. The weed made me forget a few things in security but I slid through without any real problems. Once I found my seat I closed my eyes and drifted off, thinking about everything that had been the last two weeks. I woke up at a bump and expected to be in the back seat of the van, staring out the window at some stretch of Southern somewhere. Instead, I was in seat 14D, staring out at the snowy Chicago runway. When I arrived at the airport in Winnipeg, I was depleted. My clothes stunk and I looked as though I’d been up to no good for a couple of weeks. The middle-aged woman at the security desk looked me over for a half a moment longer than everyone else before she sent me off for additional screening. This is it , I thought to myself. This is where the party ends and the trip takes a turn for the worse. This is where all those beautifully captured memories become thoroughly documented evidence. The security agent pulled everything out of my bag, asking me about what I had been down south for, and who I was with. “Did the band you were with do any drugs while you were with them?” he asked, not looking at me but instead at the contents of my backpack as he dragged them out. “They smoked a little bit of pot,” I said with a shrug. “You know, just hippie stuff like that.” “Did you consume any marijuana while you were there?” He asked, looking now at me. “I wasn’t there for that,” I said, looking back at him. “I was just there to write about what it was like being there.” On the inside pocket of my coat, my notebook felt heavy. Every answer he was looking for was inside it. He didn’t ask me to empty my pockets, so I didn’t, and he never saw the notebook or the stories it held. My birthday came a few days after I was home. I hit the bong for breakfast along with a half cup of coffee, the other half of which I misplaced. My phone dinged with a text from John Roberts, Psychedelic Aficionado . He wished me a happy belated birthday which rattled my mind: How did he know my birthdate? Is he a Witch Doctor? Did he read the contents of my soul while I was under? Love and Unity. Photo by Matt Harrison. Before these stoner theories could gather a real foothold, I saw the picture of me Justin had posted on Instagram. “This is Matt Harrison,” the caption read. “Matt is a writer who I met last year in Winnipeg. He rode along with us on the last half of the Stories Tour, writing, seeing the country, and meeting tons of people. Yesterday was his 24th birthday. Proud to call him my friend, and excited for what’s to come in his career.” I smiled when I saw it, still not believing this was anything more than just a dream. I had three weeks until school started from the day I got home, and I spent all 21 days getting high and writing while I listened to the unreleased SUSTO album, Ever Since I Lost My Mind, and Aquemini by OutKast. What I sought to somehow recapture was the feeling of being on tour. While I was still on tour I clung desperately to those final moments. The weeks after I came home, I hung on even tighter, though there was nothing left for me to hold on to. It would be months before I fully came back to reality. It was three months before I could look back with absolute certainty that the tour had really happened. Looking back now, I no longer feel a desperate want to be back out there. What I feel instead is gratitude for forever getting to go, and a burning desire to run some other unseen roads. As I write this, SUSTO is off finding new ears in old cities as they tour through Europe. Once they’re Stateside, they’ll be hitting familiar roads until the end of the year. For Justin, life on tour is an unending voyage. Night after night, when the lights go dim, he’ll step onto another stage to tell his story through music. Once the fans clear out and the amps are left humming a static emptiness, he’ll be back on the road in search of the next empty stage and the next waiting crowd. Dedicated to the memory of Andrew ‘Toucan’ Gardner. Farewell. Photo by Matt Harrison. Check out more from Susto: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Shared post with reasonablylate.com. Go give them a follow on Instagram . December 14th 10:15 am Charleston, South Carolina “I brought some energy weed,” James said as he walked through the front door of the house on the Rialto Row compound. One lesson I’ve learned with absolute certainty is that the rock and roll world is a feisty bull to hang on to, so you may as well get stoned and do your best to keep at it. Van the Good and James both arrived at Rialto early to sort out the plan for the day before we left for Georgia for the last show of the tour. “I just need to pick up a bag of ice, a 12-pack of Budweiser, and a pack of Camel Lights,” James said as he hauled his ACID BOYS cooler into the van. The three of us had some time to kill, so we headed over to James’ house to chill out and say hi to Luda, James’ dog who acts as the mascot of Rialto Row. “You see these speakers here?” James said as we came into his house. “They were custom-made for Eddie Vedder and they were the main speakers for the jam room in his house. Ben [Bridwell] won them from him on a bet when they were on tour, so they were his for years. Band of Horses got a sponsor that hooked their house up, so I go these.” “Can you play something?” I asked. “Sure,” he shrugged, pulling his phone out. “This is what we stumbled in on last night.” He played a smooth, groovy, jam. It sounded incomplete, and that’s because it was. The truest version of the song momentarily peeked through the psychedelic shadows of the music. James played a few Band of Horses songs to show off the aptitude of what were once Eddie Vedder’s speakers. “It’s crazy how these guys are my best friends, right? I would love these dudes if they were, I don’t know, landscapers, if they were whatever the fuck. The fact that they’re making this great music is wonderful and I’m just lucky to be here.” “It’s fucking crazy to me that these sounds that are made in Rialto, a place that we built, are gonna be heard all over the goddamn world. That is fucked up ! And, who knows man, maybe this shit’s gonna cheer people up in Japan and Australia meanwhile Ben recorded the vocals in my shitass bathroom!” He paused for a moment, looking around his living room with a Budweiser in his hand. “That’s insane, brother, straight up.” “That’s the American Dream,” I said from the back porch where I smoked a cigarette with Luda. “Hey, man, they’ve also helped SUSTO out a lot. Band of Horses has taken SUSTO across the country, to Europe. Ben gave Justin a guitar for his birthday one year and Justin goes shit, man! You just tripled my net worth!” Once we rolled out, we picked up Igoe and Justin before pulling up at the storage facility to pick up the merch bins. The string hanging from the light in the unit took three pulls to turn on. We filled a wide cart with only what we needed for the one show and loaded up the van. “Esta bien,” Van the Good said from the driver seat once everything was loaded in. “Everybody, take your vitamins.” We swung through Chick-Fil-A for brunch before being Georgia bound. We were still in the drive-thru, waiting on the rest of our food, when Justin started coughing and choking on his drink. “I’ve never felt like that in my life,” he said, heaving with every breath, his eyes red and watering. “I felt like I was drowning.” “You just really wanted that fuckin’ drink,” Igoe said, almost impressed. “Can you ask for extra napkins? I look like a child,” Justin said. “You are a child, bud,” Igoe replied. “I’ve never seen anybody that mean on sweet tea before,” James said in his rough, Georgia tone from the middle row of seats. “Unsweetened tea,” Justin corrected him, eyes still watering. “I bet now you have PTSTea,” James said before laughing hard at his own joke. “That was pretty good.” “He’s still chokin,’ bud,” Igoe said, looking over at James. “That was the funniest thing I’ve ever said, and nobody laughed,” James said, offended. “I laughed,” Igoe and I both added. “Justin probably woulda laughed if he wasn’t chokin’,” Igoe said. Once we were squared away, we hit the highway and were off toward Georgia. Deep green bushes and towering trees skirted the highway behind a layer of low, heavy fog. “You’re ruining this beautiful scenery with this ok-ass, bullshit music” James said from the middle row. “Put on Z by My Morning Jacket. Have you heard My Morning Jacket?” he asked, looking back at me. I shook my head to say no. “Oh, Canuck. Buckle up,” is all he said with wide eyes before taking a long sip of Budweiser. We put the album on and passed The Gift Bowl around. Passing the Gift Bowl. Photo by Matt Harrison. We vibed to the album while countless miles fell away behind us. James looked back over the seat and said, “This is that Low Country , dawg. This is all marsh and rivers.” He looked up front as Justin drove, eating his chicken nuggets. “Justin, your nugget-driving form is spectacular. I’ve got a buddy who weighs 400 or so pounds. He bet me one time that he could eat 100 nuggets in an hour. He ended up eating 66 in 23 minutes.” “Then what? Did he die, or what?” Justin said into the rearview mirror. “I don’t know, man,” James said, looking out the window at the South Carolina countryside. “He got real sick after that.” When James starts telling a story, he gets the attention of anyone in earshot. What makes him such a good storyteller is his poetic tendency with words coupled with the fact most of his stories involve some light-hearted debauchery. He sat up straight before he spoke again. “Do y’all remember when we were all at The Space doing & I’m Fine Today and I came in all excited. You’re like whatsup? And I’m like, ‘dawg, Lenny Kravitz just split his pants and…’” he stopped mid-sentence and looked back at me. “Did you see Lenny Kravitz’s dick? Do you know about this?” “Yeah,” I said, laughing. “That was the greatest day of my fucking life,” he said with a methodical cadence. “The fact that he had a cock-ring, leather pants, mid solo. Ah,” he said, leaning back and bringing his Budweiser up for a sip, “ya can’t beat that.” More miles of endless forest and lowland swamp soared by us as I passed The Gift Bowl up to James. He flicked his Zippo open in a particular, spinning way before he sparked it. Igoe was mesmerized as he did it. She asked if he’d teach it to her, so he slowed the motion down for her to see. “It’ll take you a minute and then it’ll get real natural,” he said. “It’s gonna take more than a minute, bud. I don’t understand the physics. There’s gotta be another variable,” she said, continuing to spin and drop the lighter. Spin and drop, spin and drop. “Ain’t it pretty around here?” James said, passing The Gift Bowl back to me, forgetting about the sound of Igoe dropping the lighter over and over. “Gorgeous,” I said. He only nodded and smiled. “Willin’” by Little Feat came on in the van as a part of Justin’s driving playlist. “Is there another variable?” Igoe asked, her frustration growing. “No, no,” James answered, showing her the trick another couple of times. “It just takes practice.” “Show me again, fucker,” Igoe said, and he did. “Oh shiit!” James yelled, getting the attention of the vehicle with his celebration as Igoe nailed the lighter trick. “Hell yeah, that was awesome!” “I got it!” Igoe yelled back at him. The two high fived and James’ excitement grew every time he saw her do it again, and again. “Hell yeah,” James said between sips of Budweiser. “Lemme see it again, lemme see it again!” The sound of the Zippo spinning open over and over was broken by James’ voice, calmer than usual. “Hey, Justin, I just taught Igoe how to open a Zippo like a boss. It’s pretty valuable for your rock aesthetic. Soon, when y’all are rockin’ crowds, Igoe’s gonna need to have a cigarette and it’s gonna be a whole thing. My point is, I think we’ve earned a cigarette. We’ve been putting in work back here and we’ve learned how to open a lighter like a badass.” “That’s so ridiculous,” Igoe said. She laughed and continued to spin the Zippo open over and over. “It’s the truth,” James said defensively, his voice breaking on the word truth . Justin gave the idea a moment of thought and looked in the rearview mirror to say, “I’ll give you guys a cigarette break in half an hour.” “That’s great,” James said, raising both hands in the air, still holding a Budweiser in his left. “Thank you so much for your kindness.” “I’ll probably have to pee in half an hour,” Igoe confessed. “Exactly,” Justin said, keeping his eyes on the road. “You’ll have your cigarette then.” “Oh, well, that’s not exactly a gift,” James said, making sense of the situation. “Exactly. I’m saying you can have your cigarette, but it’ll be at a routine stop. I can’t watch her do that while I’m driving so I can’t verify the coolness of the trick. It doesn’t feel right to grant you a cigarette break for it.” James was astonished by this miscarriage of justice. His shoulders raised as he became visibly upset. Finally, he erupted. “That’s the most bullshit ass, horseshit kinda bullshit rule ever,” he said at last. Photo by Matt Harrison. Then he broke out in laughter that spread through the van, while Igoe flicked the lighter open, and closed, and open, and closed. “You’re doing really good over there,” James said to Igoe with a smile. Justin rolled his window down and took the wheel at top center with his right hand. “ Wooo! ” he screamed, pumping his left fist out the window. “Window’s all the way down, baby! Wooo! Tour or die!” “ Whew. This is gonna be one of the best cigarettes I’ve ever had, y’all,” James said at the next rest stop. Justin jumped into the passenger seat, cracked a beer and rolled a joint as Van took over to drive the rest of the way to Macon. The sun had only just struck the horizon when we checked into the hotel and it was dark when we arrived at the venue for the show. As we drove over, Justin sat in the middle row of seats. By now he’d had himself a few hits of a joint and he’d put back a few beers. He danced in his seat along with the jams in the van. His seatbelt squeaked each time he bounced in his seat dancing. Once he heard the squeak, he danced in a way that carried a beat with a squeak of the seatbelt. Then he danced to the rhythm of the squeaking seatbelt. That’s the thing about being around a guy like Justin; he emanates music, he breathes it and never seems to ever stop living it. Whether it’s dancing along to a rhythm he just discovered in the world, or making up songs or tag lines, little tunes about anything. Justin is in continual participation with his musical self. We had all sat down for dinner at the venue when Pete walked in with his guitar and gearbox. Pete’s gear. Photo by Matt Harrison. “How do you feel about the last show?” I asked him once he’d settled in. “Happy to still be standing. Excited to get home, but it’s bittersweet, it’s bittersweet,” he said as he took a seat at the table. “All good things must come to an end,” I uttered in cliché fashion. “It’s true, man,” he said with a nod. Justin sat down at the piano on stage for soundcheck. