Judging by the devastating power of The Devil and The Sea's latest Heart Vs Spine I can only imagine the unfathomable noise this trio produces in a live environment. So until I catch them live, this hilarious, insightful and downright revealing tour diary will do. Read on and spread the word!

by bassist and vocalist Ryan.

Trudging through 7000 miles of mostly uphill highway on borrowed time and a borrowed 15-passenger van covered in rust holes is awesome. I highly recommend it. I know it sounds sarcastic, but it's not. The feeling of seriously not knowing what to expect next, "what's around the next curve?", "can we make it to the top of this fucking mountain in this heap?", "will this border checkpoint find our herbal remedies?", and so on is good shit. I likes me some adventure.

First up to bat was Austin, TX @ Room 710 with Jucifer and our good friends The Roller. I like playing in Austin because people really seem to like to drink beer there... And there were a lot of beer drinking people out at the show thanks mostly to the Jucifer's being so awesome.

We played on the floor because basically you're lucky to squeeze your beergut into the club when Jucifer is playing. If you haven't seen Jucifer's stage set-up... It's worth the price of admission alone just to ogle at its mountainous grandeur. I'll put it this way, they're a 2 piece band and there is just barely enough room for them to be on the stage. I'm pretty sure they have at least one, if not six, of every amp and speaker cabinet ever made since the Paleozoic era. We rocked our little hearts out and played pretty well... No major fubars to recollect. The Roller then built an atomic wall of raging dinosaur battle cries and swan nebula ectoplasm dripping from the heavens... I likes The Roller a lot.

We stayed the night at Mike from The Roller's house and listened to records, drank the sauce and got greened until sleepytime...Ahhhh.  

I guess now I should mention the show in San Antonio.... Well i will just say that it fucking ruled!!! The place was like a video poker junkie's wet dream come true and it wreaked of Bob Seger and NASCAR. One of the bands we played with, we'll just call them 'Tough Fucking Dudes,' so as not to ruffle their unruffleables, made sure to mention the name of their band in between every song. Couple that with the fact that each and every band member had on their own band's T-shirt and some mirrored, Oakley Blade-type sunglasses made for a lasting impression. Dave (guitar) then opened up his guitar case to find that his early 80's Les Paul Black Beauty was cracked. I thought he was gonna hulk out or something. Way lame. So he was forced to play on one of the other band's guitars, which turned out to be a sweet candy apple red LTD shred stick. We played to the 4 dudes in the other band, a guy that I guess was a pimp, or a pimp in training or something who just smiled at us the whole time, and the bar owner who by this point was piss drunk. She wasn't good piss drunk either. It was like crying and screaming with snot pouring out of your nose drunk. Way to run things, champ. After we loaded up we came to the conclusion that we were somewhat fucked without a guitar, so our good buddy John Carroll that was with us on the trip took one for the team said he would fly back to Lafayette to get Dave's other guitar and then fly and meet us at the airport in El Paso. Fly Johnboy, fly!!!

We got a last minute email from the venue in El Paso saying that the show tonight is cancelled due to some kind of toxic sewer explosion so just go ahead and drive from San Antonio to Los Angeles...That's cool, thanks. We like not playing and we like buying gas. Oh there you are sarcasm, glad to have you back. So we drive to El Paso to pick up our tour savior, John, at the airport and then get right back onto the highway.

Somewhere along our drive after that we had the weirdest run-in with the cops that I've ever experienced... It was about 3 or 4 in the morning and we were haggard at best. Blue and red lights go off behind us accompanied by that lovely siren serenade. "Oh fuck!" was the general consensus and Couch, another friend from home that was with us, diligently started stashing all that needed not be found by said coppers. The cop, which turned out to be a border immigration patrol walked up the side of the van and started doing the stiff-face flashlight guy routine and then he just asked us if we were all American. We said "yessa, yessa massa" and he turned off his flashlight, said he was sorry and that he didn't want to bother us any further. He asked us what band we were and told us to "rock on'' and that was that. It's like whoa?

