Venom Prison - CRAZY TOUR STORIES Ep. 959

So I'm Ben. I'm Ash. And we play in a band called Venom Prison and here we're going to give you some funny stories. We have quite a few. You make a start. Alright, let's just go straight to the brutal one shall we. We'll go straight down the middle. He doesn't know we're even saying this either which makes this even better. Geoff shitting himself in Munich. That was a great night. I believe that was the darkest hour tour. It was. It was. But it wasn't a normal tour day was it because Harley Flanagan joined on and then there was another band, I can't remember who. Yeah, so I think the main tour package was us, Venom Prison and Darkest Hour. It was their headline tour after they'd just kind of made their comeback album. But there were like a few shows that shared Avocados. Yeah. And we jumped on a show in Munich with Harley Flanagan and I can't remember, it was a straight edge band which ironically, straight edge band on probably one of the biggest partying shows ever I've ever seen. But basically it set the tone. I mean, Harley Flanagan showed up in what looked like a dressing gown and a cane so I thought he was going to be a pretty sort of stiff moving guy and then like literally as soon as he plays he's jumping off speaker stacks or whatever. But before the show he's walking around handing out bongs and it's all kind of a bit weird because it then suddenly clicked that he was, he was like, he wore his Jiu Jitsu black belt as like a regular leather belt. That's so drunk still isn't it? I mean, only one person in the world can get away with that. So I asked him for a photo if he would choke me out like every dickhead does who's into fans, who's a fan of mixed martial arts because he trains with legends like Henzo Gracie, he's got all sorts of like famous people. So I think you took a picture of him choking me out with his Henzo Gracie jacket. Even when we had like that, like group photo with us, Darkest Hour and everyone even just holding the jacket I was like fit like gangster. Jeff shitting himself. How did we get to that? How did we get to that? I think it was just a lot of boozing, smoking, partying but like it normally goes from zero to 100 doesn't it? It never takes long at all. I think we all just went to bed then about three, four in the morning and then was it Darkest Hour's singer woke us up? Yeah, so like maybe a couple hours before that it had got to the point where they'd filled up. I mean in Germany they look after you very well. They'd stocked up the fridge I think two or three times because of all the beer. It was getting towards the end of the tour so it was pretty much kind of like the last chance to party. So everyone's having a blowout. Even Darkest Hour drummer who's like a Greek god of a body who doesn't touch anything bad, who's always working out, even he's on the beers. I think he was even bench pressing our old drummer at the time. Handsome man. Yeah he was literally like you know military pressing the guy just for a laugh just because he's had a beer. Oh I'm drunk and I'm strong. You know chest press a person so that's what he was doing. So we were all pretty hammered. I think we'd gone to bed and then Darkest Hour's singer, I can't remember his name. John. John comes in and he's like hey guys I think your bass player is pretty sick. I think he's in the bathroom. You should probably go check on him. So we walk in there. I can't remember who even saw him first but I remember looking. I think Luke our guitar tech went to investigate and he's like Ben come and see this. And I opened the door of this sort of bathroom and he's like in the shower soaking wet wrapped up in all the towels. There's shit on the floor. There's vomit everywhere. And yeah it was just an absolute mess and I don't know really how he got to that point. He used all the communal showers. Towels didn't he. No one was able to shower the next day. So that was So me and Luke were trying to. Luke's trying to steer him through the doorways but what Geoff keeps doing he keeps doing this and grabbing onto things. So we kind of managed to get him in our little dormitory room and he just kind of kept making these. I mean oh yeah that was it. So he gets up in the middle of the night, wanders again and then he's about to fall over and I can't remember if it was you or Luke manages to push a duvet because he was on a mattress on the floor and it slides across the floor catching him just as he falls the right time. Larissa's waking up every couple of hours just to check he's still breathing because he's making sounds like a pregnant cow. Every couple of hours you just hear this. And he's like dry heaving. Everyone's like got earplugs in because they don't want to. And then like the next morning we had like to drive to Austria. Yeah we went to Vienna. So like I just for fuck's sake he's going to be like throwing up in the van all the way. And like we've had shows before. I mean this is fairly normal at the time. He would stick his head out the van and just throw up out the window if he'd