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said into the mic. “One, two, three. Nothin’ ‘bout nothin . Check, check, check. Hey, hey, hey. Gettin’ me down, nothin’ bout nothin ’,” he sang. before jumping into “Acid Boys” as a warmup. Igoe showed off her newfound Zippo trick as she stepped on stage. She smiled as she pocketed the lighter before carrying on with soundcheck. “Alright,” Justin said once warmup finished, “I’m gonna get a shot n’ a beer and go chill in the green room.” Macon green room. Photo by Matt Harrison We spent enough time in the green room to get bored before we headed out into the pouring rain and onto the streets of Macon. We walked over to a bar called Grant’s Lounge that is said to have been a major building block in the development of Southern rock, hosting the likes of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Tom Petty, and the Allman Brothers in the 70s. “Silent Night” played and Christmas lights decorated the streets we ran across to get there. Igoe sung along in a dramatic, operatic voice. “Is that a good opera voice?” she asked me with a whiskey-scented smile. “It’s great,” I said as we walked into the bassy, rock-and-roll atmosphere of Grant’s. “This is fuckin’ cool, man,” I said to Justin with no better words for it. “This place, it’s legendary, man,” he said as we walked through it. “I’m sure you’ve been told already; this is the place where southern rock was pretty much founded.” All over the walls are autographs and band names, drawings and otherwise in sharpie, pencil, or whatever was available to write with. The promoter for the show, a southern man named Hubble, handed me a sharpie and said “sign somewhere, man.” I wandered about, looking for somewhere with enough blank space to write and a memorable enough placement to recall. I saw a corner with just enough space. “Draw a maple leaf,” Justin said after I signed my name. “I don’t really know how. You try,” I said. I handed him the sharpie. He knelt down and drew his best maple leaf, writing “Canada rulez” underneath it. We slipped away from the music, into the back area where the pool tables were hidden. “Corner pocket,” Justin said, leaning into his shot. “Woo! Cah caw! Cah caw !” James said, pumping a fist in the air with one hand and cradling a Budweiser in the other. “That’s my dawg . I did not have any faith in you on that shot.” “What can I say,” Justin shrugged, “I’m a closer.” “I’m more of a middle reliever,” Hubble admitted. On the next shot, Justin sank the 8 ball and it was time to head back to the venue. Justin sinking an 8 ball. Photo by Matt Harrison. As we walked through the bar to leave, I stood in the opening in front of the stage. I looked around, thinking my way through time to some night in the 70s when Lynyrd Skynyrd stepped on stage. Just some long-haired Florida boys, playing like you’ve never heard before. I looked around the floor, imagining the packed houses they must have played for. I wondered what it must have been like, how the atmosphere would have felt, the first time these walls rumbled with the first sliding notes of “Free Bird”. As the group walked out, I looked around for Justin and found him crouched against a wall. I paid no mind and leaned against the bar until he rushed by to catch up with the group. I went back and saw the place he left his mark, the footprint of the Acid Boys. I ran out of the bar and down the street to catch up with the group while we walked through the December rain to the venue. The mark of the ACID BOYS. Photo by Matt Harrison. As we came back in the building, we could hear Pete singing “Laid Low”. “It’s true enough I’ve paid for a ride I didn’t mean to take but never have I wanted to forget it,” he sang, powerfully. “Thank y’all very kindly,” is all he had to say between songs. I thought of something while I watched Igoe and Justin take the stage for the last time that night. It was less a thought and more a feeling. Something to do with brotherhood and comradery. We’re out here together, neck deep and sinking into a way of life. For each of them, a life without music would be a failure to be living fully. Where there’s a stage and an audience there are people like Justin and Igoe looking to put on a show and share their greatest passion. “The next song we’re gonna play is about surfing but it’s also about violence,” Justin said, scratching his forehead. “We live in Charleston where there’s a pretty vibrant surfing community. You can probably tell by lookin’ at me that I’m not a part of that community, as surfing requires this elusive thing called upper body strength. Never really chased that down. But I have some friends who were nice enough to bring me along to come try it out.” “We went out and it was a beautiful morning. The water was glassy, and there were dolphins. And it just blew my mind and made me wonder how do we get to live in such a wonderful world ?” “After that I was like, ‘Call me next time and every time after that you guys go.’” “They brought me out again a few days later and it was totally different. There was a big storm rolling in. I kept trying to get out into the waves, but I couldn’t do it. I kept just trying for like three hours and I started singing this little mantra: it comes in waves. After a while I gave up and just ripped cigs on the beach and watched my friends catch waves.” “It was about a year after that I started thinking about the juxtaposition between those two days. And so, I guess this song was written about that feeling of confliction and it’s called Waves .” Justin strummed the opening chords, letting his voice rip through those first lines. “Why’s there so much trouble,” he sang, leaning into the mic while Igoe backed him up. “ We live in such a remarkable place.” The last song they played was “Acid Boys”. Before they finished, Justin gave thanks to everyone for coming. He thanked Pete for opening and Igoe for performing with him. He thanked Van the Good for all that he had done on his first tour as Tour Manager. Finally, he looked at me in the crowd and said, “We’ve also had a writer along with us for the last half of the tour. A Canadian writer named Matt Harrison.” He smiled as he went on to say something else, but I couldn’t hear him over the cheering crowd. I put my hand over my heart and gave him a nod as he spoke. Whatever it was he said, I suspect it was something I had already felt along the way. When I had ceased being some just some writer clung to the underside of the van is indefinable. It was somewhere in those countless miles, those late-night joints and bleary-eyed mornings that I had become a friend among friends. The after party. Photo by Matt Harrison. Weed was plentiful that night through the after-party and the crew drank their fill. We spent most of the night in the bar attached to our hotel, shooting pool and playing foosball. The party cleared out when the bar closed and we went next door to the hotel around 3 am. In the lobby of the hotel sat a white grand piano. Igoe sat down at it and started playing. “Igoe, can you play Rosetta ?” Van the Good asked. A few tears built slowly and ran quickly down my face as we watched her sing. The beauty of her voice and the piano carried through the grand entrance of the hotel with the soothing fluidity of rainfall. At the end of the song, a hotel employee came rushing down the hall at us, clapping his hands and yelling. Jordan Igoe singing Rosetta in the Macon Lobby. “Hey, hey, hey!” he yelled. “You can’t be playin’ right now, it’s three in the mornin’!” “ I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” she softly sang the last line of her song. We kept our laughter quiet as we went upstairs and continued the party in room 231. It was around 4:00 am when Justin asked me a good question: “Matt Harrison, what are you doing here, man?! ”. The last time he asked me this same question we were in Mobile, and he had just taken a hit of a joint. This time, The Gift Bowl was still smoking in his hand as he said it. “For all we know you could be the Devil,” he said. He eyed me suspiciously as he brought the bowl to his lips. It’s as if it took the right combination of liquor and weed for the charade I had been upholding to fall apart. Ultimately, there’s no valid explanation, no good reason for me to be here for any of this. I’m not an elite member of the press or an exploring documentarian. I was just a SUSTO fan who got lucky. I’d read The Proud Highway by Hunter S. Thompson and saw how many letters he sent to editors, politicians, other writers, anyone and everyone he thought would be worthwhile writing to. I mimicked that idea when I wrote Justin the letter that pitched the idea of me coming on tour with him. All I really did was write a letter. And there I was because of it, laughing along with Justin, Igoe, and Van the Good after touring with them for the last 10 days. The next morning wouldn’t begin until the early afternoon. We passed The Gift Bowl around the van before we cleared out of the hotel parking lot. After these countless miles, it’s still the same four-person crew. Today the pace is our own and home is the destination for some much-needed R&R. We met Pete for brunch before he went back his own way. As we sat down, Justin asked the server, “Do y’all sell any liquor drinks?” The answer was no, so an unsweetened tea would have to suffice. We said our goodbyes to Pete and drove back through the loping hills of Georgia. The energy in the van was lower than it was yesterday as we trekked through these final miles of tour. Pete signs autographs. Photo by Matt Harrison. “PTSTea is still the funniest thing I have ever said,” James said to unanimous approval of the van as we crossed back into South Carolina. The rolling wheels of the luggage cart echoed down the hall of the storage facility until we stopped at the unit where the light takes three pulls to click on. We loaded the merchandise bins away for the last time and pulled the wide metal door shut. “How much more of that cigarette do you have?” I asked James as I stepped out of the building. “Half? Perfect. Can I borrow a lighter?” “You do notice that I have not held up the convoy at any point in time?” James said as he passed me his lighter. “I have crushed beers and have not had to make a single piss stop.” His voice was calm as he spoke. “From an efficiency standpoint, everyone can suck ma dick.” I raised a cigarette to his achievement, ashed it out, and climbed into the van. No one said anything as we drove through Charleston and pulled up outside Rialto Row. Collectively, we had taken hits to the liver, the psyche, the lungs and otherwise. As we puttered down the dark streets of Charleston, I began feeling the end of the road, the end of the adventure. That first night in Chicago, the end seemed like an address we would never pull up in front of. Yet here we were, parked outside of Rialto Row. James, Van, and I climbed out of the van. “Matt, it’s been a great ride, bud,” Justin said as I grabbed my things out of the van. “Monday, let’s get lunch before ya go. If you need anything, hit me up. King street is just through here. If you want anything, you can walk as far as you’re willing to.” “Alright, man, it’s been real,” I said, unsure of the appropriate words for the end of such an experience. “Yeah, dude. It’s been amazing. I’m glad we were able to make it work.” “It just took a bit of time.” “Yeah. I’ll see you around in a day or so.” There will be other tours for Justin, for Igoe, and for Van the Good. James hasn’t crushed his last Budweiser on the road, either. But this tour, this particular stretch of highway and memories, has found its end. “Take care, bud,” I said as I gave Igoe a hug goodbye. “You too, bud,” she said before she climbed into the van. I shed a couple tears while I watched the second show in Charleston, thinking about the looming end of tour. As I heard the van fire up and watched it roll down the street, I could only be happy any of this ever happened. The highway overpass sent a continual hum through the warm December night as their brake lights flashed at the end of the street before they turned left and pulled out of sight. The van. Photo by Matt Harrison. Check out more from Susto: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Shared post with reasonablylate.com. Go give them a follow on Instagram . At the Royal American. December 13th, 2018 1:30 AM Somewhere on the South Carolina Interstate The night was a blinding darkness as Justin, Igoe, and I drove through the night. Van the Good spent the night in Columbia while the three of us were Charleston-bound. Justin put on a Bob Seger album to fend off the exhaustion. We were in the middle of some moonlit nowhere, buried deep within the lowland hills of South Carolina when “Turn The Page” came on. Justin sang along under his breath. Here I am, on the road again, There I am up on stage. There I go playin’ the star again, There I go, turn the page. Hearing him sing as he stared into the endless, dark highway ahead, it was as if the lyrics had come alive in front of me. What those words mean to him is something totally unlike whatever daydream most people are lost in while they hum along to Seger’s words. These aren’t the poems of a fantasy, they’re an echo of reality to the man who is an hour removed from the stage and another hour away from his home and pregnant wife. I woke up on the couch in Justin’s living room around noon. He’d taken his wife out for lunch, to celebrate being home for the first time in a couple weeks. “Hope that’s alright,” he said on the way out. Van the Good arrived in Charleston that morning. He and I smoked a quick joint in the backyard before the two of us grabbed lunch at an authentic Mexican restaurant. The first of two shows that night was still hours away when we met Justin at Woolfe Street Playhouse and loaded the gear in and onto the stage. The chairs were being set up for the audience and the staff were the only few people who wandered the halls. It was around 3 in the afternoon when I told Van the Good, “I’m gonna take a walk.” “Alright, bud,” he said from the stage, unwinding a series of cables. “Enjoy it.” St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church. I walked for 20 minutes, taking deep breaths of the warm December air as I passed old churches and countless restaurants until I reached Meeting Street. I could see the waving arm of John Roberts, The Official Psychedelics Supplier for SUSTO , from across the street. I crossed to his side where we shook hands and carried on talking about this, that, and the holiday season while we walked to his hotel. When I entered his hotel room, I emptied my pockets onto the bed nearest the door. Passport, wallet, smoke butts and all. If I’m going to be robbed, I may as well distance myself from my belongings. “Don’t mind the Smith and Wesson,” John Roberts said casually as I unloaded my few possessions. There, sitting on the nightstand between the two beds, sat his pistol. “Do you want to hold it?” he asked. “Sure,” I said, taking it, feeling the weight of it, and pointing it aimlessly at the wall. He reached on top and clicked on a laser dot that hit the wall. “I like to use this to play with my cat,” he said as he danced the red dot back and forth across the wall. “I unload it first, to avoid accidents.” I sat in a chair next to the window as John Roberts explained how I was going to consume the DMT he had brought for me. “Just try to hold it in as long as you can,” he said. The room sat in stiff silence as I took drags that weren’t quite long or deep enough for the experience he had in mind. After the first two inhalations, I let go of the vaporizer and he held it for me as I began to tune out of the room. My eyes closed and I drifted off, beyond the room, to some distant psychedelic somewhere. He held the vaporizer to my mouth as I took another, then another. I was scared and didn’t want any more. “Just relax,” he said in a soft voice. I trusted him and took a couple more drags. My vision was overcome by a starlight brightness. I leaned back in the chair and hugged the throw pillow I held in my lap. I no longer felt myself in the room until, after three or four minutes the starlight faded, and my eyes slowly opened. Those four minutes felt more like 20 seconds. The silence hung heavy around me. “How do you feel?” he asked. “I feel good. I feel like everything’s good.” “Did you see anything? Did you hear anything?” I wasn’t sure how to answer. I didn’t have the words for any of it. Even now, looking back, I have no words for what I felt. “How rough did the vape feel?” “Smooth,” I said, relieved to finally know an answer to something. “I feel like I can breathe down here,” I said after a moment of thought. “I feel like I was smiling the whole time I was deep in it.” “Oh yeah,” he laughed. “I got some pictures of the DMT smiles . It’s what happens to everybody. You just feel too good in the moment. You understand there’s no reason not to smile. Next time you do it, just hold it in, that way you’ll get so much more out of it.” “I’d be willing to take a little more now,” I said. “Let’s give it 10-15 minutes so you can come back down. It’ll take about an hour to get back to 100%.” “What do I owe you for this?” “Nothin’, just write about it.” “I appreciate the shit outta that” I said, slowly, still regaining my focus. “That’s the best gift I can ask for.” “Yeah, for the holiday season. If you wanna buy anyone DMT vapes as a stocking stuffer, I’m here for ya.” We talked for a while about the experience I’ve had and the growth that will come from having come down South. “All these experiences build you up and give you the confidence you need to excel,” he said as we sat and talked, waiting for me to come all the way down. “You need confidence to do anything in this world.” “This is a beautiful country,” I said as I looked out the window at a church across the street that saw the cowardice of a lone gunman enter its front doors a few years earlier. “It is. We are an experiment from the enlightenment and hopefully, it will continue,” he replied. “Would you like to try it one more time?” “I would love to,” I said. I sat back into the same chair I was in before. “This time really hold it in. Count to 10 and close your eyes. And hopefully, you’ll go into the room .” “Sounds good” I said, unsure of what he was referring to, or if I wanted to enter such a place. “Thank you for facilitating this. And also for not robbing and killing me while I’m under.” “Yeah, should I move the gun?” he said and we both laughed. I leaned back and brought the vape pen back to my lips. The hotel room carried a soft hum as I took my first deep draws