Imperial Triumphant - CRAZY TOUR STORIES Ep. 439

Hey, this is Steve Blanco here with Zachary Hesron from Imperial Triumphant and this is our crazy tour story that Zach's going to tell you about. It starts in June of our last Balkans tour. We had just wrapped playing in Serbia and Belgrade and we had a day off and we went out and had a great night. I go back to my hotel room. In Serbia, if you show up with $3,000, you're their new king. For $50, we were all staying in our own super luxury 5-star hotel rooms. I have my own hotel room. I'm chilling by myself. I have pizza. I've got Bad Boys 2 playing. That's how I'm ending my night, so it's a pretty good night. The rest of the night, I text my tour manager, Yo, I'll see you tomorrow morning. We'll get coffee. Good night. That's the last text I sent. Then the next 20 minutes is blurry and I wake up covered in blood. I don't really know what's going on. There's blood all over the hotel room, on the floor, in my bed. It's gushing out of my head. I look in the mirror and it's all over my face because if you get a small cut in your head, you bleed like a stuffed pig. I don't have a small cut. I have maybe a 2-3 inch cut. I'm gushing blood. I'm a little freaked out. I jump in the shower, wash off, get back in the bed. I FaceTime my best friend, Dr. Bill Stebbins from Nashville. He's still awake, obviously, because it's America. I show him to my ******* head. At this point, keep in mind, I'm in a completely different hotel somewhere else. Not that far, but not that close either. It's like 4 o'clock in the morning. I noticed a couple phone calls that I missed from him. I'm like, what the hell is going on here? But it was already a few hours later that I noticed it. Anyway, Dr. Bill Stebbins says, look, does it feel like gelatin? I go, yeah. He goes, you should probably go to the hospital. You're probably going to be fine, but go to the hospital and get stitches. That's when it becomes the new schlap. 3 a.m., I jump in a cab. I say, hospital, please. He takes me to the hospital, Serbian Hospital on a Monday. Weirdly busy. When did you call me? I called you from the hospital. I was already at the hospital. Super chill hospital, by the way. No paperwork, just show my passport, and I'm already in line. The doctor is sewing me up. He goes, you have wound. I go, I know. Is it a big one? He goes, not really. I said, thank God. He goes, oh, you believe in God? And I said, I believe in you. It's a little scary when the doctor asks you if you believe in God. Got a free CT scan, which in America would take hours. This was like 40 minutes. By 5 a.m., I hop on a bus, and I'm back in my hotel room for a little bit of spaćka. Let me just say one thing. Sure thing. CT scan can get done quickly in the USA. It just would cost you $2,000. I should mention that the entire visit was free. The next day, I was in Zagreb playing. I had my head wrapped. I looked like Rafael Nadal. Still finished the tour strong. Theory is, basically, I think I blacked out. I don't know why. Maybe stood up too quickly or something. In the bathroom, fell back, smashed my head. Because there was a huge puddle of blood on the floor, which I didn't even think twice about. I was like, oh, it's the blood. I'll just mop it up. But, yeah, super gnarly. Another thing is that night, we were out separately. I was out with Josh from Cattle Decap. Yeah, Cattle Decapitation Rules. I was out with him and his wife. There was a total separation that evening. This is what happens if we separate. It was a good night anyway. A fun little memory. I still have the CT scan. I'm going to frame it. It's always good to get a CT scan. They looked at my CT scan and said, oh, this is zero brain activity. You're completely fried. Yeah, sometimes you walk around like, maybe I have a brain tumor. You get a CT scan and you're like, okay, cool, I don't.