Story of the Year’s Dan Marsala has a permanent reminder of the band’s time touring Australia: a tattoo of a beer being poured into a Vans shoe.
And somehow, that’s not even the most outrageous party of the story.
More than two decades after their breakthrough debut Page Avenue helped define a generation of post-hardcore, the Missouri rockers have built a… colourful… history Down Under.
From questionable decisions involving Australian wildlife to unlikely friendships, old rivalries and more than a few regrettable shoes, their visits have produced the kind of stories that don’t tend to make it into the official tour diary.
Now, Story of the Year are preparing to add another chapter when they return in February 2027 for the ‘Camp Screamo’ Australian tour, co-headlining alongside Canadian post-hardcore faves Silverstein, with special guests Point North.
Following a sold-out North American run, the tour will hit Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Fremantle and Brisbane.
Ahead of their return, frontman Dan Marsala takes Tone Deaf down memory lane, revisiting five of the band’s most memorable touring moments.
From a reconciliation with Yellowcard that ended years of tension to fining unexpected common ground with Spiritbox at Knottiest, it’s a reminder that sometimes the best stories happen well away from the stage.
As for shoeys? Marsala has a warning for Australian fans: he may be coming prepared this time.
Shoeys
There’s so many awesome, crazy memories from Australia, but what instantly springs to mind is doing shoeys. Maybe I shouldn’t start with this one because the more I talk about doing shoeys, the more people will want me to do shoeys. There were many shows where we figured out what a shoey was, but I just saw a video from the last tour we did there with Senses Fail. I remember I was like, “I’m not doing shoeys anymore, not doing it!”. So gross. But the night before a show there with Senses Fail, we had a tattoo artist come out and I was like, “what can I get a tattoo of?”. The artist was this nice lady, and she says, “I have this rough drawing of a beer being poured into a shoe”. I was like, “No way, that’s so awesome, that’s so Australian!”. So I have a tattoo on my leg of a Vans shoe and a beer being poured into it. I officially have a shoey tattoo. The next night on stage I was like, “oh, look at this, I got a shoey tattoo!”. I showed the crowd and then everybody started chanting “shoey, shoey!”. And obviously I was like, “well, I’ve gotta do it”. But the problem was, this kid threw his shoe on stage and it was disgusting. I did a shoey out of a random dude’s shoe and it was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I survived, I didn’t get sick. But I do believe it’s better if you do it out of your own shoe, then at least it’s your own gross foot. Although it does suck to put a wet shoe back on. I’ve done that before as well, I don’t like that either. Either way, I guarantee I’ll end up doing more shoeys. Me and Buddy (Nielsen) from Senses Fail, on that last Australian tour we were like, “dude, let’s go buy a brand new pair of Vans and just pull that out if we need them for a shoey”. But we didn’t do it. And then I did that gross one that night and I was like, “why didn’t we get the shoes, dude?!”. Maybe I’ll prepare this time. Do shoeys, but do them responsibly.
Taste Of Chaos & Tasmanian Devils
Another memory is from the very first Taste of Chaos that we did in Australia. Killswitch Engage were on it with us, and The Used and Rise Against as well. We went to a park, a wildlife reserve kind of thing, and there was a Tasmanian Devil cage. Howard [Jones] from Killswitch, he was their singer at the time, he jumped into the Tasmanian Devil cage and ran around and then jumped back out. We were all like, “do it, do it, do it!”. Really stupid idea, but he succeeded and he jumped back out. I don’t know what those little guys do to you, but it seemed like you should watch out for them. Then later that night, something even crazier happened involving Howard as well, but I can’t tell that story. He had a really big day that day (laughs). I have a lot of good memories of touring with Killswitch, which is weird because we’ve never done anything with them since then other than one-offs here and there. It’s weird to tour with a band and then not really see each other for 20 years. But they’re great guys, absolutely awesome dudes.