So we had 2 days to cover about a thousand miles and we did what any normal vanload of dudes would do in this situation. We went about 200 miles out of our way and got shit-faced at the Grand Canyon while bar-b-queing hotdogs and getting attacked by crows. I recommend this as well. Tip: crows at the Grand Canyon are not afraid of you hurling beercans at them. They will still swoop in on your Hormel chili can on top of the B-B-Q pit with complete disregard for whether or not you've topped of your dog yet. They want chili and they're gonna get it.

The next show was in Los Angeles, or Canoga Park actually. It was an all ages club that did not take kindly to our alcoholism. Thank the almighty liver in the sky for the Irish pub right next door. We would have surely died with out your savory, delicious pints. We played with some good local bands (and this is not sarcasm) and then followed the owner, who hated us at first because we were drinkers, to get greened.

Then it was on up to the bay. San Francisco was a hilarious place to spend the day. We got into town early and decided to go check out some of the skate-spots we've been seeing in videos and magazines for the last 15 years or so. We parked and got out of the van to stretch and within 35 seconds some dude was already 'welcoming' us to his city and quite blatantly checking out the inside of our van. So back in the van we go to hopefully avoid this dude jacking our shit. We parked in a different part of the city, closer to Annie's where we would be playing that night, and almost stepped into a cluster of junky rigs. About 8 of 'em in a pile. Next to that was a broken out windshield and next to that was more syringes. We all kinda gave our best fake laugh and walked past it only to come across a cowboy boot that someone had taken a shit in.

Pretty crafty shit-takin' if you ask me.

The show that night was pretty good for a Wednesday and we made some new friends. Shane from Walken/Hightower was really good to us and put us up for the night. Thanks broski!

We got up somewhat early and headed North, North, North to Eugene, OR. We were meeting up with Will from Middian at his house to sample some scrumptious all vegan food for pre-show dinner action. I am a pretty rigorous meat-eater and I have to say that the food Will cooked was awesome. It filled me all up and didn't make me poo-butted. Ross and the guys from Impaled showed up and it was a full house of vegan eatin' heshers. Somebody from Impaled, I think it was Jason, got bit on the ass by Will's dog. Dogbite, on my leg, not right, supposed to beg...

The show at Samurai Duck that night was awesome as all fucking get out! Middian ruled, Impaled is a perfect fucking display of what death/grind should be, and Tormentium threw down some killer black metal. We were a little nervous to play to those guy's crowd just because we don't have a single double-bass part or any galloping or double picking at all. But it went great people got into it and it was one of the best shows of the tour. I can't thank Will enough for going out of his way to hook us up.

We stayed at Will's that night and proceeded to drink rather profusely. Will had 2 mason jars full of homemade moonshine and Shane (drums), being the victim of his own devices, decided to drink about half of a jar. I'm pretty sure it would have killed a lesser man. But instead of dying, he thought it best to sleepwalk (read: drunkwalk) into the living room and piss on the couch that one of Will's friends was sleeping on.

They were all surprisingly understanding about it and said it wasn't the first time it had happened... Good times in Eugene!!!

Now we're headed up to Portland to do another night with Impaled at Satyricon. Shane is a dehydrated zombie at this point and wants no part of anyone's ridicule, but of course, gets it anyway. Tonight we are also introduced to Splatterhouse, a killer grind band with Joe from Skarp on drums. Another awesome band called Funerot played as well. Portland was cool, we got to hang out with Eric from Black Elk, which we met about a year earlier when they toured in our neck of the woods. Funny fuckin' dude and he completely rips the shit out of a headless Steinberger/Mike & The Mechanics guitar. Ya gotta love it. This show as well was a humdinger of a time. Lotsa people and lotsa beer. Thank you Portland.

Next stop, Seattle! We played with Butt Trumpet, just kidding, but that woulda been rad. We did another night with Impaled and Splatterhouse at The Chac Lower Lounge. The stage was made out of logs... Seriously, fucking log stage. Ross and the guys from Impaled were some of the best, down-to-earth, 'good dudes' you could ever hope to play with. They treated us as if we were old friends and their crowds were good to us as well. We definitely like the Northwest!