had a rough night. He doesn't do this anymore. But like I knew we were in for a treat. Every time I was listening to my headphones in the back of the van when a song would like come to the end and it'd be that like brief silence for like three seconds. All I would do is like and then just see it like chunks just go past the window. Just sat there with my headphones on just minding my own business oblivious to the world. It's just sick chunks just flying past the side window. But luckily this time like I just I raided the cleaning cupboard. Sorry I hit whatever the venue was. Like I robbed a bucket. Like I just taken a mop bucket from my cleaning cupboard stashed it in the van. Oh and he even threw out like some trousers that were covered in shit. Stuffed them in a bush before we got on. So like he's just there the entire journey next to you at the front. Poor Steve's just sat next to him or Sam guy who's just putting up with him throwing up. Like it was pretty much on command every 20 minutes half an hour. Probably really not very good for him. I think it was the fact he put his jeans on didn't he. Like when he actually woke up he put his jeans back on that were covered in shit inside. It was only because he went outside and it was quite nice weather and he was like oh I should probably change into my shorts. Yeah. And it's as he was taking his jeans off he'd realised they were the same jeans that he'd shit in and there was an old man walking his dog walking past. He just fucking launches his jeans past this old man's head like covered in shit. Oh well that was yeah. But we can safely say he's not shit himself for probably 3 years now. I've had closer calls than him. But the funniest thing was like what Luke kind of quotes when we found him first in that bathroom he dropped his trousers to be sick and pulled them back up to take a shit. So that's how fucked he was. I mean that's a pretty standard pub party story. There's maybe a couple others worth sharing. The second one I think we want to quickly share was when we played Detroit for the first time and I think it was a venue called Harpo's which was really big in the 80s but now it's just absolute cesspit. If you go on the Google reviews I think someone describes it as if Herpes was a venue this would be it. And like I remember getting there asking the guy for a merch table and he takes me up this room and just to set the tone he's like oh just be careful of my dogs. I'm like what dogs? And fucking out the door these two pitbulls just are fucking running loose around the venue. I'm thinking fuck this is it I'm going to die here. So that was pretty bad. But like when we got there the police were briefing all the bands. Yeah it's weird wasn't it? The police were like saying right don't go to that KFC over the road. If you see a red light if you're at a red light and someone approaches you run it. That's the police giving it the advice so we're like ok so this isn't good. Don't leave the venue without armed security. Don't load out. Don't load in without security. Security looked like Dog the Bounty Hunter. He was so sick. He had a shotgun on the front of his car and he'd spray painted or just stuck a magnetic stinger. Yeah it was the magnetic one on it that just said security. That was it. So he was just doing like little laps around the venue with like a handgun and a shotgun. And someone had literally like a pickaxe at the door didn't they? Oh yeah he had a hatchet didn't he? Yeah a fucking hatchet. And that was terrifying. And like I remember trying to go out for a cigarette and they were saying what are you doing? I was like I'm just going for a smoke and they were like don't smoke outside. I'm like what? So I had to smoke outside. That KFC was covered in bullet holes as well. Yeah. Like literally like covered in bullet holes. But that was wild wasn't it? And it was weird because like you could see like there was that you know bridge in the distance that was kind of like connecting the two almost like areas together and you would see people on the other side just looking over. Yeah. But like really weird if you know what I mean. Like you would never see something like that normally where you would be essentially on your island or your side of things and then there's other people going oh what's going on over there and just looking over. I'd never seen anything like it in my life to be honest. But then like that was kind of scary enough and we thought right well we don't want to stay anywhere because like it's we we had it was one of our first US tours so there was we didn't have a driver we were just like we need to get out of here find a motel like usually our routine was play the show figure out how far it was drive as far as we could get a motel sleep for let's try and get as far away from the city as possible so I think we drove at least a good three hours after the show so it's like 2 or 3 a.m. we get to the motel and me and you are at the front aren't we? We arrive at the van. We're in the front of the van we arrive at this place and like it sounds