Misfortune On The Road

Back a few years ago, we were still traveling in two cars when we went on tour. One was always packed full of gear, and one was packed with us. We were heading back from SXSW in Austin, TX and in the middle of the night, in Bryant, AR something weird started happening with our car.

We blew a tire on RK’s [Follese / guitar, lead vocals] SUV but it took a few seconds to register with us. We pulled over and called AAA. When the AAA guy got to us (and he was a really, really nice) he was super “country”. He told us how someone was just killed a mile back by being on the side of the interstate. Scary stuff. Anyway, he took us to a Wal-Mart parking lot and since we had a tire iron, he changed the tire for us. As we were about to pull out of the parking lot, we saw a NAIL sticking out of the OTHER front tire!!! Really? So we bought “Fix-A-Flat,” put it in the tire and rolled out, hoping for the best. We are still alive, so you guys can probably guess that we made it home… but Ian [Keaggy / bass, vocals] had a crappy ride back.

I can’t quite remember why, but we slammed on the brakes at one point. Ian was in the car that carried our gear, which included a 60lb amp head. Somehow the slamming of brakes threw the monster of an amp all the way to front, onto the gear shift… that Ian was resting his hand on! He would’ve broken his wrist if he hadn’t been wearing a good sturdy watch.

We hoped the worst of the trip was over, especially for Ian who almost broke his wrist. Unfortunately, RK wanted to mess with him a little bit more!

When we got to Nashville, we were about to switch cars with Ian and go our separate ways. But, of course, Ian wanted to stop at McDonalds first. He got a chicken sandwich, and put it in our car while he went to get his bags. RK reached back with lightning speed and unwrapped the sandwich. He took a bite and wrapped it up again. We waited anxiously for Ian’s reaction. It couldn’t have happened more perfectly. We started driving, and heard Ian unwrapping his chicken sandwich. Then all we could hear was Ian yelling, “HEY! Who took a bite of my chicken sandwich?” It was funny!

Hot Chelle Rae
October 2009

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