of the second round. The only way I can describe the experience is as an overwhelming wave of absence from myself before being settled down into a bed of well-being. Light overtook my vision once again like something interstellar. I felt completely removed from this plane of conscious existence, submerged into something indefinable. I’ve read others refer to DMT as a blast-off experience, and that’s the most fitting description I can muster. I was blasted off from myself with such velocity that I could hardly hang on to what was happening. I was overcome by a deep euphoria that reached from the root of my soul and out to the tips of my fingers. “I’m thankful that I get to be here,” I said through the soft chuckles that I couldn’t keep to myself. “How did I get to this hotel room in Charleston? How is it that any of this is actually happening? Is any of this tour even real? Everything seems perfect and I’m just so happy to be here.” As I spoke, the words of this unguarded truth came slowly. “There are so many good people in my life,” I said after a moment of silence. “I need to open myself up and accept the love they offer.” “I try to keep that feeling throughout my whole life. But it’s clearest whenever I’m on psychedelics,” John Roberts said from the edge of the bed next to my chair. We talked a little more about some book recommendations he had for me. As the conversation went on, the pace at which I spoke increased gradually until it was back to normal. John Roberts told me he had invited the ACID GIRL from the green room last night to come to tonight’s show. “I’m gonna be shocked if that girl from last night really shows up,” he said as he looked anxiously at his phone as we descended to the lobby in the elevator. “Oh, buddy,” I laughed, “I’d put money on her showing up.” “Yeah,” he said, with a blank stare as he thought about the problem to come. “Oh well.” We went for a walk around Charleston, through a hotel that was once a military school, a bookstore with nothing worth buying, and he beat me at consecutive games of pool. I’d be seeing him at the second show that night, so I wandered out of the pool hall and back toward the Woolfe Street Playhouse. When I walked inside, Van the Good was in the lobby to greet me. “Whatsup, man?” he asked, with a smile as he looked up from the merch table he’d just finished setting up. “Van the Good,” I said, nodding in his direction. “How ya doin’?” “Good, man. How was your walk?” “Beautiful, man.” The venue had large, century-old cash registers in the lobby and at the main bar inside the concert area. I wandered by both registers and ducked into the green room while the pre-show setup carried on. All set up at the Woolfe Street Playhouse. Come the time of the first show, the green room was filled with family and friends, including the rest of the members of SUSTO. “Is there an entrance onto the stage from back here?” Pete asked before his time had come. “Yup” Van answered. “Great. Go ahead and show me that now so I look like less of a fuckin’ goofball come show time.” The noise of the crowd in the next room roared between songs while Pete performed. Seeing Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster live was one of the great surprises of coming out on tour. I shook his hand before I ever heard his music and found getting to know him offstage was as much a pleasure as having the opportunity to watch him on stage. Both shows that night were sold out and I stood in the back corner, nearest the green room entrance, as Justin and Igoe stepped on stage for the first performance. At each applause break, a man behind me Cah-Caw ed like a mutant bird from a terrible fever dream. Anyone who has ever heard the SUSTO album Live at the Australian Country Music Hall of Fame has heard this very same Cah-Caw ing madman. It was a friend of the band named James, a famed smoker of cigarettes and gatekeeper of Rialto Row. At the midway point in the set Justin sang a song without Igoe backing him up. " Erlene ", written for his wife, was sung only in Charleston as she sat in the crowd. “Erlene she is my baby, she stays up with me when I’m yellin’ through the night. I say ‘you think I’m crazy’, she says ‘you are, but that’s alright.’” Toward the end of the song, Justin looked down with a laugh as he couldn’t keep himself from crying. James offered a consoling, tear-laden, Cah-Caw from the back of the room. “Shut up, James,” Justin laughed into the mic and wiped the tears from his face with a smile. After the show, a group of us headed outside for a cigarette and a joint. “So, do you accept my challenge?” James asked me as he pulled out his lighter and sparked a cigarette. “What’s your challenge?” I asked, fishing in my pocket for the lighter I had lost three days prior. “Alright,” he said in his coarse voice, “challenge accepted. Do you play ping pong?” I shrugged. “Not really.” “Pffft” is all he said through a billow of cigarette smoke that floated through his beard. I would later learn that James was once a state-champion ping-pong player, which explains his athletic physique. He and I took 10 minutes to set up the table before he rocketed two shots by me and said, “You’re not ready for this,” before disassembling the table and putting it away. We scuttled back inside just as Pete took to the stage to start the second show. Between songs, a fan standing at the back of the room yelled “ Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster! ” with a drink raised in the air. At 10:00 it was time for Justin and Igoe to start their second sold-out show of the night. “I wrote this song the day after an acid trip and I had this sort of clarity,” Justin said, early in the set. “It was the day after a snowstorm in Charleston and the whole city looked like a snow globe. I’d just gotten home from Mexico that day and the heater in our house was busted, the plumbing was busted and our cat had an infection and a snowstorm was hitting. No one could come out to fix any of it. The acid trip ended up being a great escape from all that. We had one room with a heater that stayed warm if you kept the door closed. That room felt sort of like home, but the rest of the place didn’t. I started thinking, I wish I could take my family, my wife and my cat, to somewhere better. And this song is what came out of that.” With that, he and Igoe stepped in to Weather Balloons. The show wrapped on “Homeboy”. Once he was back in the green room, Justin told me he lost the rhythm of the song while they were playing. “I’m not super pissed about it,” he said, “you get one fuck up per show.” A group of us stepped outside for another joint and cigarette. As Justin took a hit of the joint and passed it on, he told me, “ Homeboy wasn’t even one of my favorites on the new album but the radio team chose it as the single. A lot of people say they don’t like the label people to tell them what to do but, honestly, my head’s just so far up in this shit that I’ll take some clarity about which one’s good and which one’s not.” “Canuck,” James said to me in his grizzled voice as he passed me the joint, “I believe in you, for some reason.” His kind words sparked a thought and I said “when I’m writing about this all, I won’t refer to you by name if-“ “I don’t give a fuck about anything” he interrupted. “Ain’t afraid of shit.” “I guess that answers that,” I said with a laugh. “You’re in it, dawg, don’t worry about it. We’re gonna have fun tomorrow ridin’ to Macon. I’m loadin’ in the van with the ACID BOYS cooler full of Budweisers, gonna have a shit load-a-jubbas ready to go,” he said, shaking his head, giddy at the prospect of what’s to come. “Hey J,” he yelled across the group, “we’ll have to bring him by Rialto Row before he leaves.” “He’s stayin’ there, man. We already talked about it,” Justin answered, confused. “Ooh,” James said, his eye lighting up. “ You’re the Canuck.” “Do you get a lot of Canadians down here?” I asked. “Honestly, I was just testing the market with that word,” he explained before asking in a hushed tone, “is that a racist term or somethin’?” “No. I mean, we have a hockey team called the Canucks,” I said. “Yeah, but we’ve got a team called the Redskins,” Justin answered. The statement sparked a memory in someone’s mind who said, “I was telling James the last time I was in Macon, Georgia, I was at a bar watching the OJ chase.” “ What ?” Justin said, his eyebrows raised as he took another drag from the joint. “Yup. It was on every TV with full volume. They changed the drink special to vodka with an OJ chaser.” As the group went inside, I bumped into John Roberts. He offered me a cigarette, so I stayed outside with him. He told me the ACID GIRL from last night had not only come to Charleston, but she had brought a couple of loud friends with her, all three of whom were drunk beyond reason. “I’m still surprised she took me up on the offer,” he said while we stood in the light rain. Cigarette smoke drifted skyward. Later in the night he came up to me with a look of mild concern. “Hey, have you seen those girls around? They’re awfully drunk and if they wander off too far, they’re intoxicated enough to get themselves arrested and then it’ll be a whole thing.” “Can’t say I have, brother. Good luck,” was all I could say. As the night wore on and the party broke up, Justin, Van the Good and I waited around inside the venue. Everyone had left save for an older man who stacked the chairs. I helped him stack a few dozen while Van and Justin packed the gear on stage. There is no glamour to this side of the job, the take down and clean up. You’ve knocked ‘em down, someone dragged ‘em out. The part no one sees is when you have to come back out to pack the guitars and wind the cables. After cleaning up and packing out, Van, Justin, James and I drove through a gentle spattering of rain to The Royal American . We each grabbed a drink and walked onto the empty patio. “Nice lil’ train track,” Van the Good said, looking behind the building. “Man, the place I’m from was built as a train town,” I said. “All these tracks remind me of home.” “Yeah? The town I’m from is a train city, too,” Justin replied. “This place is the nexus of the universe,” James said as we took our seats. “If it wasn’t for this bar, me and him wouldn’t be friends.” He pointed towards Justin as he spoke. “I moved to a brand new loft, directly across the street from The Royal American the day before it opened,” James went on to explain. “I didn’t know Justin was a musician or anything. I heard he lived in Cuba, so I asked if he liked Cuban food. After that we became best buds.” “The Royal American ,” Justin said, looking towards it from our table on the patio. “This is the best establishment in America,” James said, leaning into the table. “And they don’t close during hurricanes n’ shit,” Justin added matter-of-factly. “This place is indestructible. It was an old mechanics shop that was turned into a bar.” “So,” James said, eyeing my fake beer from across the table, “how come you quit drinking? There had to have been something terrible that made you call it quits.” “I just got a little too good at it,” I said after a moment. “The better I got at it, the worse I got at everything else.” “Oh, cah- caw ,” he said with a nod, raising his eyebrows. “You’re talkin’ to a guy who drinks a case of Budweiser every day,” Justin jumped in. “Oh yeah. I’m gonna freak you out,” James nodded before taking a sip of Budweiser. “Two packs of Camels, an eighth of weed, and some chicken tenders,” Justin said, listing the rest of James’ diet essentials. “You’re an oblivion seeker,” James said, pointing at me with an expression that said, I’ve got you figured out. “Oh yeah,” Justin said. “He did DMT tonight before the show.” “Twice,” I added before taking a sip of a non-alcoholic brew. “You did DMT tonight?” James asked, his chin low and his eyebrows raised, “ Twice ? Jiminy fuckin’ Crickets.” “Guy gets after it, dude,” Justin said with a shrug. “Well, I didn’t see that comin’. That’s a curveball,” James said, shaking his head. “He hopped in the van with SUSTO and rode all the way to Charleston,” Justin said. “What did you expect?” “My aunt isn’t going to like what I’m going to publish about this,” I said, picking nervously at the tab on my beer can. “Well,” James said between drags of a cigarette, “ya can’t be rock and roll if you’re worried about what your goddamn aunt thinks. Man, tomorrow’s gonna be fun as shit!” “Last show, how do you feel?” I asked Justin. “Stoked. I just wanna get there and back alive. Put my Christmas tree up Saturday.” “Guten tag,” Van said, raising his beer. “So, I almost put a Christmas tree up in your house while you were gone,” James confessed, looking at Justin. “ What? That’s our thing, dude,” Justin shot back. James explained how his girlfriend had pulled him aside and talked some sense into him before he could get away with it. “She’s like, they’re about to have a child, this is their Christmas tree. Fuck you .” “Man,” Justin said, imagining the catastrophe, “there’d be pines everywhere and sap on the couches. The cat’d be all bothered. I’m glad you didn’t.” We stayed at the bar another half hour before we dropped Justin off at home. James, Van the Good and I went to the Rialto Row Compound. The plan for the night was for me to bunk in the studio house. When we pulled onto the property, I was amazed by the artwork painted on the interior of the house. “That’s nothin’. Wait’ll you see the studio. That’s the real cool shit,” he said, as we walked through the yard to the recording studio. I stood behind him while the rain came down as he put the key in the lock. He turned the key, but nothing happened. “Huh,” was all he said at first. The frustration grew as he tried the key over and over. He pulled it out, looked at it, and tried again. “Okay,” he said cautiously, “I have no idea what’s going on here. This key works in this lock every single time, except it won’t work now.” “Weird,” I said. In my head I wondered, did this guy get fired and I’m here when he’s learning that they’ve changed the locks out from under him? We turned and headed back into the house. “I guess I’ll show it to you another time,” he said as we stepped into the warmth of the building. “No problem, man,” I said, though that nagging thought crept back: too bad there won’t be a next time, because you’ve been fired. “Ho-ly shit,” he said suddenly, his face dropping. “I just got a goddamn text message. The reason we couldn’t get in there is because the owner of the lot is in there with one of the bands. They’re all trippin’ acid and someone was holding the bolt while I was trying to unlock it.” I wasn’t sure what any of this meant, but I suspected it wasn’t great. In the studio at Rialto Row. “You won’t be able to stay here tonight. I’m sorry Canuck,” James said with sincerity, “I didn’t realize there’d be a bunch of vegans trippin’ acid back there.” The gravity of the situation remained airborne, but I broke out laughing. I felt tangled in this balanced chaos, so hilarious and absurd. Who else lives with problems like a shed full of acid fiends locked up out back? Such are the troubles in this little musical universe. James only shrugged. “It’s what it is,” he said. The plan turned into me sleeping in the van in the parking lot, but the group cleared out before long. James brought me in to the recording studio and showed me what the speakers are capable of. “Don’t worry,” he reassured me, “this place is in an entirely deaf community. I used to think all my neighbours were dicks. Nope, just deaf.” The speakers blared a Band of Horses record as the rain carried on through the night, leaving the streets and the yard flooded by morning. Van with the van beside the flooded streets of Charleston. As the night went by the rain picked up. By 4:00 am I had set up the ping pong table in such a way that I could get some much-needed practice. The Fighter and the Kid podcast carried on when I heard a scratching at the door as someone had walked up on the other side. I heard a key enter the bolt lock before it turned in place and the door opened. Out from the cold, wet darkness walked a tall man with shoulder-length hair and a few days of beard growth. “Hey, man,” he said as he came in. He told me his true name but said “my friends call me Touc. It’s short for Toucan” He stood in the doorway a few extra minutes as the key had become wedged in the lock and wouldn’t budge. As it would turn out, Touc was rooming here temporarily. He sat to eat his dinner and we talked about this, that and the nothing in between. Soon enough it was past 5:00 am and the night would soon turn to day. The last day of the tour had arrived and I only had to blink to wake up there. 