Corpse’s Tour Diary Part the 1st: A Whimsical Introduction

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:

Vocals: Jason Thomas aka J. Corpsemolester aka JT Corpse aka Corpse aka J-Balls

Drums: Rhett Davis aka Thorgrimm aka Phil Rudd of Death Metal aka Dad

Guitar (R/L): Nelson Miranda aka Hell Messiah aka Nels aka The Rum King

Guitar (L/R): Elde Erickson aka Eldehelm aka The Valium Prince aka Snore Ravager

Bass: Bob Babcock aka Bodybag Bob aka Babs aka The All Nighter

GHOULGOTHA:

Vocals/Guitar: Wayne Sarantopoulos aka Uncle Wayne

Guitar: Ian Mann aka Ol Tangled Cords

Drums: Charlie Koryn aka Baby Bear

 

RHOADIE/DRIVER: Robert Gutierrez aka Bigg Robb (BR)

I think that’s a fair intro! The next installment:

Corpse’s Tour Diary Part the 2nd: When All Roads Lead to Dallas…

Wyoming, Colorado, and the Wolves!!

Gravehill's priority this year was getting "When All Roads Lead to Hell" released and jumping on the festival circuit. The Maryland Death Fest was up first on our festival list and we played in front of at least a million people. I'm guessing on the numbers but I'm pretty sure that's a close estimate. Maryland was a great success for us and our next venture was the Central Illinois Metal Fest which was located in...uh...Central Illinois!



August brought us yet another fest, except this one was located in the most unlikely place...Cheyenne, Wyoming. You remember Wyoming, right? It's where Brokeback Mountain is supposed to take place. I didn't know this until someone told me. I haven't seen the movie. Did you know Heath Ledger is in it?? Anne Hathaway shows her boobs too which somewhat counterbalances the gay butt sex throughout. I mean, that's what people have told me. I'M NOT GAY! I'M NOT GAY! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7NeXSs2Z8M)



So what does any band say when the promoter offers to pay for your plane tickets and hotel so you can come out and play one show on a weekend? Reply in the positive of course. But I had my reservations and suspicions about the whole thing. Does the promoter know who Gravehill is?? Is he luring us out into the backwoods of Wyoming to kill us and possibly stew our genitals? Was it a conspiracy to wipe out Gravehill once and for all so no one would have to witness the disaster that is usually our live show???



Since the offer was out there, we certainly couldn't turn it down. Even if we played to 20 people, we wouldn't lose any money so why not? We only had a slight problem. Hellfiend was going to be on tour with Exhumed and when he got back to the States, he was supposed to go on vacation with his family. Like our San Diego show waaayyy back in April of 2011, we had to find a replacement guitarist. Tom Knizner of Cardiac Arrest filled in for Hellfiend for the San Diego date but he couldn't commit to Wyoming. The search went out and finally we found Neil Burkdoll from the Swedish Death Metal-inspired band Fatalist. By the time Neil came to his first practice with us, he had learned 80% of the set list with only a few open questions about certain sections. Otherwise he was on his game and he wasn't there to fuck around. Unfortunately Neil got to see Gravehill in our "practice" mode which consists of Bodybag and me drinking, Thorgrimm talking about various television shows and movies, and Abominator telling lots of off-color, racist jokes about white people (Abominator thinks he's a cholo). Since Neil is a pro, I'm sure he was very disheartened with our, "Let's-arrive-at-the-studio-for-practice-early-but-not-actually-practice-until-hours-later" attitudes.



The name of the fest was "Wolves of the Apocalypse" and was set for August 20. On August 19, we got one more practice in. It was a late practice and by the time we decided to leave the studio, it was almost 12:00 AM. Neil and Bodybag were going to stay at my pad so we took off. Unfortunately for Neil, Bodybag and I had already started drinking. Neil attempted to sleep in a separate room while Bodybag and me stayed up the rest of the night getting drunk. 5:00 AM came around quick, and in a bleary, still somewhat inebriated haze, we drove to the airport. (Note: Don't drink and drive kids!!)



The plane ride was smooth despite me vomiting in the bathroom and passing out on the elderly Asian man in the seat next to me. That's right ladies. I'm still single!!



My Saturday consisted of one hella hangover and all I wanted to do was sleep. The trip from Denver, Colorado (where we flew in) to Cheyenne, Wyoming is about an hour...maybe two and I was miserable. Meanwhile Bodybag is walking around like nothing is wrong but I know that fucker is hurting to! And if he isn't, then I blame his youth since he's 10 years younger and can recover from a hangover quicker. In any case, I hate him!!



We arrive at the venue and Matt from our label Dark Descent Records is there. He taunts me with beer from his cooler and every time I see him he says, "Hey, Jason..." and then holds up a beer. I turn green, everyone laughs maniacally, and I go quietly weep in the rental vehicle. Who am I kidding? Quietly my ass. Luckily we head to the hotel just a short distance away and I crash out immediately. A hour later I wake up and feel 100% better.



About the fest. I know I go on mostly about shit other than what's going on at these gigs, but in this case and at CIM, I get idiotic with the drinking so I wind up missing a lot of bands or can't remember who the hell played. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it sounds like I have a problem, but I don't. Really!! I just drink when I'm depressed, out with friends, by myself, playing video games, at lunch at work (and on breaks), or to wash down various barbiturates. Wolves of the Apocalypse is no different. I missed pretty much all the bands and wound up drinking in the parking lot with some nefarious people. This is the part where the promoter and all the bands can send a boo my way because I suck. I wound up chatting with this one dude who was an actual hobo. He said he jumped trains and went from town to town. He even got jacked by other hobos who wanted his sleeping bag. I realize that those paintings of sad hobo clowns are more poignant than ever now.



Several bands canceled and the turnout for the fest was sparse. In any case, Gravehill stayed true to form. We took the stage and played like we were in front of 1,000 people instead of the 20 diehards who were still at the venue. Some even knew our songs and we treated it as a big party. We thrashed, people headbanged, horns were thrown high in the air, and our last song, Decibel Ritual, ended with an epic bang. After the show, we signed some guy's truck which had autographs from dozens of different bands all over it. It was super sweet and the guy was stoked.



Once everything was loaded up, we drove around for a while trying to find a restaurant to eat at. We found a Denny's instead. The waitress was really open with us and she mentioned getting ass-raped by something or other. I'm sure she meant it metaphorically. I hope so at least.

Sunday consisted of visiting a cool independent record store in Cheyenne which had a great selection of new and used heavy metal/punk rock vinyl, cds, and shirts. We all bought something and the store owner loved us for it. He even gave us free soda and discounts on merch! After that, we spent the rest of the day in Denver driving around, looking at the sites, and visiting another record store. Eventually, we had to return to Denver airport and soon we were in the air on our way back to Southern California.

THE END!!! Yaaayyyy!!!