Hello and welcome to the seventh installment of Eric Morgan’s How To Kill Your Band. This column offers advice to up and coming artists from the perspective of a professional musician who has thrived with and without label support over the last decade. If you have any questions regarding the content of this blog, or if you would like to learn more information about the services offered by Haulix, please email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
An Introduction:
I’ve been in the music industry as an artist for nearly 10 years now. In that decade I’ve achieved nearly all of my childhood music dreams, but I’ve also made just as many mistakes that run over my mind before I fall asleep each night. A wonderment of how a few different decisions, rerunning in hindsight, would work out in some alternate universe. This ever creeping determinism is a fallacy I’m quite aware of but one that I will never completely shake, though it’s these experiences I’ve learned the most valuable lessons. These are the things I’d like to share in a series of mini-blogs I call How To Kill Your Band.
Part 7 – Down With The Sickness
On the road you’re going to roll the dice quite frequently. Sleeping in sketchy parking lots, never washing your hands, loading gear while simultaneously resisting knife wielding St. Louisans trying to rob the 50” plasma TV you just won the night before in a raffle while watching the Super Bowl in a Tulsa, OK Hooters because the show snowed out. It’s tour and it’s a kind of a weird thing to want to do and taking risks is sort of a necessity. Our modus operandi was always to find ways to limit the downsides i.e. putting new locks on our trailer, depositing cash every couple days, leaving way too early for the next venue etc. But sometimes probability catches up with you and things get shitty. Sometimes you decide to eat at a DQ Grill.
On a beautiful spring day in 2010 we were heading eastbound on I-90 from Buffalo on our way to Holyoke, MA and I suddenly felt a slight urge to use the bathroom. Per usual, I made a request to our rod hog Patrick Jeffers to stop at the next exit. Driving along in our dependable Chevy things started to feel unevenly heavy. Then just completely wrong. I’m now in a deep sweat yelling at Jeffers that we need to find an exit or pull off into the woods. Fortunately we opted for the 6.0L V8 that helps him channel his inner Dale and we top 90 mph before spotting the dirty gas station oasis in the distance – I’ve never been more relieved in my life.
That ordeal concluded, it was smooth sailing to Massachusetts. Except 15 minutes later I get a very familiar feeling in my stomach. How could this be?! Immediately we rush to a rest area and this time I’m not just feeling heavy down low, I’m now upchucking at the same time. For the next 100 miles I repeat a pattern of vomit and diarrhea at the same time every 15 minutes like clockwork.
By the time we get to the venue in Holyoake, I’m very worried about my health. I’ve spent hours expelling liquids from every orifice to the point that I’m just a dripping bag of bile. Jeffers made the decision to drop the trailer and have our vocalist, Justin Brown, rush me to the closest hospital while they loaded in the equipment. We roll into the emergency room and explain the situation to the receptionist before sitting down in the seats closest to the restroom. It doesn’t seem too busy, only a few other people waiting, so I’m fairly confident I’ll get in and out with some type of medicine before we are scheduled to go on that night. A couple hours go by and my condition is getting worse. I’m still puking and pooping every couple minutes and I’m getting very weak and dehydrated while slightly starting to worry for my life. It’s getting closer to the show start and I’m realizing there’s no way I could possibly play a show in this condition. I’ve never missed or canceled a show due to sickness but it’s just not possible. I’d literally be pooping my pants on stage.
A half hour before our set time I still haven’t been able to see a doctor so Justin decides they’re going to try and play as a four piece so we’ll at least earn our guarantee. I was super bummed that I had to miss a show due to illness but I’ve never been more proud of the other guys for stepping up and going through with the show as a four piece. Just for perspective, we had always been and recorded as a three guitarist band. Literally two weeks before we had to let one of our guitarist go in the middle of the previous tour. Jeffers and I had just crammed three intense guitar tracks down to two and now it was just going to be one. But he got up on stage, without a chance to even think the parts over, and straight killed it.
After twelve hours of wilting away in the waiting room I finally get called back to see a doctor. After 20 minutes I was told I had viral gastroenteritis, an inflammation of the stomach and both upper and lower intestines. That’s pretty much all he did because he didn’t prescribe medication or put me on an IV to deal with the severe dehydration. I stumble out of the ER with a new word for the describing the worst I’ve ever felt and a $700 bill. The band decides to meet up with Attila at a nearby motel and get a room with the night’s guarantee so I can have a bed to sleep in.
What I didn’t know was that during the set Justin announced deadpan to the crowd that I had died. So after another night of horrific amounts of expulsion we meet up with the other bands in the morning who are all shocked to see that I am infact alive. We also learn from a local that there’s another ER nearby that has a policy of no wait times over two hours. Great. With the help of a little dopamine I was able to hold down enough fluids to play the next nights show and started recovering after a couple days. It was without a doubt the worst I’ve ever felt in my life.
Four days later, Jeffers got it.
