Decibeles Ritual: 2015

August 4, 2015 – It was a smoldering morning at the studio and a precursor of what was to come on our journey east. As we loaded gear into BR’s trailer the sweat started to drip. My nice fresh shirt was already drenched and we hadn’t even driven a mile yet. We said our goodbyes to friends and family, took a group shot, and started the first leg of our journey to San Diego to pick up the lads in Ghoulgotha.

Creeps united in creepiness!

The trip south let us know how finicky the van’s air conditioner would be. If it sat idle for more than a minute; no air. Near Camp Pendleton there was a highway shooting that left the suspect dead, a large police force, and a major freeway shutdown for 30 minutes. 30 minutes sitting in standstill traffic with no air conditioning, for lack of a better word, SUCKED! Finally cars started moving and we passed by the site of the incident and saw a yellow police tarp draped over a body. Of course we tried to get a few pictures off but BR picked up speed and we fumbled with our phone cameras like a bunch of virgins struggling with a bra and missed the opportunity. Sure it’s a little morbid but you don’t see shit like that every day. Might as well document it.

In San Diego we grabbed Uncle Wayne and the Wild Boys of Ghoulgotha, ate a few sandwiches on the side of the road thanks to Babs, and started our long journey to Dallas, Texas.

The drive was relatively uneventful. BR’s van has a DVD player and so we watched movies until the wee hours of the morning. To BR’s credit, he drove 3/4 of that brutal trek and as the sun rose on August 5, Rhett took over and brought us in safely to Dallas in the late afternoon.

Reno’s Chop Shop was your typical bar/club nestled within a cool little area of Dallas. The heat was still mesmerizingly atrocious but now it sucked even worse because of the humidity. (FYI- I am going to continually talk about the weather throughout this diary/blog. Especially the Hell of Texas.) Despite the shitty heat, the promoter welcomed us with open arms and treated Gravehill and Ghoulgotha very well. He fed us these humongous pizzas from a place called Serious Pizza where every slice was the length of your forearm. It ruled! He also set up a tab and we got free beer which made the first night even more spectacular!

Seriously.

The show itself was fun. It seems like the first show of any tour you have to work out certain kinks and this was no different. It was only my second show as a frontman and I won’t say I was horrible or anything but I was shaky at best vocally and presentation-wise. That being said, I thought the band did great barring a few hiccups that if you weren’t paying attention you would never hear. The crowd response was cool but then again it was a Wednesday night. The people who were there seemed to dig what we were doing and there was definitely some headbanging action. Overall a really good first show out of the box in my opinion.

Rhett met up with his old buddy Xan from
Crimson Relic and Divine Eve.

I should mention the opening bands were very good and quite diverse. Impure Devotion brought the cult black metal worship and Steel BearingHand performed a crushing set of crazed heavy metal butchery! I had never heard SBH before and they killed it. Also hearing Ghoulgotha for the first time in years was refreshing.

That night we crashed at this beautiful home in the suburbs of Dallas where all of us had at least an air mattress to crash on, badass air conditioning, and our hostess even cooked us up a great breakfast in the morning! If you’ve ever been on tour you know this is a great luxury. And since our next show in Austin was only a 4 hour jaunt south, we took our time showering and getting ready. Not every stop would be like this but for our first night of actual sleep after driving 25 hours halfway across the United States it was invigorating.

Coming up next...

Corpse’s Tour Diary Part the 3rd: Big Austin Nights

When I woke up on the morning of August 18th the first thing I thought was, “Where am I?” My second thought was, “Whose room is this?”

It turns out I was back home at my apartment and in my own room. But for that split second of confusion, I thought I was still on the road crashing at someone’s house or in a strange hotel.

Tour life is odd when you don’t go out on the road a lot. For Gravehill, most of our tours consist of West Coast gigs that start Thursday night and end Sunday. Short jaunts with friends or as support for bigger bands that actually like us. The long tours are few and far between.

2010 marked the first big Gravehill tour that had us out on the road with our label mates at the time Cardiac Arrest and Hod (we were on the Ibex Moon roster). Spanning about two weeks, that was a rough introduction (for me at least) into long drives, sparse shows, shitty convenience store food, and debt. Don’t get me wrong, there were great times as well. Meeting new people, traveling the U.S. and visiting cities I had never been to, and being in the company of great friends to name a few.

2013 had us back on the road with Deceased which was a bit more lucrative, not as long (about a week), and had some real fun moments. Touring with one of my favorite death metal bands was a dream come true and I was a fan boy the entire time.

The 2015 tour with fellow Dark Descent label mates Ghoulgotha was our first outing for any significant length of time in 5 years. We would be revisiting cities played before and trying out new locations for the first time. This tour was extremely important as well since Gravehill first announced its new lineup back in May. This wasn’t just another tour. This was a proving ground and trial by fire. We had to get back out there and let people know that even though the front man, bassist, and lead guitar had changed up, we were still the same entertaining assholes everyone was used to.

This is an after action report of the entire tour. Most of this is based on my fuddled memory alone so some parts may be exaggerated but all of it is true. I won’t be calling anyone by their stage names either. I went on tour with my friends, not stage personas. But for the record, just in case you don’t know the cast of characters, here it is for your convenience. Note that we give out tour nicknames. Some people don’t like their nicknames but unfortunately you can’t pick them yourself. Shit happens when you party naked.

GRAVEHILL: