The U.S. on $10 a Day

It was an entirely different world now that The Verve Pipe was signed to RCA. We went from the top of the local ladder to the bottom rung on the national. Big fish in the little pond to minnows in the ocean.

The first step was to get in the van and start to create a buzz on the national scene. We jammed the 5 band members into a 15 passenger van, along with a tour manager (Bill Theis), an assistant tour manager (Jason Rio) and our sound engineer (Boo).


Bill Theis was a large man at 6 foot 2 inches and a couple hundred pounds. He smoked cigars and name-dropped. His self-importance seemed more important then actually getting the job done. I imagined that he saw himself as Colonel Parker, Elvis’s puppet master, though he lacked business skills and work ethic.

Jason Rio was fresh out of college, aggressive, had a dark sense of humor, and good taste in music. We took an instant liking to him, mostly because he got the job done, and remained the voice of reason on the tour.

Boo had been our sound man for a few years. He was a teddy bear of a man. When you see the cliche-ridden rock and roll movies where there was one person that knew everything, from how to fix your headphones to how to re-wire the club’s sound system, he was the guy. He lacked coolness, was not particularly popular with the ladies, and had a simple vocabulary outside of tech-speak. He was the best sound man, truck driver, band supporter and promoter that the band could have had. After a long drive on the way to California and a hook up with another touring band called The Imposters, Boo had unloaded the bags, parked the trailer on a slight hill near the hotel and unhitched the van from it, so that we could tool around town, unencumbered. For some reason, the brake on the trailer failed, and it started rolling down that slight hill, straight toward the traffic of the busy street. As it gained speed, full of our guitars, amps and drums, he jumped on to the front of the trailer hitch, riding it like Slim Pickens rode that atom bomb to the ground in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. With all of his might and weight, he steered hitch wheel of that trailer just enough to send it up onto the curb, safe from the busy street. It threw him off. He got up, smiled a bit and said “That was a close one.” We cheered him, and he acted like it was just part of his job. (Years later, after Boo had left the band to do sound for bigger acts, he had another heroic moment. He was 40 feet up in the catwalk of a theater when a 500 lb. cable broke loose, and was going to crash onto the stage. Boo tried to stop it, grabbing on. It pulled him off the catwalk and sent him down with it. Fortunately, a stagehand was below to help break his fall. He was sent to the hospital for a few weeks with a major break to his pelvic bone. After months and months of rehabilitation, he’s back doing sound. Last I heard, he was out with none other than Bruce Springsteen.)

The Imposters were an L.A. based act. They were to join us for a tour of the U.S., sponsored by Insider Magazine. I remember that they had decent enough songs, but the guys were whiners. They complained constantly, it seemed. Or they were sick, or just tired. I’m not sure what they expected from this tour. We crossed the country with them, playing shows, trying to steal each other’s spotlight. I was confident that most people walked away from the night remembering our show instead of theirs.

Not many people showed up for these shows, outside of the midwest. One promoter refused to put the name of the bands on the marquee. he insisted that there was no point. It would be better to just put up “Tonight: National Act” because no one would recognize our name anyway, he thought. “I should punch this guy in the face” was mine.

By the time we played in Michigan with The Imposters at the end of the tour, we were at our best as performers. We ended the tour on a high note- a show at the State Theater in Kalamazoo. The Imposters got a lukewarm response. Morty, their lead singer, insulted our crowd by telling them that after the show, they (the Imposters) got to leave Kalamazoo, but the crowd was stuck here. We heard the boos all the way in the basement.

We rocked them that night. We played new songs, most of which we would record in San Francisco in the next few months. The crowd ate up “Penny Is Poison”, “Ominous Man” and “Veneer”. We were at our best as performers and songwriters. The question was, would any of this translate onto a recording for a major record label? The answer would be known soon enough.