…Continued from ‘An Introduction to the Best/Worst Tour‘

The first show on this tour was a DJ set at Ding Dong Lounge in the Melbourne CBD. It was a small venue that treated us greatly while we were in town. Brandon Novak still hadn’t arrived in the country and most of us were not even expecting him to get through customs or even on the plane. Alex told me a story about Novak boarding a plane and when the hostess told him about the rules and instructions of the exit row he pulled down his sunglasses, looked at her and replied “babe if this plane crashes we’re all going down”. Immediately Novak was asked to leave the airport.  I still hadn’t met Novak but was already a bit worried what he’d be like on the tour. I told Alex Flamsteed, the drummer of Guttermouth and partner in organising this tour, that I’m not into Jackass shit. I don’t want to be woken up with a dildo in my mouth or tasered in my sleep. That’s just not me. He assured me that Novak was nothing like that and I wouldn’t have anything to worry about. My arse did get tasered by Bam a few days later, but let’s save that for later on down the blurry track.

The first show was probably the tamest for Bam, but also it made me realise right away that this was going to be a fucking messy tour for Alex. Slightly impressionable, light hearted, sometimes rude to people but one of my closest friends; this tour is exactly what Alex wanted.  The DJ set started off great. Bam called his mother April (aka Ape) in front of the entire audience and told her to say “hello” to Melbourne, Australia. After her greetings the crowd loudly cheered and everyone in the audience had a smile on their face. “Why aren’t you fucking Phil?” shouts Bam as he wakes her up for her sleep. I am known somewhat as a softy and started getting goose bumps while this was happening. I took a deep breath and thought to myself that this is going to be a great tour, with not too many hiccups. Alex was jumping off the railings, feeding the crowd straight vodka and dancing like an idiot on stage – something I’ve never seen him do. I still loved it at the time.

It seemed like a pretty normal night. I went to bed around 3am and was looking forward to a nice sleep in before our road trip to Ballarat, Victoria in the morning. I remember coming inside and accidentally waking up Matty J, my housemate while we were in Victoria. Actually there were too many people in the room. A guy called Michael who only came on this leg of the tour because he had broken up with his girlfriend, Rhys and our driver Dunners. All we had in the room was two single beds and a couch. It wasn’t the most comfortable sleep I’ve had, but who gives a fuck about sleeping patterns. Let’s just say that I was just about to go to sleep and I get a phone call from Alex. He wasn’t making any sense though. He slurred and rushed whatever he was talking about and all I got from it was that the police might be in the building. I didn’t know what it meant. As far as I knew Bam, Nikki, Chad and Alex had gone to bed. Boy was I wrong. I can only tell you my memories about this story as I was asleep and didn’t exactly know what was going on. I put my head down and slept for about 30 minutes until I hear a knock on the door. I slowly woke up shirtless and only in my boxer shorts, stumbled to the door and opened it. Standing there were three police officers and the hotel manager staring at a semi-erect penis through my small boxer shorts. I was clearly thinking bad thoughts in my sleep, but they were definitely not impure enough to get arrested. I was so confused, embarrassed and fucking tired. Whatever Alex mumbled into the phone earlier is why the boys in blue were ready to arrest me. It’s funny, they asked if I was Brandon Margera. Clearly they could see that everyone in this room was fast asleep and not involved in anything worthy of getting arrested. The police leave and 20 minutes later they knocked back on the door and made me go to level 8 with them, where Bam & Nikki were staying. I put on pants and a shirt and followed them up, half asleep.

Bam came out of the room angry and yelled at the police and hotel management saying that he hadn’t done anything wrong. The main cop was a tall, dark haired, middle aged guy who had no idea who Bam was. The other was in his late 20s or early 30s and once Bam slammed the door in their face said to the main cop “you know who that is right?”. Sorry I keep calling him “the main cop” but I have no fucking clue what the technical name for a big boss cop is. Sargent? I don’t care I’m going to keep calling him the main cop. Actually I’ll call him Murtaugh. So Murtaugh did not give a shit who Bam was and had the hotel management, a small Indian fellow, open the door up. He asked Bam to come out into the hallway and talk. “All you need to do is come downstairs and apologise mate” said Murtaugh. Bam said that there was no way he would apologise. “What are you going to do?” he said to the younger cop, who I’ll call Riggs. “We can arrest you right here” said Riggs, in quite a nervous tone. “Arrest me for what?! You’re a rookie. Look at you, you’ve got no idea what to say” bam yells to Riggs. “You’re speechless! Why aren’t you saying anything?” he continues with his eyes drunkenly looking right into Riggs eyes. Murtaugh wasn’t having any of it though. “Are you really going to speak like that to the Victorian Police? I don’t give a shit who you are” Murtaugh yells. “Don’t bring a rookie cop with you next time” Bam quickly replies. “I think a few hours in lock up is what you need mate” said Murtaugh. I tried following Bam into the lift with the two police officers. “Fuck off or you’ll come to the station too!” said Riggs, who by this time stepped up and was absolutely getting sick of Bam calling him a rookie cop. I have a feeling this cop was once a fan of Bam judging by his nerves of when he first met him – but he probably isn’t any more. The police wouldn’t let anyone come into the lift. Myself, the hotel staff or Nikki were told we could not join them on the way down.

