When U.S. pop-punk favourites State Champs planned their return to Australia this year, they decided to bring along some special guests for the ride.
Arizona rockers The Maine, U.K. emo-pop outfit Hot Milk, and Melbourne alternative rockets Paperweight were more than happy to accept the invite.
After kicking the tour off in Brisbane last week, the bands have two more stops left: tonight at Adelaide’s The Gov and Thursday at Perth’s Magnet House (find ticket information here).
With Aussies turning out in force at every show so far, including one proud 13-year-old fan, the tour’s proven itself as a grand idea. The trip Down Under was in support of State Champs’ latest album Kings of the New Age, which you can listen to here.
To celebrate State Champs and co.’s Australian tour, we thought we’d get one member from State Champs, The Maine, and Hot Milk to tell Tone Deaf about their best and worst stories, which you can check out below. There are beautiful moments, some not-so-beautiful moments, and a whole lot of excessive drinking.
Ryan Scott Graham – State Champs
The Best:
Honestly, I have so many “best tour” stories but one of my favuorites has to be when we did an arena tour with 5 Seconds of Summer in Australia. We were still a pretty new band and this massive artist decided to take a chance on us, so obviously we jumped at the opportunity.
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One day we decided we wanted to go off-site for a meal – we had to sneak out because their fans were pretty wild at the time and would swarm anyone that came out of the entrance, hoping it was 5SOS. Obviously, we didn’t realise the extent of it and just decided, “fuck it, they don’t care about us, let’s just casually go out this side door,” but we completely underestimated the chaos it would trigger because their fans came sprinting after us.
We all looked at each other and took off running down the road, but I straight up felt like a Backstreet Boy or something in that moment. We were all laughing about the fact that they were going to be so disappointed when they realised it was just State Champs and not 5SOS.
The Worst:
This was actually before I was in State Champs. I played in a very DIY band that toured pretty consistently – playing any room that would host a show, sleeping on any floor we could just to save a buck. Our friend was starting a new company that was sort of like Airbnb for bands, people could sign up and host a band as they rolled through their city.
We happened to be the very first band to try out her new company and obviously were really excited at the prospect of having a new way to find places to stay on tour. But as soon as we got to his house, our attitude changed. There were ripped up pieces of toilet paper strewn about all over the floor, the carpet was crusty, bugs were scurrying around, but we thought, “whatever, this guy is nice enough to have us so let’s just get in our sleeping bags, turn out the light and try to get to sleep.”
But as soon as we did that, no joke, he started playing a guitar through an amplifier in the other room. It was straight up midnight and he’s just ripping a solo next door. I was annoyed, I got up to go to the bathroom, brush my teeth and get ready for bed, and I saw a tall pyramid of used Q-tips on the sink in his bathroom – I mean this thing was a deliberate monument of used earwax that he was saving for whatever reason.
I was so disgusted I had to tell the rest of the guys. We all decided we would rather sleep in the van than stay here any longer, so we devised a plan to sneak out, jump in the van, and drive to the nearest Walmart for the night. We just made a run for it, but instead of it being a smooth escape we got stuck backing up the van and trailer in his driveway because it was the dead of winter. As we were working on getting out of there, we saw the guy look through his blinds in a pitch-black house and stare at us and we all burst out laughing because of how ridiculous the situation was.
Looking back on the story, it’s hilarious and we probably escaped staying at some eventual serial killers’ house, but it was easily one of the grossest, most uncomfortable experiences I had ever had on tour. The next day we had to explain to our friend who set us up with this guy what happened, and she eventually bailed on the project altogether. If you’re going to host a band, for the love of god at least run the vacuum cleaner beforehand.
John O’Callaghan – The Maine
The Best:
There are so many good ones, but I will go really sappy and say that we were releasing our record, Lovely Little Lonely, and we were on tour in San Francisco. I had a friend coming to the show who ended up bringing an acquaintance, but I really hadn’t known the person.
After the show we all went out to a bar called The High Low in San Francisco where she lived. Now five years later, she’s my wife and we have an eight-month-old daughter. And that’s probably the best thing that’s happened to me on tour.
The Worst:
The worst would probably be was when I was turning 20-years-old. We were on tour with Boys Like Girls, Good Charlotte, and Metro Station. I had a fake ID at the time, and I bought a big bottle of Jack Daniels. It was my birthday, we were such a new band, and these other artists that we were touring with were older and cooler.
I was trying to keep up with the Joneses. We were in Indianapolis and for whatever reason, something possessed me to run behind the stage. It was an amphitheater kind of stage and it was like grass stairs with concrete blocks that went down.
I ran and tripped on the grass and faceplanted onto the concrete. I broke all four of my front teeth, broke my wrist which I didn’t realise until five weeks later when I got home, and then I had to get surgery on my wrist. I had to get veneers on all four of my front teeth, and then I had to explain to my mother what happened.
Not only did I break my teeth, but then I needed root canals on all four of them, and then I needed veneers and then the veneers chipped, and then I needed a new veneer. Then I realised that I had to get freaking pins in my wrist. It was like a snowball effect for like a year.
James Shaw – Hot Milk
The Best:
It’s a festival story. After COVID we were the first band to play on the main stage at Download Festival after no one had toured for like two years. We went out and everyone was ready to watch live music. We ran out stage and Han (Mee) fucking slipped and absolutely ate shit in front of everyone. It was so fucking funny, but the show was sick. That’s probably been my favorite thing in a long time.
The Worst:
We had played shows with the Foo Fighters. We’ve done a bunch of shows, done a couple of tours and there’s just too much booze going on and we love a party. Han and I drank so much the first time we weren’t even playing. We drank so much booze that I got ejected and I threw up on myself.
The Cribs found me a 20-minute drive away stood against a billboard and gave me a lift home. Then the second time Hannah was so wasted that Pat Smear gave her a carrot to sober her up.
