Daniel Albaugh (Die Young)
SPB: What is the longest (in terms of time) tour you’ve been on? Would you be out for that long again?
Albaugh: In Die Young's touring hey-day, mainly 2004-2008, we did quite a few tours that were roughly two months long. Sometimes the tours that included international dates in Asia or Europe felt the longest simply because crossing an ocean and being in a totally different place for weeks at a time gave us the illusion (see what I did there) that we had been out longer than we had. Like the tour in 2006 where we played shows out to California, hopped a plane to Japan and then toured East Asia for three weeks, flew back to California, then played up to Seattle, flew to Alaska for a few shows, then flew back down to Seattle and crossed into Canada to play about a week's worth of shows there, and then toured all the way back down the midwest to Texas. That was about 7 and a half weeks in all, but when I got home it had felt like a lifetime within a lifetime. We did several tours like that, particularly in Europe, where the crossing of borders and oceans and time zones all the time really fucked up our sense of time.
I remember Dan Yemen looking in our van outside of a show we played with Paint It Black at Gilman St. in Berkeley, CA. We were sleeping mainly on our merch bins. He was impressed, and he said, "Wow, you guys tour like real men." That still makes me chuckle and feel a little proud.
But fuck no, as glorious as all that was at that time in my life, I would never do tours that are that long ever again. All my gym gains would go out the window. I love sleeping in the same bed as my lady, and I'd worry about my dogs and cats too much. Touring is miserable, honestly, especially after you have done it for years and years. Like falling in love, it's easy and fun at first, even when it is challenging, but after time it becomes a real chore. At this point we prefer to keep things short and sweet so we can still enjoy playing shows. I really do enjoy playing shows much more now than when we were playing 200+ a year.