so stereotypical but we arrive at this at this motel thing and finally get some sleep we're away from sketchy Detroit even though we're still in Detroit state and like we were we saw a blacked out SUV we saw like the motel had like two levels didn't it? Yeah. People running out of rooms going to others sort of ladies in dressing gowns sticking their heads out and thinking oh I think I know where this place is and didn't we we saw a guy literally put a backpack in a bush yeah drop off like a legit drop off yeah and then some other dude picked as if like I mean he obviously he was tipped off to where this thing was but no one else would have known where this backpack was just took it walked off and at that point Larissa and Joe had already checked in and you look at me and the guy he walks up to the he knocks on the window asked me for a cigarette and I'm like I don't smoke I was just that was so sketchy and you know bearing in mind we kind of knew it was a it was clearly a prostitute racket and a drugs racket running this motel the room stank of fucking weed and drugs and just overall bad vibes and they're like we're not staying here because we had we had the merch money we had everything yeah that was that was the worst bit wasn't it like you had so much equipment and money and I know we brought the money in with us and stuff and we would try and bring as much gear but the reality is when there's five people in one motel room yeah you're not bringing that much music equipment in with you it's kind of like grab your most valuable possession yeah and that's what's coming with you good luck yeah the van's now locked I hope you wake up in the morning with your stuff I mean it was like that a lot of the time touring you you think oh go to bed hope the van and your gear's still there but yeah with the guy wouldn't give us a refund we just like drove another couple hours and we thought we found a safe hotel which it was and then in the morning when we got in the elevator had bullet holes in two so we were like oh we're still not really out of Detroit then but no we we came out alive though so yeah there's two two sketchy stories yeah another story we're gonna have to say the fire extinguisher one aren't we yeah we're gonna have to say the fire extinguisher one I think I'm sure we've told this story quite a few times but it's still a classic isn't it like I can't I think it was a trap them tour yeah trap them I'm just looking at the tour poster now and I think we were going we were going somewhere in Europe I can't remember where but we were watching commando in the back of the van that's what made this is what makes this story so great is the fact we were watching commando and we had our merch guy with a zach yeah and there was like these fire extinguishers under the seats of the driver and the passenger at the front of the van but somehow zach had managed to like slip his foot under and set one off by accident but it was so loud in the van and it was in like the most action-packed scene of commando yeah there's explosions and things going on isn't there like the grenades are going off and everything and then all of a sudden I'm I've just walked into like a 4dx cinema because there's just white smoke there's just smoke coming up everywhere I'm fucking driving and the way because it comes under the chair it looked like it had come from the electronics like the console in the van so I'm like fuck it's an electrical fire so like I'm just like everyone stay calm do you remember me trying to get everyone out the van yeah like everyone out the van pulled over fucking everyone's there and like uh fucking zach didn't think to tell us I think he was too embarrassed to say that he'd actually let it off but we thought there was an explosion oh it was so funny like that I don't know what happened in that moment it was just like all these like mad scenes in commando going on and like all this like co2 I'm sure it was co2 or something like the whatever the fire extinguisher was under there but like it was just covered in white powder and then just I remember sat in the back and just my first initial thought was just like everyone get out fucking van like I seen you like pulling over and I was like everyone get ready get out the van and then found out it was just a fire extinguisher but Jeff thought his legs had been blown off he thought he'd lost his legs because the explosion and the smoke he was looking for his legs yeah but I would say they're a good couple of our funny tour stories yeah oh and an honorable mention goes to our old old drummer who uh asked me to pull over I thought he was going to be sick or do something he just needed a tissue to blow his nose I still can't get over I've never asked anyone to pull over just to blow their nose that's still the most incredible thing I think I've ever seen somebody request is I need to pull over right now why I've got to blow my nose this is pre-covid as well yeah this is pre-covid but I think there's our tour stories yeah yeah those are the ones that were mentioned on camera