I took the next lift down and before the doors opened I could already hear the yelling and swearing in the hotel foyer of Citadines, Melbourne. Murtaugh comes straight up to me and says “get him the fuck away from this building or we’ll arrest him”. I grabbed Bam by the arm and said “man, this is fucked let’s just go somewhere and get a drink”. He was a little hesitant but followed my instructions, and joined myself and Leon Hill (the publicist) through the exit. “I need a smoke first” Bam demanded, and low and behold there was a fresh smoke on the ground. That was fucking lucky because I wanted him to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. “Just fuck off” Murtaugh kept yelling, and that is exactly what we did. We ran for about 3 minutes before jumping into a taxi. Why did we run? No fucking idea, but I’m not exactly a fitness freak so that took it out of me. We drove to a dive club called Revolver and we were all greeted with open arms by the security. They quickly made us a private room, gave us unlimited free drink cards and the room filled with hot women within 20 minutes, after a quick interview bam did explaining what had happened. We also sold an extra 100 tickets in each city.

This was my first night with Bam and I haven’t even begun to talk about the actual concerts or my experiences with Brandon Novak.

It wasn’t exactly the arrival of Novak that made things go downhill, but he certainly oiled up the wheels to its descent. I still had never met him and to be honest didn’t know too much about him other than the fact he was famous for being a fuck up. He was instructed by Alex and Bam to not touch a drop of alcohol or have any drugs before and during his flight. This made my first impression of Novak a really good one. Not many people, certainly no one in Australia, really got to meet a sober Novak. He was so polite and kind hearted. I was shocked and so happy. That night I told Alex that I was really glad that he came along on the tour. He was fine after one bottle of wine, but unfortunately for someone like Novak one bottle is too many and a thousand isn’t enough – a little bit like myself. The difference is that I can handle my alcohol normally and know when to call it quits. I am notorious for just suddenly leaving a party, or “smoke bombing” before anyone knows that I’ve left. This isn’t about me though, this blog entry is about the Australian Fuckface Unstoppable tour in January 2013.

Chad Ginsburg was one of the most professional people I have ever worked with, and he taught me a lot along the way. He saw my stress and helped me out whenever I needed help. If I instructed the group to be in the lobby of the hotel by 11am, he was there 15 minutes earlier. It was sad to see him leave the tour but there was just no way he could watch his friend drink himself to death. It probably took us about three days to click and trust each other but I was so fucking glad he came. “I’ve been touring for 20 years and have never left, ever!” said Ginsburg, sitting on the floor of my house in Brisbane, Australia.

Anyway I am going back and forth. I still haven’t touched on one concert, but let’s just say things went really downhill from the first night. On the way to Ballarat I had a really important phone call to make so I sat at the front of the tour van. Keep in mind I was working on working permits/visas for another tour for a promoter friend of mine, while trying to keep this whole mess together. Halfway through the phone call I suddenly get sat on by a naked Nikki Boyd, with her arse right on the cheek of my face. I hear everyone laughing hysterically in the background while my face turns bright red. I stutter on the phone and try to keep my tone serious while she’s trusting on me. Holy shit this was not going to be an easy tour. I’ll end this blog with a picture of us driving to Ballarat – our first show. But I also want you to know that you should stop reading about all the bullshit. I think I’ll be the only honest person, and I was the closest one to do so. I’m hoping by the end of these blogs you will love Bam, Chad Ginsburg, Brandon Novak, Louie Kovatch, Nikki Boyd, Matty J, Alex Flamsteed, Leon and everyone else who made this tour possible. My intention is to shed light and destroy or tone down the rumours that were spread around this tour. Of course you can make your own mind up, but you may as well listen to someone who was there throughout the whole journey. A journey that hasn’t even finished yet.