METALSUCKS WELCOMES NEW GUEST BLOGGER, DAATH GUITARIST EYAL LEVI
MetalSucks is proud to announce that we’ve stolen Daath’s Eyal Levi away from our friends at Headbanger’s Blog. We did this because we love Eyal, and also to spite Viacom. Eyal will check in with his column, “Jumping Darkness Parade,” when he can. We hope you enjoy!
Be safe. Travel safe. Drive safe. On and on and on. Everyone says that to me when I’m on tour. Family, friends, people at the clubs, people in other bands, etc. I’m always hearing about how safe I should be. In all reality, if I cared about my safety I wouldn’t tour. Not a chance.
There is nothing safe about touring in a van. Daath owns a maroon twelve seater Ford van. For the uninitiated, that means that there’s supposed to be three benches. We took out a bench in the back to make a sleeping area for two. It’s perfect for when we’re moving. Two people up front. Two people in the benches. Two people in the back. Everyone has a spot.
But how safe is this? If you’re not up front, generally you will want to be sleeping. Nobody wants to sleep sitting up. This means that nobody sleeps with seat belts on. If we were to wreck, the two people in benches would either get slammed into the ceiling, get folded like laundry as their torso tried to go through the windshield while their legs and head were caught by the front seats, or they would get ejected through a side window in the case of a roll over. The guys in the back would either get flung forward leg first into the steel legs of the benches or if they’re lucky the gas and break pedals. If the accident happened from behind the trailer would just come and crush them. I personally hate riding in the very back but now that I think of it maybe that would be the quickest, easiest death.
Speaking of the trailer… Wow, My band is a bunch of idiots (me included). We take more gear than any opening band at the van level should ever take. We have more backline than is healthy. This means that our trailer is one heavy motherfucker. If it were to blow a tire and start weaving it will most likely flip us. From what I hear, if it were lighter it would just rip off the hitch, but no… we would get flipped. And flipping would initiate the scenarios I listed up above.
Statistically speaking we should be OK. If you’ve been following Daath since the last record you’ll know that we already had big bad scary accident. The year was 2oo7. The month was January. The state was Iowa. The weather conditions were blizzard and we hit some black ice, jackknifed the trailer, and ended up in a median. We’re extremely lucky that we’re alive and the gear is fine. I’d like to think that this was our accident and we’re cool. I can’t really think that. I know that the more time you spend on the road the more likely you are to be involved in a crash. We drive 2-8 hours a day. Every day. Statistically its just a matter of time for us. And if it happens then it’ll probably go down like I described above. So be safe? Fat fucking chance. I think a better and more probable scenario is to just not give a shit. Easier said than done but what else can you do?
-EL
Visit Daath on MySpace to get the full itinerary for their summer tour with Goatwhore, Abigail Williams, Abysmal Dawn, and Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky. Here’s a teaser for the band’s upcoming video, “Day of Endless Night”:
