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July 11, 2002 Hey Peeps!
I wanted you guys to be the first to know that we found a new guitar player, finally! It was not an easy task, let me tell ya. Among the 50+ who tried out we even had a fan fly in from afar to audition and he really impressed us but he just wasn't the one.
Anyway, the new guitarist's name is Dino and some of you might remember him from Laura Dawn's band. He's a great guy and a bad-ass guitar player. He, unfortunately, will probably be able to play with us for this next US tour only, but let's all show him love and treat him like he's part of the team.
We've been working our butts off as usual and are extremely anticipating getting out there and playing for you all... and we'll finally play Cleveland, YAY! Anyway, I got a good tour diary in the works and am constantly living up more crazy sh*t to write about, so I'll get that to you all soon. Hope you're all well and keep voting for the Teen Choice Awards if you have a chance.
See you soon! Always naked,
aLeX BaNd and the Boys
July 25, 2002
So it begins. Another round on the tour roller coaster. Another giant box full of fan gifts and goodies, each layer containing hand written stories and priceless Nina Hamsters. Another 5 loads of laundry to do cause every night I'm sweating like a little bitch, stinking up my jackets that I really shouldn't be wearing in 100+ degree environments. Another bracelet lost on stage and 10 more gained all displaying everyone in the group's names in little white cubed letters. Another tour bus crash throwing you from one end of the bus to the other like your doing a f*cked up run on crocodile mile. Another set of "pig racing" farmer style hats stolen from the "swine arena" perfect for the boys in the band to wear with overalls and nothing else underneath except naughty body graffiti artfully drawn by giddy fans with sharpies. Another set of empty stomachs trying to decide "hhmmm, do I eat random pizza for the 6th time in a row or try my luck with this blood sausage from the fair and see how long I can live off that?" (and people wonder why rock stars are so f*cking skinny). Another night of staying up till 3AM. Another night of staying up till 4AM. Another night of staying up till 5AM. Another night of just staying up. You know your hurting bad for rest when you fall asleep standing up brushing your teeth... is that possible? Yes. I don't recommend it though unless you want your nice obsessively clean toothbrush to end up dropping right in the nice disgustingly dirty tour bus toilette. Oh yes, that's right, I'm a moron. A lucky-ass moron with another chance every night to create magic onstage and connect with each and every fan who's spent their hard earned dollar to see a simple rock show. Hello everyone, I'm Alex and welcome to another long overdue tour diary entry.
Putting aside the little tidbit I wrote you all announcing the new guitar player, we last left off on my flight home for a, uh, sorta break. Well, I apparently survived that flight home from Paris despite the mad ramblings of death that were going on in my head and the fork imprint on my face. As you all know now, my few days off were spent trying desperately to find a new guitar player in-between dropping clothes at the dry cleaner, picking up prescriptions at the pharmacy, replacing empty bottles of my girly haircare products, of course buying a new toothbrush, visiting family, picking up my brothers from school, moving all the sh*t I own from three different places to my new living abode and unpacking it all, and recording a cover song for an upcoming movie called "Sweet Home Alabama" with the rest of the boys, and realizing I just wrote what my English teacher in high school would say is "a run on sentence - that is the reason you, Alex, get D's in my class". I really hope they end up using this song we recorded cause it is f*cking hilarious. Have any of you heard of an old hillbilly song called "Keep Your Hands To Yourself"? Well, lets just say there's yodeling in it and a line that talks about milking cows. Probably the last song on the planet you'd ever hear The Calling cover but it's all about the benjamins baby... and the comedy of course. You can catch Nate on drums, as well as bass, cause Billy was out to lunch.
Anyway, back to the auditioning world. Dino's the man, that's all I can say. I can also say Dino is our new guitar player for those of you who don't know yet. He's been totally exceeding our expectations every show and I'm glad he's part of the team. He's turning Aaron into a vegetarian freak though which makes finding edible food on the road next to impossible for them. I'll be eating a burger and Aaron's like "that's horrible for you, they slaughter the cows laying in a bed of their own sh*t"... mmmmm. Next I was eating chicken at dinner and he's like "the FDA says that eating today's chicken is like letting it marinate in the toilette for a day first"... YUM! But what's this now? I'm eating ice-cream and he's like "so and so says all dairy is really bad for you and shouldn't be eaten if you want to stay alive"... I love Aaron, different strokes for different folks. I love bacon too, like on a daily basis, so I'm already on the road to destruction.
So getting back to those crazy break days, we left right in the middle of the two weeks as a four piece for the longest, shortest European trip ever. We didn't have a guitar player lined up in time for these two 100,000+ audience shows so we decided to do it stripped down with me playing guitar. We left early morning Friday, flew 15 hours with a 3 hour layover in London to Denmark, drove straight 2 hours, played a huge festival, drove back, slept 3 hours, flew 4 hours to London, did a day insanely full of press and played a show for our biggest crowd ever, got on a plane and flew 12 hours back home...barf...that's all I can say about the traveling aspect of that weekend. Now the excitement, the rush, and the sense of real accomplishment those two days brought me are incomparable. Denmark's show for technical reasons was one the hardest things I've ever had to do. It was like all my sh*t I relied on just decide to take a vacation and I couldn't hear sh*t for most of the show which made me sing, or should I say not sing, a song or two while the band played them. Although a mess, it was a rock show and the crowd loved it, so, whatever... it's just a long way to go for everything to go wrong in those 45 minutes in stage. Denmark fans, we are forever yours, you waited at the airport from 4 am on for two days to witness our arrival and departure and shower us with gifts. This one girl even told me she just had a kid last week and named it "Alex Billy" after her two favorite Calling members... Wow! Scary, but wow!
Our kick ass BMG crew for the UK greeted us with gold record plaques for outstanding record sales and a #2 single debut over there. That really is a big accomplishment for me and honestly made me cry. I mean every amazing band I worship and grew up listening to originated there, barely no American artists can ever break into that music scene, and we stand out there as a real band in a radio world totally run by boy bands and pop idol filth. So when I walk out onto that stage in front of 100k plus with millions watching on TV while Aaron started to pick "Wherever You Will Go”, the intensity of the people in that amazingly beautiful country was breathtaking.
Celebration had to be carried out and who better to do it with then my boys. Aaron and Billy thought it was a good idea to wear only their prestigious robes from the swank hotel we were staying at to our fancy dinner feast that night with their gold records under their arms! You should have seen the looks on the faces of the people eating in that really nice restaurant with Aaron's big hairy chest hanging out and his shiny gold collection of proudly displayed Jewish star necklaces! What's the fun of life if you can't be silly once in a while?
I thought the "exotic fruit" desert sounded interesting, boy was I way off. I swear this plate came full of some of the weirdest fruits from the most remote places of the earth that I had never heard of or seen before in my life. So after a little drinking and a good meal we each took turns passing around every different piece of fruit and tasting them. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. They were each uniquely and completely the most foul, disgusting, strange-colored things I've ever eaten. So, I was the first and would be, like, "Nate, it's not that bad, try it" and right when he would take a big ol' bite out of what looked like an ultraviolet-pod-person-from-mars fruit, I would spit all mine out. Billy, like, embraced it and by the end, would stuff the entire piece of fruit in his mouth, turn green, and practically puke it onto the table with laughter and disgust. Needless to say the waiters were happy to see us children pay the check and leave.
Right when we walked out of the restaurant to walk down the street to our hotel, that "tiny" crowd we played for earlier were letting out in massive groups coming right towards us. As soon as the chickadees got a look at us in our robes, it was pandemonium. We were running down the street with hundreds of them chasing after us while Aaron and Billy were trying to keep their robes from falling off mid dash. We just made it into the hotel lobby which had security to keep them out but the whole face of the lobby was all glass except for a little hiding spot we ducked behind. So quickly word got out that we were in there and hundreds of people were up against the glass fogging it up with their "Calling! Calling!" chants. So, unable to sign for them all in fear of being ripped apart, Aaron and Billy did the next best thing... they took turns running out into sight of the mob and flinging open their robes flashing them all! Going back and forth on half naked piggyback rides all for 2 second jumps in front of the glass each time allotting a giant roar and scream from the masses! It was good fun. I was like "can I please go sign for them?", and my tour manager just laughed and said I was nuts.
Did I mention when we received our gold plaques there was one engraved to "The new guitar player" and in parenthesis it said "even though you haven't done much yet". I thought that was pretty amusing. So our work was done and it was time to go home. Jack Black the comedian/musician/actor (known for his group "Tenacious D") was on our flight home and being a fan and all I decided not to be a big pu*sy this time and talk to a celebrity. He was really cool and said... "Hey aren't you the guys I saw in my hotel lobby yesterday flashing hundreds of your own fans" and proudly I said, "Yes."
We were home again for what seemed like two days... well, it was two days, but anyway, we rehearsed the whole time with Dino and got ready to embark on this here tour. Our first few shows were all outdoor fair-type dates that started in the small town of Clio, Michigan. It was a little nerve-racking for us and Dino since it was our first show with him and all, but he's got big vegetarian balls and went out there and rocked.
A really sweet fan who's an aspiring musician sent us the most amazing gifts. They were personalized jackets that were hand painted and came in this giant box. Thank you so much for those and all your sweet words. Nate wore his on stage that night. Peoria, IL and Lansing, MI were both a lot of fun. It was nice to go back to Cincinnati and play Bogarts as a headlining band.
I received by far the weirdest fan gift that night. An aspiring porn author wrote multiple dirty stories all starring me! The scarier thing was that she was a really good writer, but I was, how you say, a little taken aback.
Well, we finally made it to Cleveland the next day! After what, like, two or three cancellations? Thanks guys for not hating us and still showing up and giving us support! I almost died on stage from how frikkin' hot it was that night. My pants were literally sliding off me. That was by far the hottest show I've ever played.
Our bus' generator broke that night and we had to drive all night in the complete darkness with no power whatsoever... no Playstation! Oh, it was sad.
Then, it was on to another stop in Ohio at a little town called Bucyrus. Now here's where things got interesting. A huge storm all of a sudden broke through right when we were pulling into town and a van smashed right into the bus flinging all us skinny little bi*ches around like hockey pucks. Luckily nobody was hurt too bad, but it reminded me of fall last year when our bus driver drove into a tunnel that was too low at full speed sandwiching our bus and causing a three car pileup. Ah, good times. All the locals started coming out of their little stores surveying this very untypical scene in the middle of their main intersection. The weather died down and we headed into the fair. Right when we were entering there was this huge hand drawn sign that said "Tonight THE CALLING from Los Angeles!" and there was this horrible drawing of me with my shirt totally unbuttoned exposing a really overgrown hairy chest! I was like, "What the hell?" They obviously aren't too familiar with me!
Because of the rain, there was major mud, like, everywhere that day so we thought it was a good time to break out our baseball bat and tennis balls to play. I got so insanely muddy and after my first pitch, Aaron hit the ball right at me by mistake and hit the crap out of my arm, throwing me to the ground... that ended that.
Later that night, the guys got racing pig hats and wore them on stage. Billy had to sacrifice not wearing his hunting hat that he hadn't taken off since he bought it a week before at a truck stop.
I took off to Milwaukee, Wisconsin next with a crashed up, no power bus, and a big muddy bruised arm, but in good spirits. Almost a year ago now, which is amazing to think how time has flown by, we started our first big tour in Milwaukee with LifeHouse and Michelle Branch on September 10th. All my memories of the tragedies of the 11th took place right there in Milwaukee during the 4 days we were stuck in the hotel, so it felt strange going back to play The Rave. But now we could go there in a much better light and we played one of the best shows we've ever done. A really, really great crowd took us over that night and will be locked in my memory forever. Some of our most dedicated group of fans that have been to so many shows gave me this HUGE banner that has little signed notes and messages all over it from fans across the US... F*cking awesome gift! Thank you guys!
Yesterday's outdoor show takes the melting cake for the hottest experience of my life, way hotter than Cleveland... 110 degrees to be precise. It was even too hot to wear a jacket, duh. The show was with LifeHouse, of all bands, which was strange, knowing Sean was there, but all was good and we watched each other's shows from the side of the stage. I swear, I thought I was going to drop dead 30 minutes into our set because of the stupid heat. At the last second of our closing song I literally dropped my mic, ran like hell back to our air conditioned bus while ripping my clothes off, pored water over my head, quickly punched in the code to our bus which is:.... I'm not giving you the
combo! What do you think I'm nuts? O.K., O.K., I am, but no way! Anywho, I threw the door open and seriously fell to my hot sticky death on the still-muddy tour bus floor. I laid there for an hour or two or three and, well, here we are. So now you're all up to date. This tour has been a blast so far and I'm excited to keep it going. We've got our third video shoot coming up for the next single which is going to be "Could it be Any Harder," so you'll hopefully start hearing it on the radio next month. I'm really excited about that!
Well, I hope we win an award at the Teen Choice Awards... you guys did a great job voting, no matter what happens, so I owe you all big time. If you see Dino at a show, give him a hamburger. Until next time!
Love, Peace, and signatures no matter how f*cking tired I am,
Alex Bandinski