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Shared post with reasonablylate.com. Go give them a follow on Instagram . Excerpt from Stylus Magazine March 28th, 2017 On The Road. Photo by Matt Harrison. Standing in the thirtieth row of a partially filled MTS centre, dressed to the nines (or at least the sixes), riding a narcotic-propelled rocket hurtling my mind through some forgotten corridor of the cosmos is when I was first introduced to SUSTO. It was as though my experience was tethered to an otherworldly elastic that, at the moment of its choice, pulled me back down to earth and into my mortal self while the chorus of SUSTO’s Waves roared through the arena. The lights danced in unison as though they themselves were drowning waves. “It comes in waves” sang frontman Justin Osborne, reminding a select few of every time they ever felt the ‘waves’ come on at the outset of what will surely be a good trip… August 8th, 2017 SHOW DATE: August 12—Winnipeg, MB—Park Theatre Artist: SUSTO Media: Stylus Magazine Contact: Matt Harrison, writer Action: Matt to interview Justin at venue. Time: 6:45 PM Length: 15 min August 12th, 2017 From a handwritten letter given to Justin after the interview …I can go on now about how your music impacted me like no other music has since I was an angsty 14-year-old, sitting on the top bunk of a secondhand bunk bed, shot-gunning beers with the window cracked so I could do my best to smoke a couple cigarettes. Instead, I’ll save my wrist the ache and your eyes the agony. What I mean to propose, in a more straightforward fashion, is that if you are ever looking to have somebody come out on the road to write about you and your band, I’m the guy for the job. I cost nothing and I stow anywhere. Cosmically, Matt Harrison December 5th, 2018 7:00 PM Chicago, Illinois I waited in Schuba’s Tavern, aiming a blank stare out the window at the pedestrian traffic scuttering down the moonlit streets of Chicago. A lonesome drip ran down the neck of the Wellbeing Hellraiser on the table in front of me. I drummed a nervous rhythm on my notebook with the pen I took from last night’s hotel while the barroom chatter carried on, growing and fading. “Matt?” came the waitress’ voice from beside me, breaking my anxious concentration. “Yes, hi,” I stammered, grabbing my backpack from the window shelf. “Oh, thank God ,” she said, her face painted with relief. “You’re like the fourth person I’ve come up to. The only instructions they gave me to come find you were that you’re wearing plaid and you’re Canadian.” “Oh,” I said with a nervous laugh as I shouldered my pack, grabbing my drink before we walked through the crowded bar and down a quiet flight of stairs that ended at the kitchen door. She pointed to a large door around the corner from the staircase. I walked over alone and hesitated as I stood outside. I took a deep breath before giving a knock as I turned the knob and walked in. When I entered the green room, Justin Osborne was midway through a bite of his burger. His eyes caught mine, his eyebrows raised. “Hey man,” he said through a chewing mouthful. “I’d shake your hand, but I’ve got burger hands.” He reached over and gave me a fist bump, the word ACID tattooed across his knuckles. Justin wore a week-old beard and a black long sleeve. The sleeves were rolled up, showing the tattoos on his forearms, one of which of his cat, Kiki. On his right hand is a small tattoo of a guitar and written across both knuckles are the words ACID BOYS . Justin introduced me to the few people sitting around the room, one of which was the opening act, Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster, or, Pete. I had only just taken my seat at the edge of the room when a little blonde woman came walking in from another door. “Jordan,” Justin said, leaning away from the conversation and his burger, “this is Matt. He’s the Canadian who’ll be ridin’ along with us. Matt, this is Jordan Igoe. We mostly call her Igoe, I think,” he said, considering the idea. “It’s gonna be cool havin’ you along,” Igoe said with her whiskey-splashed velvet voice. She carried a South Carolina accent only slightly heavier than Justin’s. I shook her hand and tried cracking a joke, but all that cracked was my voice. The green room door popped opened, and in walked a slender, tattooed man with a pierced septum, long hair and a beard shaded auburn. “Got some paper and bottled water for y’all” the tall skinny man said through his southern accent. “Van, this is Matt, he’s the Canadian comin’ along. This is our tour manager, Van” Justin said, pointing from Van to me. “Good to meet you” he said with a firm handshake. “Likewise.” “We call him Van the Good” Justin said, looking back at Van. “We also call him the Keeper of the Scrolls , but you don’t have to call him that.” Justin sat in the centre of the room, talking out the set list with his stage partner Jordan when Pete stood up, bottled water in hand, and walked toward the door. “’Bout that time, Pete?” Justin said, looking up from the half-filled page on the table. “Yep,” he replied through his light Arkansas drawl, “just about.” “Alright, man. Have a good set.” Pete had only just stepped out the door when Justin turned towards me, carrying on writing out his set list with the paper Van brought in. “I was workin’ in a kitchen at this place called the Royal American when I saw Pete singing with his band, Water Liars. Seeing him made think there are guys out there my age performing and touring . I had done some touring before but that really got me back into the tourin’ life.” I leaned in to ask something when the green room door opened slowly. A tall man with a full, thick beard and long hair of a matching oaky brown peeked into the room. Justin jumped up smiling and rushed to hug the guy. The room came alive with smiles and laughter. Justin walked over to me with his arm around the newcomer. “Matt, this is Johnny Delaware” he said with a full, beaming smile. Johnny Delaware, a long-time friend of Justin’s and former member of SUSTO, stood before me wearing a zipped-up sweater with two white horses running through a river printed over the whole thing. The sleeves and back made up the trees and skyline in the background of the horses. We shook hands and the laughter in the room grew and carried on. It so happened that Johnny was coming through Chicago with his band, the Artisanals, and had come by on their night off to watch Justin and Jordan perform. Come the time Justin and Jordan took the stage, I stood in the back of the room. This tour was called the SUSTO Stories Tour , and Justin began the show by explaining how the night was to proceed. “Hi there, how y’all doin’?” he said as he adjusted the mic with his guitar hanging from his shoulder. “We’re gonna play a buncha songs for ya tonight. We’ll play some songs off the first album, the second album, a bunch of songs that aren’t on any album. We’ll do some songs off our new album, too. I’m also going to be doing an obnoxious amount of talking about a bunch of these songs. Sorry about that, but we advertised it that way.” The crowd laughed and Justin stepped into the first story of the night. “My brother and I were burnin’ leaves this one time and we thought we put the fire out, but I guess we didn’t get the whole thing and it caused a whole lotta trouble. A buncha years later I was out at this bar and I was talking to this girl who I’d kinda known but didn’t know very well. It was going great until something clicked in her mind and she says wait a minute, you’re the kid that burned my Grandad’s boatshed down like, 10 years ago. And I was like well, actually, me and my brother did.” The crowd laughed, making Justin laugh, too. “So, that’s what this song’s about and it’s called County Line .” The chemistry between Justin and Igoe on stage was immediately apparent. The years between them, the friendship they carried, shone through in their harmonies throughout the 15 or so songs they played that night and every night after. Once they came down to the last song of the night, Justin took a moment to address the audience. “We’ve got nowhere to hide so we won’t bother doing an encore, but if y’all wanna hear some more songs we’ll play ‘em for ya.” The room answered with an overwhelming cheer. “Alright” he chuckled, “we’ll go ahead and just jump right into it. We’re gonna start off with a new song. It’s about knowing you’re doing the wrong thing but doing it anyway.” With that, he strummed the first chords gently before stepping into an ominous first line: “ Ride with me to buy cocaine…” As they said goodnight to the crowd, I slipped out the back and went down to the green room. Justin stayed upstairs for a short while talking to fans while Van the Good manned the merch table. I was sorting through my backpack when Igoe came into the green room. “How do you feel coming off stage?” I asked. “I’m glad to be done” she said, looking for her cigarettes. “It’s great being up there but I’m happy it’s over.” Justin, Johnny Delaware, and Van the Good stumbled into the room, high on the excitement of the night. The group came in to grab coats and turned to head back out. Justin stopped at the door before they left. “Hey Matt, we’re gonna go smoke a joint in the van, do you wanna come?” With that, we all went back up the stairs and into the van. Justin opened the back doors and hopped in to roll a joint while the first joint did its rounds of the vehicle. I felt a brief streak of fear as the van filled with smoke. I quickly realized this isn’t the first joint smoked outside a music venue in Chicago, and, ultimately, these are professionals. From the back of the van Justin told Johnny he’ll be a father by next summer. “That’s great” Delaware answered, glowing with excitement as he looked back over the seat at Justin who sat where the gear and merch would later be. “You’re gonna be a great dad.” “Well, I know Meghan’s gonna be a great mom” Justin replied from the back. “Are you gonna find out what it is?” Delaware asked from the second row. “Nah. We’ll find out when it’s born.” “That’s great,” Delaware smiled, “there are so few surprises in life.” Before Johnny Delaware left Schubas that night, he gave me a big hug and held it. He told me he was happy to have met me. The kicker is, it felt as though he meant it. The only time he didn’t look all that happy was while we stood outside for a cigarette. A man of the South, he wasn’t used to the humid chill of Chicago in December. His horse sweater, impressive as it may have been, did little to fend off the night’s chill. While we smoked those cigarettes, I told him how much he seems to radiate positivity. “I’m not always like that, man,” he said through chattering teeth. “When I’m driving around in the van and I just have to sit there, my blood feels still. I need to move around and engage with the world” he said, slowly waving his arms above his head and stretching his legs out. The Van. Photo by Matt Harrison. Once the crowd dispersed and it came time to pack the van, I asked what I can help with. The group was reluctant to put me to work but I insisted, and they eventually took my offer. It was the next day that Justin cut a deal with me to help load and unload the van for the remainder of the tour in exchange for him buying my meals. “Sorry you have to help us, man, but we appreciate it,” Justin said as we lugged the vinyl and merch bins into the van. “Dude,” I nearly interrupted, “helping the SUSTO crew load their shit feels like a top 10 life experience.” Once the last piece of cargo was loaded, Justin, Igoe, Van the Good and I climbed into the van and took off through the night toward our hotel in Indiana. As we pulled away, Justin brought up the maps app on his phone and looked back from the front passenger seat. “We met right in the middle, bro,” he said, showing me his phone. It would take 13 hours 40 minutes to drive to Winnipeg from Chicago, 13 hours 30 minutes to drive to Charleston. We arrived at a hotel off the edge of the highway in Merriville, Indiana. Each of them had a couple drinks and rolled a joint to celebrate my stepping on board. “Weed is a luxury,” Van the Good told me as he rolled the joint, “and it won’t be around every night.” “Loud and clear,” I said, though his words would be proven wrong in the coming weeks. Before we went out to smoke in the van, Justin got on talking about how excited he was to have me along. “You’re about to step into real Freedom out here. Once you get your nose into it, once you get a taste, that’s it, man. You’re gonna be hooked.” I couldn’t tell if the author of the song Cocaine saw the irony of what he’d just said. Nevertheless, the Freedom carried out to the van where we smoked the celebratory joint and cranked the tunes before bed. By 11:15 the next morning we were Louisville-bound. A band on the road need be a well-oiled machine, and newly appointed Tour Manager Van the Good is tasked with keeping this machine running at peak efficiency. His job encompasses many attributes, chief among them being in charge of keeping the crew’s head screwed on just straight enough to make every sound check and check-out on time. “Alright, y’all” Justin announced to the group before we pulled out, “we’ve got two joints ready to go for later on.” “Oh my God” Jordan said, looking up from her phone. “Yeah,” he answered, beaming with pride. “I’ve been workin'.’” A light snow fell intermittently between rainfall as we hit the highway. I took a glance out the window and watched the ice-glazed front end of a red Ford F-350 pull past us, momentarily hiding the half-frozen Kentucky hillsides running steep behind it. The crew decided to stop for lunch at a Waffle House in Columbus Indiana, the birthplace of Cummins Diesel engines. “I’m excited to take you to your first Waffle House,” Justin told me as we hopped out of the van. “I hope it doesn’t kill ya, bud. We’ve developed something of an immunity to it.” We piled into the restaurant quick and left a little slower. The cook and waitress each took interest in what we were coming through for. Before we left, Van left a copy of both SUSTO albums with each of them. Ultimately, interactions like this are another opportunity to move product and make fans of anyone. “You really got the full Waffle House experience for your first time,” Jordan told me once we’d left. “Good food, good service, and a waitress who likes to talk.” The snow still fell as we pulled out but not nearly as much collected in the ditches and up the hillsides. It quickly turned to rain as we passed a sign declaring 82 miles to Louisville . We pulled into a rest stop a few miles outside Louisville to orient ourselves and spark a joint. We were surrounded by trees on all sides. It felt as though we were in some wild paradise with a strip of pavement running through the heart of it to allow for comers and goers, sinners and otherwise. We puttered back out onto the highway and carried on until we arrived at Zanzabar, the venue for that night’s show. Pete performing in Louisville. Photo by Matt Harrison. The show in Louisville was the first time I saw Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster perform. He sang to a gently half-filled room. He strums on his 1965 12-string, strung with only 6 strings to avoid the hassle of maintaining all of that on the road. Pete’s singing and songwriting are beautiful and smooth. His finger-picking style and his voice roll like a fog; poetic and with ease. Justin stood next to me through the performance, singing along to every word. Once Pete finished performing, Justin and Igoe waited for their time in the green room, each taking swigs from the bottle each of them carried. He drank tequila while she drank Jack Daniel’s whiskey. Before long, show time had arrived and the two of them walked on stage. Justin started the show with the same song and story he told in Chicago, the same song and story he started every show with throughout the tour. Justin would tell stories for eight or so songs at each show. Some stories he told at every show, some stories only popped up a few times. Louisville was the only city he told this one. “There was this reggae hour in Charleston and all they would play was reggae music. I went through a three-month period where all I listened to was reggae. I went to our producer and I was like the next record is gonna be all reggae. It’s the only true music. Nah not really, but all these reggae songs were always talkin’ about Jah Werx . So, this one time, I was with my wife and a friend of ours, and it was the end of the night and we were just gonna try writin’ a song.” Justin began softly strumming the chords to Jah Werx and he sang the story to the tune of the song. “I sang Jah werx , and my wife goes and I’m fiiine today , and my buddy goes at the same damn time, at the same damn time, at the same damn time. “There was this one time I got to play with The Wailers in Auston, Texas. A little while later I ran into them in an airport and they remembered me because of Jah Werx! Jah fuckin’ Werx , man!” Justin said with a tequila-scented smile. “Now, they might not know what it means, and I don’t either, but I know it’s real. Anyway, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.” With that he jumped into "Jah Werx." When Justin and Igoe said goodnight and stepped off stage, I met them behind the doors that lead outside. Justin’s face was warped with worry and anxiety. He kept saying he didn’t put on a good enough show and that nobody wanted to hear these stories. He had been loose during this show, chattier with the crowd than he was in Chicago. Only steps off stage, panic hung in his voice as he explained his fears. Igoe talked him down, reassuring him. His breathing levelled out and after a minute he came back down. “I can’t believe people are willing to listen to this shit,” he said to Jordan with a laugh. “Drop it” she answered curtly. “Do what your heart and soul want to do. Speak to people through music.” “You’re such a good friend” was all he could say. We packed up and packed out after the show, sticking around no longer than need be. We came back to the hotel and sat in the parking lot to pass a joint around. Justin sat in the front passenger seat while he told me what he can remember about the two times he’d come through Winnipeg. “When we were in Winnipeg with The Lumineers, I had to go to the mall right by the venue to buy some dental floss. I just remember feeling like it was kind of, like, dodgy. Like I wasn’t safe bein’ there.” “Oh,” I answered with a laugh, realizing he had walked through the infamous heart of Downtown Winnipeg to Portage Place, “that’s because you weren’t.” “I like places like that,” he said between hits of the joint. “You have to keep your head up and know what’s goin’ on around you. You have to use situational awareness and you can’t just tune out and stare at your phone.” The night ended soon after that joint, and the next day we drove through the snowy Kentucky hills headed to Nashville. As we drove, they played the new album for me, which was still unreleased for another two months. I fell into the rhythm of it as we tore into Tennessee. One moment I was staring into the forest beside the highway and the next we were right on top of Nashville. The city spread out far and wide in every direction underneath us as we pulled in. We wriggled down a few streets before we came to the parkade at the Concord record label. Our footsteps echoed through the tall corridor inside as we found our way over to the elevator. No one had much to say as the elevator purr ed while it carried us up. As we stepped onto our floor and walked up the hall into Concord music, Friends, Lovers, Ex-Lovers or Whatever by SUSTO played over the sound system. Concord Music. Photo by Matt Harrison. “Oh my God. What a welcome” Igoe said as the four of us walked toward the reception desk. We were brought into an office where the conversation revolved around distribution strategies and the best way to get the new album off the ground once it’s released. When we left Concord, Justin and Van went to have a meet and greet with someone on the business end. This being Van’s first tour as Tour Manager, he was meeting all these people for the first time. After that meeting, there remained no further work to be done in Nashville. We swung by the Air B&B, a stand-alone house, to drop off our bags and went to a ramen noodle place called 210 Jack . The restaurant was alive with chatter as we took our seats. This was the day Homeboy , the first single off the new album, was released. The group ordered a bottle of Saki to celebrate. “Cheers, y’all.” Van said, raising his glass of Saki. “Happy single release day.” “Guten tag” Justin said, raising his glass. As we were leaving, Justin pointed down the street toward the coffee shop he played his first Nashville show many years ago while on tour with the woman he’s now married to. We swung by a grocery store on the way home and bought some snacks for the night. We sat around the kitchen table of the Air B&B while the Trailer Park Boys theme song twinkled in the background. “I might wait a bit to have another drink because I just crushed that sleeve of Oreos,” Justin said with an exhausted expression. “Everybody calm dewn,” said a googley-eyed-bastard on the TV in the other room. “Fuckin’ bubbles” Van said shaking his head. “Lahey was always my favourite,” Igoe said, walking over toward the living room where the TV was playing from. “ I am the liquor, ” Justin said, looking up from his full drink and empty sleeve of Oreos. “When John Dunsworth, the guy who played Lahey, died, it was like a national tragedy,” I said, looking back. As the night rolled on more joints rolled with it. We went out to the van to smoke one and Van proved why one of his many names is Keeper of the Scrolls . He pulled up videos on his phone of SUSTO performances from over the years. He pulled up a video of Cigarettes, Whiskey, and Wine from December 19th, 2015, the day of my 21st birthday. “This one’s for you, brother,” he said to me as he put the song on. Van put on a video from the night prior in Louisville. “This is another new song,” Justin said in the recording. “It’s about knowing you’re doing the wrong thing but doing it anyways. Which I don’t recommend.” Igoe sat in the seat behind me and played softly along to the video of Cocaine on a little guitar, stopping when the joint came back to her. She sung gently behind me while the song played. Justin coughed in the front seat as the smoke turned to a cloud and the joint continued its rounds. “Let me blow Matt’s mind real quick,” Van said, scrolling through the videos in his phone. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but what I got was a live version of Mountain Top from May of 2016 played on a closed street under a tent on a night in Charleston. This video showed the psychedelic vortex of the song coming to life. This was true and pure rock and roll. Justin screamed the final verses into a megaphone while the band carried the beat beneath his breath. Walking in to Concord Music. Photo by Matt Harrison Check out more from Susto: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Shared post with reasonablylate.com. Go give them a follow on Instagram . Feedin' squirrels. Photo by Jeremy Wolff. December 8th, 2018 We hammered down some drowning stretch of Alabama highway, trapped on each side by forests caught in the downpour. The rain came down lightly as we crossed the Tennessee state line. Now, an hour later, the windshield and the world around us were awash as we plowed through a hydroplaning nightmare. The drive from Nashville to Waverly, Alabama is five hours but the rain came down harder the longer we drove, making the trip take a little more than six. Jordan Igoe drove the first shift, while Justin Osborne sat in the front passenger seat answering emails about the upcoming album and gauging the reaction on social media of the newly released single, " Homeboy ." Hungover or not, the business aspect of the musician’s life is never-ending. The driving seemed endless and nobody had all that much to say. Van the Good sat in the middle row, picking the music. I asked for one song and watched the semis fall behind us and out of sight while “Mississippi Kid” by Lynyrd Skynyrd played. It was out of nowhere from behind these torrential curtains that The Standard Deluxe appeared as a haven hidden within the darkness of the forest. We did a quick unload and ran inside the building where the show would later be. The building was cozy and warm. It felt like walking into an old churchhouse. The rectangular building was over a hundred years old and had been a house before having a stage and seats installed. The first few rows on the floor level were old church pews, and the back wall behind the raising seats was painted with a setting sun. Every step echoed inside this little place as the four of us wandered around, drinking it in. The Standard Deluxe. Photos by Matt Harrison. The clasps of guitar cases flicked and rattled while Justin, Igoe, and Van the Good set up for the show. Even the silence between words rode the acoustics, echoing a sweet, indefinable nothing. “It’s gonna feel so good in here tonight,” Justin said. He surveyed the room from the stage, his words half buried by the hollow drone of his guitar being tuned. After a minute or two of setting up, Justin and Igoe sang " Weather Balloons " for mic check. I sat in the second pew and listened as their voices danced through the empty building. Van was tasked with working the soundboard and he tinkered with it until the balance of everything came to a point of audible comfort. “Man,” Justin said after soundcheck, “this place reminds me a lot of where I grew up.” We ran through the rain, across the yard to the house where we’d spend the night just as Pete arrived and began his own setup. The four of us were overwhelmed by the beauty of the main room in the guest house. The interior of the living room was covered with posters from the bands who had come through over the years. Once Pete had set up, he came in the house to have a look around with us. Guest house at The Standard Deluxe. Photo by Matt Harrison We all grabbed a bite to eat from the buffet set up on the porch, which was stocked with pulled pork, homemade pecan pie, and homemade stew. The $10 charge was waived for each of us, but Justin dropped $20 in as he went by the admissions bowl. “That’s the thing about a place like this,” he said as we walked back inside, away from the noise of the rain, “you’ve gotta support it to keep it goin’.” We spent the next hour or so sitting around the house, relaxing and drinking in the atmosphere while Justin and Igoe took long sips of tequila and whiskey. “Look what I’ve got here, Mr. Van,” Justin said from the kitchen table. He raised a freshly rolled joint in the air. “I’m gonna start callin’ you, Mr. Van.” “ The Vanimal ,” Pete said as he looked over the many posters, his setlist in hand. “Are we gonna smoke on the porch or in the van?” Justin asked. “What in Vannation ,” Pete hollered from across the room. “What in Van Halen?” Justin added at last. “Do you wanna smoke in the Van Halen or on the porch?” “Let’s smoke on the porch,” Van said. “Have a good set, Pete. We’ll come check it out.” Pete stepped out the front while Justin, Igoe, Van the Good and I stepped onto the back porch. We gathered under the overhanging roof and did our best to coax a cat into coming toward us. The rain carried on mercilessly, and the cat stayed hidden away beyond our reach. Once the joint had been smoked, and we gave up on petting the cat, we went back inside. No one said much once we were back in the warmth of the house. The room, the building, were caught in silence except for the soft squeak of a sharpie writing out the setlist and the continual drumming of the rain. We had been inside 10 minutes when someone came around with a joint to offer as a token of appreciation for Justin and Igoe. Although we had just finished smoking, in the name of true Southern hospitality Justin said, “we’d all love some.” Back out the door, we went, into the rain and into oblivion. I looked over at Justin once we came back in the second time. “I’m pretty fucked up right now,” I said with glossy eyes and a worried tone. “Me too, man,” he said with a shrug that said what can ya do? Justin doing his part. Photo by Matt Harrison. One at a time we stumbled across the yard to the old house where Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster was a few songs into his set. Once I found a seat and began watching Pete perform, I took deep breaths and reminded myself not to freak out. I felt every note and word break the membrane of my mind while I watched him sing his heart out. “ When I die, do not mention grace,” Pete sang, eyes closed and head back, “ don’t speak of a sweet bye-and-bye. We live alone in a quiet place; the dirt, the bells and I.” Van the Good was sitting a few rows ahead of me. I saw Justin come in and duck over to where Van was. There were no chairs available, so he sat on the wide step next to Van, joined soon after by Jordan. The owner of the venue, Scott, saw what was going on and went over to tell the duo to find proper chairs. Van responded by taking a seat next to the two of them on the step. Scott came back with two extra chairs and pointed an authoritative finger at the seats. His intentions were clear, the line in the sand had been drawn. Justin stood partially for a moment before he shook his head and sat back down on the step, behind the seats that had been brought over. Scott took the move with a laugh and a shake of his head. The music, the rain, and the good vibes carried on in Waverly. Before long, Justin and Igoe took to the stage to rock this rain-beaten little house. “I’m not gonna tell y’all the name of this next one. You’ll know it right away, anyway,” Justin said with a smile toward the end of their set. “Feel free to sing along” Igoe added before the two of them began singing “I’ll Fly Away” . The crowd sung along through every chorus . “I’ll fly away, oh Glory, I’ll fly away,” the room sang. Southern ancestry came alive in the room as they sang together. Those beautiful three minutes I was lucky enough to witness felt like a religious experience, greater than the words they sung, alive in the unity of music. The connection of these many strangers as their single voice drowned out the downpour. Once the show ended, and Justin had met all the fans who wanted a picture or an autograph, we ran across the yard to hide in the big house. The rain carried on pouring, harder now than it had been thus far. Igoe feedin’ squirrels. Photo by Jeremy Wolff. Justin, Jordan, Van the Good and I slipped outside, under the shelter of a large porch to smoke a joint and help Jordan carry her bags from the van. “ Just a Guten tag ,” Justin sang to the tune of Waylon Jennings’ “Just a Good Ol’ Boy.” “ Never meanin’ no harm. Just-a-rootin’ and a-tootin’ and-a-taggen and-a-guten since the day he was born.” “I love that song,” I interjected. “It was played at my grandfather's funeral. Not the Guten Tag version, though.” “Really?” he said with surprise as he took a hit of the joint. “You Canadians are so Country-Western.” The night in Waverly ended with the group of us watching a video of Pete performing some months ago. The Blu-ray was a gift from a friend of Justin’s who filmed the show. “We’ll keep the Canadian downstairs,” Justin said as we decided on the sleeping arrangements for the night. The building awoke the next morning one piece at a time. When my eyes opened, Pete was playing a bluesy run on his guitar while he sang softly to himself. Footsteps carried down the stairs and echoed through the mighty house. Before we left the Standard Deluxe that morning, Justin bought his first article of baby clothing from the gift store. We smoked a joint and crossed the street to eat from a gourmet buffet complete with grits, collard greens, fried chicken, sausage patties, bacon, and fresh salad. We took our time with breakfast before we piled into the van and drove on through the sprinkling rain. Houses and forests soared by on each side of us as we made our way toward Mobile, Alabama. “Stay healthy,” Igoe said, handing me vitamins over the seat. Handing the squirrels their vitamins. Photo by Jeremy Wolff As we drove deeper into Alabama, the rain picked up again, sending the wipers rolling as quick as they could manage. A half-empty case of Budweiser jingled at my feet while the album 21, a Million by Bon Iver played. Van the Good was behind the wheel and full stereo control went along with the chore of driving. It was three and a half hours until we hit the dry streets of Mobile. The rain stopped an hour before we got there, though the clouds still hung low and grey. We loaded into the hotel and came right back out to the van, giving Pete a wave as he pulled up next to us. “There’s not enough weed for a joint,” Igoe said. She pulled out the one-hitter. “We’ll have to get some tonight,” Justin said before flicking the lighter once his turn came around. “I wonder,” he said, passing the one-hitter back. “If we posted on Instagram that we need weed, do you think Jah would provide for us?” “Let’s put it out there and see what happens,” Van said. “Alright, everyone get in on this pic,” Justin said, pulling his phone out. “Put on your best we’re real bummed to be out of weed face.” We drove over to Callaghan’s Irish Social Club, the venue for the night’s show, where the green room was decorated with setlists and posters of bands from years past. The walls throughout the bar are filled with band posters, some signed, all framed. One is of Robert Plant, two are of SUSTO. In the center of the green room is a poker table with a few chairs set up around it. Pete sat at the far end of the poker table, working out his setlist for the night in a rectangular metal book made for writing baseball lineups. Callaghan’s Irish Social Club. Photos by Matt Harrison. “Do you wanna get audio levels?” the owner, JT, asked as he leaned in the green room door. “Should we go check or should we just do it before we go up?” Justin thought aloud. “Hmm,” he said, deep in thought, “I’m too stoned so I don’t know what to do.” “We’ll go check it out,” Igoe and Van said at the same time. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Justin agreed through a laugh as if that’s what he meant to say. “You seen my liquor?” he asked me as he walked by. “Can’t say I have,” I answered, looking around. Once the three of them left, it was just Pete and I in the green room, and we got to talking. “I’ve been writing songs and playing them since I was 14, 15. So about 20 years,” he explained to me at some point. “It was just the thing that felt right, or was just my instinct, I guess. To have a guitar and try to make sense of things with songs. It’s been that way as long as I can remember.” He thought for a minute before adding, “it’s more of a compulsion than anything.” “And you use that compulsive behavior to your advantage?” “Well,” he said with a laugh, tilting his head as he thought, “there have been many, many times where I felt that it’s not to my advantage. I’m glad and grateful that I am where I am and get to do what I get to do. But it certainly is not always to one’s advantage to choose to do this kinda thing for a living. I mean, I spent most of my 20’s working shit jobs and doing things like touring whenever I could take enough time off to do it. Then I decided to try pursuing music no matter what, however hard it is. I would not ever want to go back to those pointless jobs. I learned that however hard it is, this is what I wanna do. Nothing else is worth it. In terms of the short amount of time human beings are allowed on this earth, I’d rather do this, no matter what.” “That’s beautiful, man,” I said after a moment. “That’s one word for it,” he laughed. “It’s just like anything else. If it’s something that you work at there are days where it can be great and days where it’s not so great. And you have to take the not so great along with the great. If you had told me 6 or 7 years ago, when I quit everything to do this, that I’d actually get to do this for a living, I’d have said, you’re fuckin’ crazy, man. There’s no way it’ll ever happen . To me, getting to do this every day is all gravy. “Whenever it becomes hard or not fun is when most people who aren’t serious about it decide they don’t really wanna do it anymore. I’m sure there are a lot of people who’d love to be in a band or would love to be on tour. But when the realities, the parts of it that are not fun come around, a lot of people are just not interested in having that part of the deal.” “You’ve got to take it all,” I said. “You’ve just got to,” he said with a shrug. Pete carried a beat with his pen on the baseball lineup sheets while he wrote up his setlist. The chatter of people outside, waiting for the show, grew steadily. Justin and Jordan came back in just as Pete stood up to go perform. The green room at Callaghan's. Photo by Matt Harrison. “ What’s his name again?” a friend of Justin’s who met us at the venue asked after Pete left the room. “JPKS: Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster,” Justin said. “Justin Kinkel…” “Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster,” Justin interrupted. “Say it three times daily. Anytime you pass a church, say it and make the cross on your chest. Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster,” he said, faster every time. He drew a cross on his chest with his right hand as he said it the last time. “Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster,” the friend answered, slowly. “The gospel of the Constant Stranger,” Justin answered, nodding. Through the walls, we could hear Pete singing “Brake Dust”. The volume grew, then faded as the waitress brought in four shots; two tequila, two whiskey. Pete’s voice grew then faded again as she walked back out. “Well, we’re stacked up, dawg,” Justin said, looking at Igoe. “Fuckin’ stacked, man,” she replied. They laughed and eyeballed the two shots sitting in front of each of them. Pete’s gentle finger-style picking echoed through Callaghan’s as Igoe’s laugh ran loose through the green room. “Guten tag,” they each said, clinking glasses. Their faces each grew sour, twisted at the rotten taste of their shots. They’d each gone through a good bit of their personal bottles to this point and would carry on drinking through the rest of the night. “I wish we could do another full band tour through here,” Justin said, looking around the green room. “I just love this place. I’m glad that we’ve outgrown it, but I love it still.” In the green room at Callaghan’s. Photo by Matt Harrison. Just then, there was a gentle knock at the door and a bearded man walked into the room. “I got y’all covered,” the bearded man said. He tossed Justin a baggie full of weed. “I heard SUSTO was out of weed and I had some in the car. I got the third to last ticket on my way in.” “You did?” Justin asked. “Well, we were gonna put you on the list either way.” “Nooo shiiit,” Igoe said from her chair, swivelling back and forth. “C’mere my man,” Justin said, bringing the guy in for a hug. The weed came our way after someone in Birmingham saw on Instagram that the group needed weed. He sent a message to his buddy, who gave the weed to the guy who was in the room with us. The person who supplied this guy with weed was also at the show, meeting Justin afterward in the green room. Once the bringer of weed left, and the room fell quiet again, Justin looked over at Jordan. “We still gotta blast one of these,” he said, pointing at the shot that remained in front of each of them. It wasn’t long after those two shots that Pete’s time on stage ended, and Justin and Jordan’s time began. “This next story’s gonna be a bit longer, so before I begin, I’m gonna take a little swig of tequila,” Justin said from the stage after a few songs. A few ceiling fans rotated gently overheard, too slow to feel but just enough to hold the room at a comfortable temperature. These Alabama crowds drank their fill and sang along a little louder than people in other places. I stood in the back corner by the bar with the two folks who helped contribute to us getting good and stoned over the next few days while a painter stood in the other corner, painting Justin and Igoe. “I was in this rocky relationship for three years or so. And uh, it was kind of on the way out and I found this place to live in an upstairs suite. The bottom was a different unit and she says, ‘it turns out the place right below you is available for rent.’ I was like oh, sweet . So, she moved in there and we broke up like two months into a year-long lease. We were tryna be friends and this was before I realized that’s a myth. A few months passed and Valentine's Day rolled around. I wanted to do something that showed her I still care, and you’re my friend and whatever.” “I bought her a Valentine’s Day card and inside it I wrote, ‘Friends or lovers, ex-lovers or whatever, I hope you know I’ll always care’. And I was like, okay, that’s a pretty clever Valentine’s Day card, but does she deserve it? I showed it to my buddy Nick Woodley and asked if he thought I should give it to her, or if it seemed pathetic.” “He looked at it, he looked at me, he looked at it and then back at me and said, ‘brother, I don’t give two shits whether or not you give her this card, but if we don’t write this into a song right now, we’re gonna regret it for the rest of our lives.’” “I said ‘I’ve gotta be at work in 45 minutes’ and he said ‘that’s plenty of time.’ So, I was late for work and we wrote this song” Regardless of how much either Igoe or Justin had drank or smoked, the shows went on without a hitch. His voice still carried strong and she still harmonized in beautiful patterns with him. The two of them put on a show you felt in your heart through one song, and they’d have you laughing through the next. They put on a show that would rattle around your mind for days to come, weeks even. “JPKS’ Constant Stranger changed my life,” Justin said toward the end of the set. “Go buy his stuff and if you have any money left you can check out our shit.” After the show, Justin and Igoe hung out in the green room and rolled around on computer chairs. “We did a good job gettin’ drunk before the show,” Justin said. Igoe was spinning in her chair. Van the Good and I loaded up the van while a few lingering fans threw back shots with Justin and Igoe. The fans glowed with excitement as they talked to Justin, laughing hard and loud at his jokes. Soon enough the van was packed, the party ended, and the crew carried on. For the fans, tonight’s show might be a highlight of their week, their month. For this four-person crew, barreling across the country, it’s just another stop. Come tomorrow, we’ll be gone for New Orleans by midday, leaving nothing but a plume of dust and a shred of memories in our wake. Van the Good drove us back to the hotel where we dropped off our bags and came right back out to the van at the stroke of midnight. We stumbled across the parking singing various songs: “Just a Guten Tag”, “The Boot Scoot Boogie”, “The Gut Tag Boogie”. “Just chillin’ with your shithead friends, huh?” Justin said to me once we got back to the van. “I feel like I’m home,” I admitted. “Man, as if we met because of the Lumineers,” Justin said, referring to the first show I saw SUSTO perform, opening for the Lumineers two years prior. “ Deeeead sea ,” he sang, his face twisted with the words, “ I told you I was like the deeeead sea . Man, you’ve gotta be in one of those arenas and hear them. Those boys mean that shit. They’re a couple of New Jersey Irish who didn’t make it in the city and got burned out by it. It’s very authentic. Nothing about it is fake or cookie cutter.” He took a long drag of the joint before continuing. “I’m ultimately on a mission to connect with as many people as possible. If I ever get to connect with 9000 of them at once in an arena? God damn ,” he said, shaking his head at the thought. “I’m just picky because a lot of people have worked and worked and worked and haven’t gotten anywhere,” Igoe said from the front passenger seat. “That’s the name of the game though,” Justin replied. “The sad reality is there are a lot of people who work a long time. Even us, we could work a long time, but we’ll never be like Bruno Mars. I love this scene, though. Grassroots music is where my soul is.” He passed me the joint and continued. “I think if the world goes to shit, pop stars lose their job, but we don’t. If someone has a guitar, we’ll play it, and someone will feed us and put us up and we’re used to living like that.” The joint continued its rotation while he talked. “That’s rock and roll. Rock and roll needs to be about feeling the moment and letting loose and gettin’ primal. Rock and roll is about lighters in the air and seeing the spit comin’ out of someone’s mouth as they sing.” “It’s just so vicious,” Igoe said softly. She looked out the windshield into the night. “The music industry is so vicious.” “It’s cutthroat. But it bothers me when people get angry at big bands, big rock groups, calling them sellouts and stuff like that just because they’re successful now and they’re working with Rick Rubin. It’s like, yeah, of course, they are. They’re more famous now and that’s a part of it. It’s bullshit when people call that selling out.” Photoshoot in Mobile with Jeremy Wolff. Photo: Matt Harrison. The lighter sparked, the tone changed, and the re-lit joint came around again. “Man,” Justin said, turning to me, “you’re part of the fuckin’ SUSTO family. I don’t know how you got into it. I don’t know how you weaselled your way in, but you’re in it.” “I’m a Harrison, man,” I said, laughing. “You don’t even really notice we’re there and then we grow on you.” “I believe that. Because I didn’t know you and now you’re hanging out with me and my friends on the road. You got me, somehow. Good on you, dawg. Welcome to the family.” “Glad to be here,” I said, and we bumped knuckles. “I wonder if Jah will provide.” And I was glad. I came aboard a stranger and now I was just another buddy out on the road. These people were strangers to me only four days before this, and myself less known to them. I felt like I had come home to an extension of myself living in the hearts of these vagabond adventurers, these pushers of the all-mighty envelope, running from one stage to the next in the name of music. “Do we have another joint or did we smoke ‘em all?” Justin asked the moonlight. “We smoked ‘em all,” Van the Good replied. “Well, maybe we’ll lock up and call it a night,” Justin said. Check out more from Susto: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Photo courtesy of James O'Mara. 8x JUNO Award-winning and multi-Platinum selling blues-rock artist Colin James is thrilled to announce his Chasing The Sun Canadian tour. Kicking off in Ottawa, ON on February 7th , the tour will make stops across the country including additional shows in Ontario , Manitoba , Saskatchewan , Alberta and British Columbia .  Tickets for the tour are available now at colinjames.com/events . “I am super excited to get back out on the road soon to play some live shows with my band after recovering for the last few months from my accident last September,” said James. “We are starting out with a show in Florida and a week-long Legendary Blues Cruise followed by a rehearsal in Toronto before we head out across Canada. Looking forward to every show and getting back to playing with my incredible bandmates and crew as well as Chasing The Sun tour opener, the talented friend Terra Lightfoot. Hope to see you there.” The tour follows the release of James’ electrifying 21st studio album Chasing The Sun ( Stony Plains Records ). Co-produced by James and Colin Linden (T Bone Burnett, Keb Mo, Bruce Cockburn and David Wilcox), the album features an impressive lineup of musical guests including Americana icon Lucinda Williams , and bassist Darryl Jones and drummer Charley Drayton , who both have backed Miles Davis and The Rolling Stones, plus American harmonica ace Charlie Musselwhite and gospel greats Ann and Regina McCrary .  With a remarkable career spanning over 35 years, James remains at the top of his game, continuing to challenge himself musically as displayed in the new album’s tracks “Open Your Mind,” “I’m Still Alive” and “This Song Kills Hate.” Through his storied career James has achieved many successes including 8 JUNO Awards, 31 Maple Blues Awards, and multi-platinum record sales. His 1988 self-titled debut was the fastest-selling album in Canadian history, and earned James his first JUNO Award and an opening spot on tour with Keith Richards.  He was later credited with launching the swing revival, thanks to his wildly popular Little Big Band, and was inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame in 2013. He continued to release more new music including his 2021 album, Open Road , which earned him a JUNO Award for Best Blues Album and his first Blues Foundation Award nomination.   Over the years, James has worked with musical icons such as Bonnie Raitt, Albert Collins, Pops Staples, Robert Cray, Albert King, Mavis Staples, and Luther Allison, to name a few. Recently celebrating his 60th birthday, he still finds joy in making music and performing on stage, and truly loves what he does. For more information on Colin James and the Chasing The Sun tour, please visit www.colinjames.com .  Colin James Chasing The Sun Tour Dates: February 7, 2025 – Ottawa, ON – National Arts Centre Southam Hall February 8, 2025 – Kingston, ON – Kingston Grand Theatre February 9, 2025 – Belleville, ON – Empire Theatre February 11, 2025 – Kitchener, ON – Centre In The Square February 12, 2025 – London, ON – Centennial Hall February 14, 2025 – Toronto, ON – Massey Hall February 15, 2025 – Hamilton, ON – FirstOntario Concert Hall February 16, 2025 – North Bay, ON – Capitol Centre February 18, 2025 – Thunder Bay, ON – Thunder Bay Community Auditorium February 20, 2025 – Winnipeg, MB – Burton Cummings Theatre February 21, 2025 – Regina, SK – Casino Regina February 22, 2025 – Saskatoon, SK – TCU Place February 24, 2025 – Prince Albert, SK – EA Rawlinson Centre for the Arts February 26, 2025 – Calgary, AB – Event Centre @ Grey Eagle Resort & Casino February 27, 2025 – Edmonton, AB – Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium March 1, 2025 – Vancouver, BC – Orpheum March 3, 2025 – Victoria, BC – Royal Theatre March 4, 2025 – Nanaimo, BC – Port Theatre March 5, 2025 – Nanaimo, BC – Port Theatre

December 2, 2019 Railroad Crossing at Panet Rd. and Molson St. – Winnipeg, MB Madeline Merlo. Photos by Samuel Stevens Photography. Scott Helman. Photos by Samuel Stevens Photography.

New Album A Collection of Greetings Out February 14 via Rise Records   Debut Single “ Further Til We Disappear ” Lyric Video Out Now Today, multifaceted vocalist and musician Kellin Quinn of Sleeping with Sirens has announced his new solo project, Haunted Mouths. His debut album A Collection of Greetings will be released on February 14 via Rise Records. The first single and opening track of the new album, “ Further Til We Disappear ,” is available to stream now .   Reading Julia Cameron’s 1992 self-help book, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity , kickstarted a new approach in Kellin’s songwriting. This new record is a romantic love letter, literally and figuratively, and a celebration of life’s rich complexity. It’s a singular experience, with each song demanding a listen to the next. Haunted Mouths wraps an invitingly familiar voice in powerful, dreamlike soundscapes. Brimming with atmosphere and mood, the name pays homage to the cemetery near Kellin Quinn’s childhood home.   The opening track, “ Further Til We Disappear ,” resonates broadly with diverse listeners while intimately speaking in a type of code designed for an audience of one, sprinkled with shorthand references to specific places and things within the singer’s longtime marriage.   “ That song mentions many of my wife’s favorite things and different things we share. The whole record is a love letter to her ,” explains frontman Kellin Quinn . “ I didn’t want to make a pop album or an acoustic record. It needed to be dark, drony, haunting, but beautiful .”   Produced and co-written in collaboration with Aaron Marsh (frontman of the band Copeland and long-time friend), A Collection of Greetings was born without a hint of writer’s block. The songs came together in roughly two weeks of sessions as the duo volleyed ideas with synergetic harmony. Comprised of 10 tracks, the songs on this record move gracefully between lush, sparse, plaintive, and meditative. A Collection of Greetings Track List:   1.    Further Til We Disappear 2.   Tunnel Vision 3.   Casting Over Them 4.   Searching For A Fire 5.   A Collection of Greetings 6.   Everywhere / Forever 7.   So Peculiar 8.   Meanwhile 9.   Becoming Nameless 10. You Built This Kellin Quinn possesses one of the most identifiable voices in modern melodic rock. He’s cherished by generations of fans who have grown up listening to him as the lead vocalist of Sleeping with Sirens. In less than 15 years, Sleeping With Sirens has earned a gold album, a platinum single, and two gold singles.   While he will always embrace loud guitars and soaring choruses, he also adores various adjacent styles, from dark synth to ambient. Haunted Mouths indulges those disparate tastes with gorgeous results. On A Collection of Greetings , he brings fans a more intimate sound and a look into his personal life. It’s unexpected but familiar and an essential step in Kellin’s journey as an artist. Follow Kellin Quinn: https://www.instagram.com/kellinquinn https://x.com/kellinquinn https://www.youtube.com/user/kellinquinn

Today, Nashville-based singer-songwriter and filmmaker Josh Gilligan releases the warm and affecting single “ Ceiling ,” from his forthcoming debut album Party of One , set for release on January 24, 2025, via Chicago and Nashville-based indie label Easy Does It Records. Listen to “Ceiling” here   With ethereal, soft rock chords and disarming lyrics, “Ceiling” perfectly embodies the buoyant spirit of Party of One , a somber, yet hopeful collection of songs. Of the track, Gilligan says , “‘ Ceiling’ is about feeling the pull out of a phase of life and moving into a new one. No hard feelings, it’s just about taking the next step away from something when you no longer need it and it doesn’t need you .” “Ceiling” follows a streak of single releases including last month’s introspective tune “500 Questions” and the delicate, hopeful song “Anything;” emphasizing the artist’s vocal delivery as  “feather-light, resting easily atop a bed of warm guitars and effortless grooves” (Under The Radar).  Those who might not be familiar with his sound or presence in the Nashville indie scene, Gilligan has worked in various capacities with artists like Halfnoise,  Madi Diaz, Elke, and Medium Build, whom he recently opened for on tour last fall. His diverse experiences on stage have infused his music with a rich blend of influences, setting the stage for his most personal project to date.
 His debut album Party of One, due this month, marks a new step in his musical journey, following the success of his 2021 EP, Go Around .  Party of One  collects the wisdom Gilligan gleaned from a long period of deep sadness, self-doubt, and confusion. There are songs about separation, internal conflicts, creative disappointments, all of which added up to a pervasive melancholy in his late 20s and early 30s. He’d spent nearly a decade gigging around Nashville, balancing other jobs adjacent to the music industry with his own musical pursuits. “I wasn’t expecting to feel so hollowed out after my twenties,”   says Gilligan , “and I was wondering if I still wanted to make music. But I felt like I owed it to myself to give it another try, even though in the back of my mind I’m thinking, What can I add to the conversation? Why would anyone want to listen to what I have to say? ‘Anything’ came out of that, and it’s been a good message to live with. A lot of people think that if they’re not doing something super ambitious and highly visible, that means they’re doing something wrong or they’re not being brave enough. But it takes so much bravery to do anything at all.” Gilligan drew from the ‘70s pop and soft rock of his childhood, creating a sound that resonates with personal references: the graceful melodicism of Paul Simon, the restless experimentation of Todd Rundgren, the emotional directness of James Taylor. “My mom was raising five kids—I was the middle child—and she would take us on long drives to make us sleepy. And she would play Wings, America, Christopher Cross. Instead of rejecting her music, I embraced all of it. That’s the stuff I’m thinking about when I make music. It completely formed my sensibilities. My mom inadvertently crafted the palette of Party of One.” Gilligan spent years recording, mixing, and even sequencing another  record, but something didn’t sit right. It took bravery to set it aside and start again from scratch. In 2022 he spent a month in California, savoring the change of scenery and working with a different set of musicians. In one memorable afternoon, he and Jacob Jeffries (who plays keyboards for Vulfpeck) wrote a song called “Tight Rope,” out now. It’s a gentle ballad with chiming guitars, shimmering keyboards, and lyrics about how falling off the tightrope gets you back down to earth. It was a breakthrough. “Honestly it felt less like doing a co-write and more like finding a long-lost member of my musical family. I remember thinking, This is how I want the album to sound. I built everything else around that song. It came out like a sneeze, but the others came together with more time and care.”  When he's not making music, Gilligan enjoys spending his time outdoors, fishing or working on vintage music equipment. His passion for music and creativity is matched by his appreciation for the simple pleasures in life, and he strives to create songs that resonate on a genuine level with his audience. Follow Josh on his socials: Instagram  | YouTube  | Spotify

Emerging from the introspective haze of Oklahoma City’s indie music scene, some fear delivers a deeply emotive and immersive self-titled debut record, which will be released on January 16, 2025, via Rite Field Records. Initially started as a solo project from Branden “Bran” Palesano, the band has evolved into a dynamic quartet, and their debut album captures the delicate balance between personal reflection and collective artistry. Rooted in slowcore and lo-fi rock, some fear  blends melancholy textures with hauntingly beautiful melodies, creating a sound that feels both intimate and universal. The album opens with the track, "Worm," a slow, meditative track that establishes the band’s knack for layering gentle guitar riffs over an atmospheric backdrop. The steady rhythm acts as a heartbeat, setting a contemplative tone for the record. "Skin I Can’t Peel" follows, serving as a standout single and a thematic centrepiece of the record. It’s a track steeped in introspection, where Palesano’s lyrics explore the complexities of growth and acceptance. The guitar work is unhurried yet cathartic, unfurling like the gradual shedding of emotional barriers. It’s a song that invites the listener to sit with its weight, reflecting on their own relationships and personal evolution. "The Road" and "Wake Up" continue the musical journey with contrasting moods. "The Road" is expansive and cinematic, with reverb-drenched guitars evoking endless highways and the quiet solace of solitude before the track erupts. Meanwhile, "Wake Up" injects a spark of urgency, its lo-fi fuzz and processed vocals building to a cathartic crescendo. On "Let It Go," the band leans into their slowcore influences with delicate precision but picks up a bit in pace. The song’s sparse arrangement and soft vocals evoke a sense of fragility as if the music might break apart at any moment. "Game" takes a more experimental turn in its intro, featuring off-kilter rhythms and dissonant guitar tones that create a sense of unease, mirroring the uncertainty of its lyrical themes. The title track, "Some Fear," anchors the album with its haunting simplicity. The lyrics delve into the universal struggle of confronting one’s inner demons, while the instrumentation remains subdued, allowing the emotional weight of the song to take center stage. The closing track, "The Faucet Does All The Crying" is a raw and poignant moment on the record. Palesano’s vulnerability shines as he recounts feelings of numbness and emotional detachment. The track’s quiet intensity gradually builds, reflecting the catharsis of its creation. It’s a song that encapsulates the heart of the album—unfiltered emotion set against a sonic landscape that’s equal parts soothing and stirring. The album closes with an air of quiet resolve, leaving the listener with a sense of connection to the band’s journey. The production, handled entirely by themselves in their home studio and mastered by Boone Patrello (Teethe), lends an intimate, almost diary-like quality to the record. Every note and every lyric feels intentional as if the band is inviting the listener into their most private thoughts. Additionally, some fear’s debut is a triumph of understated beauty. The band captures the ache of self-discovery and the bittersweet nature of change with remarkable grace. Fans of slowcore, lo-fi rock, and shoegaze will find much to love here, but the album’s emotional resonance transcends genre boundaries. Lyrically with some fear,  the band has created a record that feels like a conversation with an old friend—achingly familiar yet deeply profound. It’s a testament to the power of vulnerability and the artistry of turning life’s quiet moments into something unforgettable. Check out more from some fear : Instagram | Twitter | Bandcamp

US TOUR WITH HIGHLY SUSPECT STARTS THIS WEEK NEW ALBUM OUT APRIL 25 VIA LOOSEGROOVE RECORDS MIXED BY ESTEEMED RECORD PRODUCER BRENDAN O’BRIEN Photo courtesy of Luke Shadrick. Cardiff-based rock outfit  James and the Cold Gun —dubbed "South Wales' loudest group"—have just dropped their electrifying new track,  " Guessing Games , "  signaling the arrival of their much-anticipated sophomore album  Face in the Mirror , set for release on April 25th via  Loosegroove Records . Founded by  Stone Gossard (Pearl Jam)  and  Regan Hagar (Malfunkshun, Brad, Satchel) ,  Loosegroove  has been a key platform for the band’s unique brand of high-octane garage-punk. In exciting news, James and the Cold Gun are hitting the road in the US this week, kicking off an exhilarating tour alongside the phenomenal Highly Suspect . This tour promises to be an unmissable live experience, with both bands bringing raw, electrifying energy to audiences across the country. Fans can expect a dynamic and unforgettable show, as James and the Cold Gun showcase their new music, including " Guessing Games ," alongside more new songs from their upcoming album, Face in the Mirror, as well as some of their earlier tracks. Produced by the band and mixed by legendary producer Brendan O'Brien (Soundgarden, AC/DC, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stone Temple Pilots, Incubus), Face in the Mirror was recorded at Seattle’s iconic Studio Litho and The Garage . The album marks a major leap forward for the band, showcasing their exhilarating growth while maintaining the raw energy that has earned them rave reviews from NME , Kerrang! , Rock Sound , BBC Radio One , KEXP Seattle , and more. "James and the Cold Gun are a shot of pure adrenaline," says Gossard, who immediately signed the band after hearing them on KEXP Seattle and recognizing their undeniable potential. "Guessing Games," which forms part of the album’s tracklist, is a perfect example of that raw, unfiltered energy—fusing influences from Britpop, indie, and classic rock bands like Primal Scream and Stone Temple Pilots . Lead vocalist James Joseph shares, "It was written near the end of the album process and felt like an outlier—more melodic and atmospheric. Stone really connected with it, and we ended up layering more guitars and adding new bassist Gaby Elise on backing vocals to give it even more punch." Following the success of their earlier singles, the band’s profile has been steadily rising. From their inclusion in Apple Music's Rockstars of 2023 Predictions to playing sold-out shows with Duff McKagan and Thunderpussy , as well as supporting Pearl Jam and Guns N' Roses at BST Hyde Park, James and the Cold Gun are quickly becoming one of rock's most electrifying new acts. The album is a blend of dynamic, garage-driven rock with moments of introspective clarity. From the thrashing energy of "Cut the Breaks" —a fast-paced track that harks back to the band's early roots—to the soaring introspection of "Above the Lake," featuring James Biss on lead vocals, and the title track "Face in the Mirror," which embodies both a call to arms and a reflection of self-realization, Face in the Mirror demonstrates the band's evolving musical landscape. Having gone from writing songs in a Cardiff garage to performing in front of massive crowds in less than three years, the band’s meteoric rise has been nothing short of spectacular. With Loosegroove Records backing them, James and the Cold Gun are poised to take their blistering garage-rock sound to new heights. Their rise has been fueled by a relentless energy on and off the stage, and the forthcoming Face in the Mirror album captures this frenetic drive in a way that is both thrilling and captivating. True to form, the album delivers on all fronts: hooky rhythms, infectious choruses, and irresistible riffs that make it impossible to stay still. As their fan base continues to grow, James and the Cold Gun are set to hit the road once again—bringing their raw and unbridled energy to fans across the globe. With Face in the Mirror as their calling card, the future looks incredibly bright for this rising force in rock music. Face In The Mirror  tracklist: 1. Face in the Mirror 2. Riding the Tiger 3. Guessing Games 4. Above the Lake 5. Twist the Knife 6. Cut the Brakes 7. DNA 8. Blood Red Sky 9. A Way Out 10. Meet My Maker PRE-ORDER FACE IN THE MIRROR , OUT APRIL 25TH VIA LOOSEGROOVE RECORDS NOW James and the Cold Gun Tour Dates with Highly Suspect: 01/17 - Fayetteville, AR, JJ's Live 01/18 - Dallas, TX, The Factory in Deep Ellum 01/19 - New Orleans, LA, Orpheum Theater 01/21 - Mobile, AL, Soul Kitchen Music Hall 01/23 - Columbus, OH, The Bluestone 01/24 - Indianapolis, IN, Egyptian Room 01/25 - Grand Rapids, MI, 20 Monroe Live 01/26 - Louisville, KY, Paristown Music Hall 01/28 - Knoxville, TN, The Mill & Mine 01/30 - Raleigh, NC, The Ritz 01/31 - Charlotte, NC, The Fillmore 02/01 - North Myrtle Beach, SC, House of Blues - Myrtle Beach 02/04 - Lexington, KY, Manchester Music Hall 02/06 - Cincinnati, OH, Andrew J Brady Music Center 02/07 - Huntsville, AL, Mars Music Hall 02/08 - Pelham, TN, The Caverns 02/11 - Asheville, NC, The Orange Peel 02/13 - Charleston, SC, Charleston Music Hall 02/14 - Lake Buena Vista, FL, House of Blues - Orlando 02/15 - Lake Buena Vista, FL, House of Blues - Orlando James and the Cold Gun are James Joseph (guitar and vocals), James Biss (lead guitar), Gaby Elise (bass guitar), and Jack Wrench (drums). Check out more from James and the Cold Gun: IG | Twitter | Facebook | Website

