Dan Jones (California X)
SPB: How many vans have you had? (Any related “death of a” stories?)
Jones: The short answer is: One.
Our main touring vehicle during the first few years of the band was a Red Jeep owned by Lemmy-The-Singer. It was a tight fit, and we had to borrow gear at a lot of the shows we played. It was so packed with boys that the shocks would bottom out any time we hit a bump on the highway, causing everyone to wince. We got our one and only True Tour Van when Jesse from Hoax moved away from Western Mass. He was going to junk their old van but offered it to us first. We gladly purchased it from him for $500. It was a white Dodge Ram 15-Passenger that used to belonged to Ampere before it passed to Hoax. Our first trip out was down south and things went smoothly until we returned home, when the front right wheel fell off near UMass a few miles from our house. It was a cheap fix, and we continued on. The van made it a little longer and helped us out on our full-U.S. tour, but the transmission blew in Connecticut around 3am during our return trip. The van dying played a huge role in the decline of our activity as a band. We still play shows sometimes, but the death of that van really killed a lot of our motivation to play. Soon after that, our lives became busier and we found that we didn't have as much free time to tour, and the prospect of renting a van was kind of a bummer. I really do miss that van almost every day.
Pictured: The day after Jesse dropped the van off at our house.
