7 Horns 7 Eyes / Stealing Axion – 1st ROAD BLOG from their “The Dual Destruction Tour”

7 Horns 7 Eyes and Stealing Axion is on their “The Dual Destruction Tour” with Awaiting The Apocalypse. While on the road they will be writing periodic blogs for us. The first one can be read after the break.

Road Blog #1 written by Josh DeShazo of Stealing Axion

Check out photos from the road on Flickr!

Tacoma – Friday May 18th, 2012

Today we only had to drive about 5 minutes to get to the venue.  Definitely a luxury compared to what lies ahead for us on this tour haha.  We met up with 7 Horns at the venue and got some free BBQ hamburgers.  Sometimes it pays to be metal \m/ We played a great show and had a great time hanging out with everyone.  Some serious head-banging happened tonight. Oh yeah…there was a guy in a cartoon style monkey suit randomly in the crowd.  hahaha

Seattle – Saturday May 19th, 2012

Arrived at the venue right as 7 Horns was loading in and we were quickly overwhelmed with a sea of urine smell.  Bums were sleeping under an overpass 100 feet away, which probably lent to the monstrous piss wave smell.  Anyway, load-in was a lot easier tonight than the previous night since Tacoma loaded us in through the front door haha.  Once inside there was sound check and merch booth setup and then something bad happened: we forgot to charge our Zune…Yeah yeah we use a Zune, but it works fine (when charged that is).  Phil and Dan took off to buy another charger that we could keep with us on the road, too bad they don’t even make them anymore! Had the guys from 7 Horns help us with a sound check and the show went on.  We took the stage after 3 other awesome bands and the lights went low.  As soon as we started playing we could tell this show was going to rock.  People loved it.  Heads were bobbing, fists were flailing and it was awesome.  After the show, Dan and I helped load out and then we ran over to Metalshop on KISW to be interviewed on the air.  We kind of took a few wrong turns getting there and started to worry, but finally found it and rode that long elevator ride up.  Once we got up there and stepped into the studio we relaxed and had a blast.  Ian, Kevin and Ryan were very accommodating and hilarious, which really helped us unwind after the show…Even though we did smell like gym socks having just gotten off stage haha.  After the interview we went back to the venue where all the bands were saying goodbye and congratulating each other on the great show.  We had a great night and we are looking forward to Portland.

Portland – Sunday May 20th, 2012

Today was a short drive to Portland.  We attempted to do too many things in the van and our inverter shut off and we couldn’t get it to come back on.  Ben investigated testing wires and what-not and eventually discovered that the inverter was fine, but we had blown a van fuse hahaha.  We rode into Portland at about 5PM and went straight to load-in.  We set up our gear up on the stage for our sound-check.  The sound at Branx is very interesting to say the least.  The monitors seemed muddy during sound-check, but somehow by the time we went on last, they were better.  We played harder and better than we’ve played yet and definitely made some new fans, as well as pleased some that we’d already had and had the pleasure of meeting/taking pictures with!  After the show we lugged our gear out to the van (which is a hell of a long way through the venue, since the venue is a giant hallway almost heh) and hung out with 7 Horns for a bit joking around and getting more comfortable with each other.  We decided to head South after playing because we were all awake and pumped.  7 Horns had a place to stay in Vancouver, so we parted ways at the venue with plans to meet up in Redding, CA tomorrow to BBQ and hang out.  We piled in the van and got comfortable, and it was pretty obvious that the energy we thought we had quickly faded.  Phil took a nap in the back with some big headphones on while I wrote this as Dan talked on the phone.  Ben and Blake were rocking out to Tom Petty and other classic songs up front behind the wheel and navigation. Our stop for the night was Albany at a Walmart Supercenter hahaha.   Oh yeah we stopped at a rest stop and Blake jokingly called me a fat ass, so I mooned him for about 20 seconds as I walked away towards the pisser.  Punishment deserved.

Redding/Anderson, CA – Monday May 21st, 2012

We drove all night.  None of us got much sleep and it was pretty miserable…Well none of us except Phil, who slept through everything for like 10 hours straight.  I don’t know how he did it, but I’m jealous because I got at most 2 hours of sleep changing from sitting to laying on the van floor.  Blake and Ben drove from Portland all the way to Albany, OR where we made a pit stop and cooked some hotdogs and played Frisbee until it started pouring.  Blake claimed that he wasn’t tired so they wanted to keep driving, so they drove all the way past Grants Pass, then Dan and I took over driving all the way into Redding, CA which was the predetermined destination to meet up with 7 Horns.  We arrived at the Walmart to camp out for the day and as soon as we pulled up, Phil finally woke up and hopped out of the van and snuck off to pee.  Not 20 seconds into his piss, a cop pulled up and kicked us out of the city hahaha.  He told us to leave and never come back.  We had no choice but to drive 10 minutes south to Anderson, CA where we found a park to spend the day in.  Phil, Ben and I played about 15 holes of Frisbee golf before we decided we were too tired and too hot to go any further.  We went back to the van and Blake and Dan were just waking up.  We then took a dip in the adjacent river and took some makeshift showers in a drinking fountain…talk about feeling like a bum.  Actually I even asked a bum sleeping in some bushes what the best place to park a van and crash for the night for free would be.  He told me Walmart haha.  We started cooking and sat around and played games and took some much needed naps.  After spending the day at the park, we loaded into the van to head for Sac.  Shortly after getting in the van, we discovered that our TV no longer accepted inputs from our devices…great.  Always something.  Ben called his TV repairman friend who told us it was a solder that had come loose from us driving and it was an easy fix.  We sat in silence to Sac haha.

Sacramento, CA – Tues May 22nd, 2012

We woke up at Walmart in Southern Sacramento.  We had spent the previous night playing Frisbee and buying sleeping pills, which actually really helped us get the necessary sleep to function.  After waking up today, we decided to go to In N Out Burger, since it was Dan’s and my first time trying it.  We drove to Northern Sacramento and each got some stuff from there.  After eating, we sat inside for a while trying to decide what to do next.  We called one of the members of the band Awaiting The Apocalypse to see if they wanted to get together, seeing as how they had posted on our wall about things to do in Sac.  After calling him, we decided to head over to American River which we of course jumped in and played Frisbee for a bit.  Ben and Blake were drinking some beers on the beach and throwing a Frisbee, while Dan, Phil, and I were up in the van cleaning up and changing.  Ben came walking back up with all of the beers and I asked why they were done already.  He said: “There should be a police boat escorting me up here.”  We looked down in the water and there was indeed a Sacramento Police boat drifting by.  Upon questioning Ben, he said that the police had come up to them to tell them to stop drinking.  We just constantly get caught by police for every little “illegal” thing we do…Can’t have any fun in America anymore haha. We left the river and went back to the Walmart where we knew we were welcome at.  7 Horns met up with us and we barbequed and threw Frisbees again.