(Drummer Jesse Frimmer, singer Victor Viramontes-Pattison, and guitarist Matthew Fowler)
What was one of your favorite stops on the tour?
Jesse: Definitely a top one would be our biggest show on the headlining tour, and our New York Show …
Each venue is very grand in its own way. So, you're like, "wow, it's so big."
Matthew And Victor: We did, we played Hell in Atlanta, The Masquerade and Marquee Theater in Denver.
We love going to Colorado already and everyone at Marquee has always been super, super nice to us and the green rooms are just beautiful and spacious, and they give us pizza!
I think it's like a really comfortable experience as a fan too, in there.
So that room is really cool and there's options, you know, for where to sit, where to stand in.
Victor: We already had a ton of ideas sonically of what we could do and we've always talked about a lot of bands, like Five Seconds Of Summer and The Foo Fighters are a huge influence on us. And we think at least in our minds, that was kind of the hope... marrying those two types of bands of like the really pop centric, like younger band and this classic, you know, rock, not classic rock, but like the writer style, just the timeless sound and a lot of the writing for it. I think we tried to have it kind of like, chronicle us moving to Nashville and, like, feeling unsure about our place, like, as a band here or just in general and like, it sort of has a nice resolution of like, you know, oh, I should call my friends and like, everything's gonna be ok and all we are who we have sonically.
I mean, we went all over the place sonically and like those two examples, the Fighters and Five SOS and, you know, I think we listen to like even some Limp Bizkit and the new Demi Lovato record and heavier things and we just said, why limit ourselves? Let's, let's go all over the map on it.
Matthew: It usually starts early, we could be loading in the gear by 1:00 pm and that could lead directly into sound check starting. From sound check we may have an hour before meet and greets or before we get ready to go on.
Jesse: That hour we honestly have to decide between do we eat, shower, do laundry, or call loved ones.
You can maybe do like two of those things. We'll be deciding “I can eat, I can call my partner, or I can do laundry that I haven't done in a week or two”. Usually you're doing laundry at like 2:30 am in the morning at the local Travel Center.
It gets hectic but we wouldn't trade it for anything.
Michael: On the merch side of things, It usually takes me 2 hours from the end the show until I can sit down and relax. This includes the final rush of sales plus the show settlement, count out, and merch settlement where applicable.
In small cap and mid cap rooms the most time consuming part can be finding and planning for drop shipments. Many venues are not open regular business hours and not able to receive deliveries and this means sourcing a location nearby planning time into your schedule to pick up deliveries yourself. Often you are travelling with only one trailer when in these rooms and that means more frequent deliveries due to limited carrying capacity.
Victor: It's all about time management. When you get lunch somewhere, order an extra so when you are done with your set and finally back at the hotel, the bus, trailer, wherever you're staying...you have food to eat since it is most likely after 1:00 am and everything but McDonalds is closed.
Michael: Try to be courteous to other fans in line by deciding what you want before you get to the front and have your payment ready.
Matthew: We just went to When We Were Young Fest and got to meet Vic from Pierce The Veil and Jaime, which was super cool. Absolutely love that band.
Victor: I have a Pierce the Veil Tattoo. I've seen that band like eight times. They were super cool to meet.
Jesse: We've been lucky to actually meet quite a few artists/bands while on tour, one of the most exciting has to be Michelle Branch.
Victor: Everybody, we mean everybody loves Michelle Branch. I want to be a part of the Michelle Branch revival.
(Guitarist Matthew Fowler, Singer Victor Viramontes-Pattison, and Drummer Jesse Frimmer)
Victor, Matthew & Jesse: There's so many artists … in the top though would have to be Waterparks! Honey Revenge we'd love to collaborate with them as well, we love working with them. Daisy Grenade, Cassadee Pope, Five Seconds Of Summer, Fall Out Boy....but we could go on and on, there are so many more we could list out.
The Happy Accident ... Iconic AIA Merch
Victor: Caffeine. So much caffeine. Matt got an Aero Press, shout out Aero Press! He brought an Aero Press on this one which if you've never made boiling hot coffee in a vehicle while moving...you are missing out on the most ridiculous power stance you will ever have to make for caffeine. You spread your legs as far as possible and you gotta hope the driver doesn't hit the brakes because you will go straight into the wall. Jesse got slammed into the wall.
Jesse: We need to give a huge shout out to Maria Fulan who did most of our merch and Andrew Steven Cook did all the latest assets from this tour. One of the items that ended up being created on accident was the Cheetos jersey, that turned into having a life of its own.
Victor: That Cheetos jersey... I have never spent a better $12 on a thrifted item. While we were in Dallas for a show we came across a thrift store a few blocks from where we were staying and found it. For however many shows after I found it I would wear it. In Denver, at Mary theater we asked our fans if we should make merch of this? And everyone said yes. And then we made it and it does great! Now we're so happy and then we made like white Cheetos Jerseys for ourselves to wear on stage. So it's become a staple for sure. It's a very distinctive too, like that's not like, oh, it's a band T shirt. We've since been back and unfortunately that thrift store isn't there anymore.
Fans Cheering on AIA As They Enter The Stage For Their First Headlining Tour
Victor: There are a few that come to mind. When we met Vic from Pierce The Veil, besides being fans of him and getting to meet in him person, the entire interaction was hilariously memorable. To start off, my name is also Vic...as he went around introducing himself he would shake our hands and go "Vic". Jesse goes first says “Jesse”, then Matt goes “Matt”, I just look him in the face and say "Vic" and he just looked at me. Jesse finally had to say "that's also his name, he is also Vic, not just shouting your name at your face like an idiot."
Matthew: Teddy Swims gave me one of his hats after one of his shows. We are big fans and when we saw him we told him what a great show it was and I mentioned that I liked the Jigglypuff hat he was wearing and he took it off and gave it to me. He said "it's kind of sweaty but you should have it" and walked away and I now have a Jigglypuff hat thanks to Teddy. It's awesome.
Michael: What I like about touring is the structure of it. Every day is planned out down to the minute and I am able to thrive in that environment. The worst part is being away from my dogs and girlfriend at home. I always miss them but thankfully this lifestyle allows me to be home with them 24/7 when I am not on the road which I am thankful for.
Jesse and Matthew Live On Tour
Victor: With this record we started writing almost immediately after our Be More EP came out. I remember Matt and I were living together at the time and we were at home listening to the track and we were like, "We're on to the next record already. Let’s do this."
Victor: It kind of blew our minds. Being independent and being this far into things, like we kind of forget to look up from the Grindstone every once in a while. It was really pleasant surprise, to win Top Seller.
So, you know, thanks for, thanks for doing that. Thanks for recognizing!
Jesse: It took a long time to get to this point but it was so worth it. I wouldn't say we went the typical band path, we still do so much independently so i would say we are more like an industry parasite than your usual industry plants.
Matthew: We are taking the tour across the pond. It's the first time for all three of us to be in the UK both as tourists and to tour! We end this year with a show in Philly and that closes out this tour. But what’s next? We're working on more music of course. We've got some things cooking as they say… big things coming next year. That sounds so anticlimactic because we can't share yet what those are but there are a lot of things we are working on and people we are having conversations with. We think next year will be the biggest year yet and hope to share some of what we are planning in the next few months!