We left immediately after the show (well, right after a round of shots with the Impaled and Splatterhouse crews) for what was about an 18-hour drive if I remember correctly... Seattle to Reno. This drive was considerably worse than tea bagging a badger cage. Mostly due to the fact that we never seem to stop drinking.

We pulled into Reno around 7 pm the next day and met up with Dean from Witch-Lord. Fuckin' killer guy! Immediate green-ness ensued upon entry into the Witch-Lair. The show was somewhat haggard due to it being a Monday night and also, because no one knows who the fuck we are. But it was good times and they had a dude on the patio of the club with a full-on gravity bong! Not a very inconspicuous piece of paraphernalia to lug around to shows. But... Don't mind if I do...

Now comes the real drive... Reno to Lubbock, TX. 26 hours all in all on this one, due to Arizona being a hole in the universe. I can't even begin to explain the various different avenues I took trying to get shows in Arizona. I even had Nate from NanoTear Booking helping me with some contacts and friend's bands of friend's bands telling me who I should talk to. I tried internet scene sites, I even sent up a smoke signal at dawn to try and reach the natives for a teepee show and a sweatlodge or something... Nothing. (queue the music to High Plains Drifter for effect)

Along the highway we had a blow out and had to see if our borrowed van had a working jack. That's correct, we hadn't really checked until this point. We saw a jack-looking-lump on the floorboard when we were loading up, but that was the extent of the check. It was basically various pieces of three different jacks. But it was enough to work. The hardest part was finding a spot on the van that was rust-free enough to jack the fucker up. Right as we were dropping her sexy ass back onto the ground, some lady pulled up behind us looking like she just came from church. She motioned me over to her window and asked me if we would help her friend who has a spinal injury and a flat that he can't change about a mile up the road. She said she'd pay us for our troubles. Fuck yeah! We're in the hole already and we needed a new tire so it was instant badassedness!!! We rolled up there and fixed your boy's tire and we felt like heroes to the tune of 40 smackers.

We got to Lubbock right as it was time to set up and play. Man, it's funny being in a van full of dudes for a couple of weeks. You pretty much just end up talking about 3 basic things; 1) which part of your body smells the worst 2) which part of somebody else's body smells the worst 3) shitting. Well as we were rolling into Lubbock we were joking around about having the runs and talking to yourself in the bathroom during these painfully trying times. Like, "c'mon man, do me a solid" in terms of getting a solid dook to come out. Well low and behold when we showed up at the club there was a band from California playing already and as we were loading our gear out of the van, we kinda all stopped at the same time and dropped our jaws in awe at the song that we heard them playing. Now, I'm not sure if this is the name of the song they were playing but the chorus was, "Do Me A Solid" fucking amazing...we still sing this song and pump our fists in dook related awesomeness.

After this we headed back to Austin for the SXSW music festival. We have shitloads of friends in Austin and we didn't really have any shows lined up but we fell into some good ones. We ended up playing 2 shows in the 3 days we were there. We would have played another one but the cops shut it down before it was our turn to tango. That's the only shitty thing about SXSW, the people that run it are pretty damn cutthroat about any other shows going on while their shows are going on... Weird, but whatever. We played the FXFY stage at the Typewriter Museum and that shit was also one of our best shows of the tour. It was mid-day Tejas heat and the beer flowed freely from the kegs. We drank like we were in dire need of hangovers and saw some great bands for free and ate all the killer Mexican food our guts could withstand.

All in all our little 2008 west coast tour was extremely fucking fun. We met some great people and drank a lot of cold ones... Even got a little skating in every now and then. Thanks to Will and Middian for everything, thanks to Ross and Impaled for having us along for a few days, and thanks to Dean and Witch-Lord for the greenialties and the late night red curb session. I guess we'd just like to thank god and Whitney Houston and all the people that shit in cowboy boots around the world for making this scabby voyage of belligerence as interesting and full of 'what-the-fuckery' as it was.

Till next time, cheers!

Live Photos by Corey Meadows

Read the Deaf Sparrow review of The Devil and The Sea's Heart Vs Spine

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