First Headline Tour & Bringing Flogging Molly To Australia
For the first headlining tour we did in Australia, this isn’t a really crazy story, but Flogging Molly was one of our openers. It was Emery and Flogging Molly, and we were headlining. I just thought that was the craziest thing because Flogging Molly were such a staple of more of the punk scene, not so much the emo/screamo/post hardcore/whatever shit we were doing. It was just such a crazy experience to have the band that I looked up to so much in the punk rock scene opening for us in Australia for our first headliner there. And they were just the nicest dudes ever. They were like, “man, you guys are really big here. This is awesome!”. They were so thankful because they had never gotten to Australia before. It was their first time there, and we can say that we brought Flogging Molly to Australia for the very first time. That’s a really cool memory to me, just having them open for us every night, it was really special. I remember going to the airport with them at six in the morning every day, and three of them would just still be up drinking. They would be at the airport drinking Guinness because they have the Irish blood pumping through them. They just never stopped drinking. I’m sure they have at this point (laughs). But awesome guys, and a really cool tour.
Soundwave Counter-Revolution & Mending Yellowcard Rifts
In 2011 we did Soundwave ‘Counter-Revolution’ in Australia, I think that’s what it was called. We were one of the heavier bands on that. It had All Time Low and Yellowcard, those were the people we knew. We had two shows on a weekend and then we’d have four days off and then two shows the next weekend. There was so much downtime in between. Us and Yellowcard had known each other for probably 10+ years before that, but we didn’t get along very well. It was kind of weird because Page Avenue and Ocean Avenue came out at the exact same time, and we just always had this competition and this beef with each other. We all got along, but there’s something about Ryan Key, he just would rub us the wrong way. Before that ‘Counter-Revolution’ tour happened, Ryan came on our bus in America right before we went. He’s like, “look, we’re going to be on tour.” He’s like, “man, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for whatever I’ve ever done to be an asshole to you guys”. We were just like, “oh man, that’s all good dude, us too. We’re sorry”. We had a real heart to heart and became really good friends. So then on that 2011 Australia tour, we just hung out every day. We would go out to bars every single night, all of Yellowcard, all of Story of the Year, and just raged for two straight weeks. And now we are like the closest two bands on the planet and we really love each other, and we’ve toured together so many times since then. So that was the beginning of our really good friendship with Yellowcard on that ‘Counter-Revolution’ tour. And it’s cool, All Time Low were always hanging out as well on that run, but it was just the weirdness of us and Yellowcard before that, and then how we became such good friends during that time. When you’re that far away from home and you’re with people that you know, you just become so much closer, it’s very cool.
Knotfest Australia
We were really scared to do Knotfest in Australia. Well not scared, but weirdly enough, we had just done a Yellowcard tour the summer right before Knotfest. So we went from touring with Yellowcard and Mayday Parade to Knotfest with Slipknot and Megadeth and Parkway Drive. What a difference that is within two months! But Knotfest in Australia was an amazing tour. On that tour, I remember us and Spiritbox were kind of in the middle of the whole day for every show. And we were both the only ones that sang and screamed. They were the closest to us, like, “oh, she sings at least. At least there’s a melody in these songs”. So we bonded over that with Spiritbox, and we became really good friends with them on that tour. Their bass player, Josh [Gilbert], used to be in As I Lay Dying, we’d toured with them a lot back in the day, so that was our in. I remember meeting Spiritbox and just bro-ing down pretty quickly. Their drum tech at the time, TJ, is now our drum tech! We all became friends and then we stole him, kinda. But then he went back and then we stole him again. He’s going to be out in Australia with us, I believe? Actually, I don’t know if he’s doing Australia with us. But I just fondly remember making friends with Spiritbox and bonding over being not the heaviest band there. They’re still a lot heavier than we are, but we were both the ones that stood out a little bit at Knotfest during the day. And it was a pleasant surprise for us in the end, we were a little worried like, “okay, is everybody going to hate us?”. But then every day, the crowd was really into it, and Until The Day I Die would go off every day. I think people were really excited to hear something different throughout the day when you’re hearing so much heavy stuff. Coming straight off touring with Yellowcard to something like Knotfest for us, you’ve got to pick your set-list wisely, and know what’s going to work and what’s not. You can’t play all your heaviest songs in a row on a Yellowcard tour, and vice versa. We always do a little bit of both, but you’ve got to lean a little heavier on a Slipknot tour, of course. It’s awesome for us to be able to do both.