TROUSDALE ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM GROWING PAINS  WITH THE RELEASE OF THE ALL-WORK AND NO-PLAY TITLE TRACK — STREAM SOPHOMORE ALBUM SET TO ARRIVE ON APRIL 11 — PRE-SAVE ANNOUNCE HEADLINE GROWING PAINS  NORTH AMERICAN TOUR — SEE ALL DATES HERE SEE THE TRIO HEROICALLY STEP INTO THE BOXING RING IN OFFICIAL VIDEO — WATCH Today, Los Angeles’ heavenly harmonic trio Trousdale has announced their new album Growing Pains , set to arrive on April 11, 2025, via Independent Co . Releasing the warmly defiant title track and its video , Quinn D’Andrea, Georgia Greene, and Lauren Jones introduce a new body of work centered around three strong, independent women facing the threats of loneliness, broken hearts, loss, and more, and converting it into transformative, uplifting music — Stream “Growing Pains” / Pre-save the album. Opening on a ripping electric guitar and bolstered by their trademark harmonies, today’s lead single perfectly encapsulates the feeling of working so hard for what you wanted and skating on the edge of burnout. As transcendent as Trousdale sound when they lean into their gold-hued pop, the group work their country flair into the material more masterfully than ever before.  The trio’s Lauren Jones shared, “ The idea for this song came about pretty naturally by discussing one of our favorite subjects: how exhausted we are. It really is so disorienting at times to have a career that is your passion, but also your work. Your boundaries are constantly being pushed and pulled, and you’re always willing to put in the overtime because you care so much. Over time, this can really start to look like burnout if you’re not careful. ‘Growing Pains’ is about living the dream while acknowledging that the dream can be pretty hard sometimes.” In today’s official video directed by Giovanna Trujillo and Sworn Friend Studios , Trousdale makes the move from menial tasks around the gym to entering the boxing ring themselves, and emerge as superheroes — Watch . Trousdale’s upcoming second LP was primarily recorded live in the room and co-produced by the band and John Mark Nelson . With co-writing talent lent to them from Mags Duval , John Mark Nelson , and Lawrence Rothman , the trio used a larger band with this record, further flexing their production muscle and resulting in a larger sound than they’ve ever had before. Across 12 remarkable and relatable tracks, Growing Pains points a finger at the weight of life and offers a light at the end of the tunnel. The album will arrive in full on April 11.  With their talent shining through the brightest live, Trousdale have also announced their upcoming headline Growing Pains tour . Beginning in Philadelphia at the end of April, the 28-date run will come to a close with a massive hometown show in Los Angeles on June 21. The tour will feature a collaborative opening set from Beane and Nia Ashleigh .  Following the devastation of the wildfires in Trousdale’s home city, the band is partnering with The Ally Coalition on behalf of The California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Recovery Fund . $1 from each ticket will support both mid-term and long-term efforts to rebuild and restore the lives of California’s most affected and underserved populations.  The artist presale and VIP packages go on sale today at 10am local. The Troufriends VIP Meet & Greet Experience will include an exclusive pre-show meet and greet, acoustic performance, a signed zine, limited edition merch, and more. General on-sale for all tickets will open at 10am local on Friday, January 17. See all tour dates here and below.  UPCOMING GROWING PAINS TOUR DATES: April 30 - Philadelphia, PA - Foundry* May 1 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle* May 2 - Atlanta, GA - Smith’s* May 3 - Nashville, TN - Basement East* May 5 - Madison, WI - High Noon Saloon* May 6 - Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line* May 8 - Chicago, IL - Thalia Hall* May 9 - Detroit, MI - El Club* May 10 - Toronto, ON - Velvet Underground* May 11 - Montreal, QC - Petit Campus* May 13 - Boston, MA - Sinclair* May 15 - Richmond, VA - Broadberry* May 16 - Washington, DC - 9:30 Club* May 17 - New York, NY - Irving Plaza* May 29 - Dallas, TX - Sons of Hermann Hall* May 30 - Houston, TX - White Oak (Upstairs)* May 31 - Austin, TX - 3TEN ACL Live* June 3 - Phoenix, AZ - Valley Bar* June 4 - San Diego, CA - Quartyard* June 11 - Denver, CO - Bluebird* June 12 - Salt Lake City, UT - Soundwell* June 13 - Boise, ID - Shrine* June 14 - Portland, OR - Mission Theater* June 16 - Vancouver, BC - The Pearl* June 17 - Seattle, WA - Neumos* June 19 - San Francisco, CA - Chapel* June 20 - Healdsburg, CA - Little Saint* June 21 - Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre* *with a collaborative opening set from Beane and Nia Ashleigh All tour info here ! Last year, Trousdale released Out of My Mind Deluxe while touring extensively across North America. Highlights include sold-out headline dates, supporting The Teskey Brothers , Glen Hansard and Lake Street Dive , and festival performances at Bonnaroo , Green River Festival and Whale Jam . Trousdale also released an Audiotree live session and contributed to NOISE FOR NOW’s Songs For Sex , a benefit compilation album in support of sexual and reproductive rights alongside  Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit , Andrew Bird and more.  ABOUT TROUSDALE: For Trousdale—the trio of Quinn D’Andrea, Georgia Greene, and Lauren Jones—the ache of growing through change, of facing down existential anxiety, and matters of the heart are all intimately familiar. “We can acknowledge the strides we’ve made and be grateful, but we’ve talked a lot about how tired we are,” Jones says with a laugh. “We’ve been thinking a lot about the tension that comes with change, wanting it, fighting it, embracing it, but learning to thrive in that moment.” On Trousdale’s upcoming LP, Growing Pains (due April 11th), the band works through those struggles to find strength, courage, and growth in each other. “From what was, something new can always grow,” D’Andrea says. The album was recorded largely live in the room and co-produced by the band and John Mark Nelson, a songwriter who has also co-written and produced songs for Suki Waterhouse and Shaboozey, as well as engineered tracks for the likes of Taylor Swift and Mitski. While working with co-writers like Mags Duval and Adam Yaron expanded the band’s purview, the trio credit John Mark Nelson as a particularly powerful guide. “He’s always thinking about the big picture and staying out of the weeds,” Jones laughs. “We used to live in the weeds. But John Mark helped us focus on the album as a whole.”  Trousdale’s debut album, 2023’s Out of My Mind , earned raves from the likes of the Boston Globe, Consequence, and Atwood Magazine for its powerful songwriting, immaculate harmonies, and ability to bridge gaps between country and indie pop. On Growing Pains , the three songwriters evolved their style, writing rough ideas on their own, then refining and finishing them in the room together. “ We’re all adding to each other’s ideas, drawing from personal experiences and then expanding them into something more people can connect with,” D’Andrea explains. As good as Trousdale sounds when they lean into their gold-hued pop, the group work their country flair into the material more masterfully than ever before. Across 12 remarkable tracks, Growing Pains stares down all the weight of its title, a trio of strong, independent women facing the threats of loneliness, broken hearts, loss, and more, and converting it into transformative, uplifting music. “It's a reminder that even in the coldest moments, renewal is always possible,” D’Andrea explains.  Check out more from Trousdale: Website | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Spotify | Apple Music

Slayer guitarist Kerry King has officially announced an exciting North American tour slated for 2025, featuring his eponymous solo band, which promises to deliver a powerful and electrifying experience for fans of heavy metal and rock music alike. Following his recent tour with Lamb of God and Mastodon and his first European headline tour earlier this year, Kerry King and his new band - drummer   Paul Bostaph (Slayer), bassist Kyle Sanders (HELLYEAH), guitarist Phil Demmel (Machine Head), and vocalist Mark Osegueda (Death Angel) - will hit the road for the twenty-eight date "North American Headline Tour 2025." The tour is in support of King’s debut solo album,  From Hell I Rise  (RPM), which, according to the UK’s  Kerrang !, ”The phrase ‘metal as f*ck’ may never be better applied."  With Municipal Waste as Special Guest and Alien Weaponry supporting, the tour is set to launch in San Francisco on January 15, 2025, and wrap at House of Blues in Las Vegas on February 22. Tickets go on sale Friday, October 4 at 10AM local and can be purchased  HERE .   The complete itinerary is below.  Also announced today is the release of King’s brand new music video for the album track, “Where I Reign.” Shot in black and white, the “Where I Reign” video was directed by Jim Louvau who also directed King’s videos for the album cuts “Residue” and “Toxic.” "I wanted to capture the fury and the energy of the band in a live setting,” said Louvau, "an intensity that is matched from a visual standpoint that matches the intensity of the song and the energy that the band brings each and every night on tour, and I think we were able to do that. There are some still photos in the video that also show motion and energy, and I was really just trying to bring that energy to life in a live setting that is different from the other two videos that were done in the studio and were a little more in a controlled environment. So this video was definitely the guys’ being themselves and just showcasing what the band provides in a live setting.” Check out the “Where I Reign" music video  HERE . “Getting back on the road for the first time in five years wasn’t exactly like riding a bike, that’s for sure,” King admits. “ I’ve never had that much time off, but the first tours with my new band — in the UK and Europe, and then in America with Lamb of God and Mastodon — were all total blasts. We’ll be headlining on this next tour, so we’re playing a longer set than we did with Lamb of God and Mastodon. We’ve got a little bit of a learning curve, so we will start rehearsing the first week of November. And we might put an extra Slayer song into the set and learn a cover song or two.” This highly anticipated 28-date tour is set to kick off on January 15th in the vibrant city of San Francisco, known for its rich musical history and energetic nightlife. The tour will then continue its journey across the continent, culminating on February 22nd in the entertainment capital of Los Angeles, where fans can expect an unforgettable finale. Along the way, the tour will make stops in several major cities, including the culturally diverse Toronto, the bustling streets of New York City, the vibrant music scene in Dallas, and the dazzling lights of Las Vegas, ensuring that a wide array of fans have the opportunity to experience Kerry King's legendary guitar work live. Kerry King’s 2025 Tour Dates: 01/15 – San Francisco, CA @ The Regency Ballroom 01/17 – Spokane, WA @ Spokane Live Casino 01/18 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo 01/19 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater 01/20 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom 01/22 – Calgary, AB @ The Palace Theatre 01/23 – Edmonton, AB @ Midway Music Hall 01/25 – Winnipeg, MB @ Burton Cummings Theatre 01/26 – Minneapolis, MN @ The Fillmore 01/28 – Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave 01/30 – Detroit, MI @ The Majestic Theater 01/31 – Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues 02/01 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall 02/02 – Montreal, QC @ L’Olympia 02/04 – Boston, MA @ Royale 02/05 – Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of the Living Arts 02/07 – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza 02/08 – Baltimore, MD @ Baltimore Soundstage 02/10 – Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre 02/11 – St. Petersburg, FL @ Jannus Live 02/13 – Houston, TX @ House of Blues 02/14 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s 02/15 – Dallas, TX @ The Studio at the Factory 02/17 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre 02/18 – Albuquerque, NM @ Sunshine Theater 02/19 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Nile Theater 02/21 – Las Vegas, NV @ House of Blues 02/22 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda Theatre

North Jersey’s Scary Hours doesn’t just create music; they weaponize it. With their latest EP, Can’t Contend , which will be released on January 15, 2025, via Pyrrhic Victory Recordings, showcases the band doubling down on their brand of politically charged, class-conscious hardcore punk while adding layers of sonic sophistication and emotional weight. Clocking in at just over twenty minutes, the eight-track record is a ferocious mix of rapid-fire riffs, guttural vocals, and lyrics that aim straight for the jugular of societal injustices. The band's new EP opens with the track, “Intro” which sets the tone with a swaggering groove and a RZA-inspired sample from an old kung-fu film, paying homage to vocalist Ryan Struck's love for Wu-Tang Clan. It’s an unorthodox opener that immediately establishes the EP’s balance of aggression and intellect. Following is “Reach For Me” which explores the scars of growing up fatherless, delivering one of the most emotionally raw moments on the record. Musically, the track leans into a blend of metalcore and mathcore, with nods to bands like Converge and The Black Dahlia Murder, showcasing the band’s versatility. The title track, “Can’t Contend,” is an unrelenting thrash-punk banger featuring guest vocals from Brandon of Philly hardcore outfit PUSCH. It’s pure catharsis, filled with horror-themed vignettes that convey desperation with cinematic flair. “Muted Mass” and “Erase” stand out as the EP’s most overtly political tracks. The former dissects the illusion of freedom under capitalism, with a Noam Chomsky-inspired critique of media manipulation. The latter, driven by Rage Against the Machine-style grooves and a haunting Ghassan Kanafani sample, delivers a searing condemnation of the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Both tracks are as thought-provoking as they are sonically punishing. “Fever Dream Dossier” tackles the hypocrisy of organized religion with biting lyrical cadences that nod to hip-hop influences, while “Sturdy Beggars” targets systemic oppression, taking aim at New York City’s criminalization of poverty under Mayor Eric Adams. Both tracks showcase Scary Hours’ ability to merge personal fury with pointed political commentary. Whereas the penultimate track, “Pale Moonlight,” is a track inspired by Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman , the EP takes a reflective turn. What begins as a nerdy homage to the Joker-Batman dynamic transforms into a profound meditation on the dualities that drive both human relationships and societal conflict. Produced by Pete Zengerle, Can’t Contend  captures the visceral energy of Scary Hours’ live shows while refining their sound. The EP blends the ferocity of ‘80s hardcore with the groove of modern post-hardcore, peppered with moments of thrash and metalcore. Fans of Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys, and Kublai Khan will find plenty to love here, but the band’s intellectual depth and genre-blurring approach also recall the best of Propagandhi and Glassjaw. Can’t Contend  is more than an EP; it’s a manifesto. Scary Hours channel their fury into a collection of tracks that are as brutally honest as they are brutally heavy. Each song feels like a rallying cry, urging listeners to confront the injustices around them while offering a cathartic outlet for collective rage. With this release, Scary Hours solidify their place as one of hardcore’s most vital voices in 2025. Check out more from Scary Hours : Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scaryhoursnj Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scaryhoursnj Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2tELPK5RtwLFtDJ4q8zrCO?si=Iy7De26NSUWoWcGyQL1PQQ Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/scary-hours/1441720697