Behind the Scenes: Evergreen Terrace

Today an article I wrote on hardcore band Evergreen Terrace ran in the "80 Hours" section of The Daily Iowan.

Now what many people don't realize is that journalists actually do a ton of work preparing for interviews, scheduling interviews (which can be quite the challenge), and transcribing interviews. It's a process that can be annoying and takes way more time than it should.

Actually doing the interview and writing the story are usually considered to be the perks of the job, especially when the interview subject has some particularly interesting stories to tell.

However, about 80% of what is said in the interview never makes it to print and most of these interviews are filed away and/or lost forever. Which is a shame, because there are some good stories that come out of interviews.

That brings me to the story I am going to share with you, as told to me by Josh James, guitarist for Evergreen Terrace, and transcribed by yours truly.

Here is "The Shit Story":

Me: Do you have a favorite tour story? Like something memorable or funny that happened to the band?

Josh James: “Man, I got so many stories, it would blow your mind. Here’s a good classic story.”

“We were on tour with Bane and our drummer really had to take a shit. So we were playing this place called Alvin’s in Detroit. He was like ‘man I really got to take a shit, but this bathroom is absolutely disgusting here’.”

“And I was like ‘oh I don’t know where to go, because all the gas stations are really shitty as well.”

“Sometimes you can use where your trailer hooks up to your van, the frame of the trailer makes like a triangle, and you can sit on that and you can use that as a toilet and just shit onto the ground. And Kyle was like, ‘aw, dude I’ve never done that, I’ll do that’. But it’s like the worst place to ever try and do it, because we’re in downtown Detroit. So, you know, of course I encourage him because I just want something bad to happen to him.”

“So I was like ‘well you have to be completely naked because your pants will get caught’ and he was like ‘OK’.”

“So he’s standing downtown completely naked, just with a pair of Vans slip-ons and he starts taking this shit onto the street. No one’s noticing and he’s like ‘keep an eye out for cars’. And I’m like ‘alright’, so we’re standing on a staircase like laughing and taking pictures and stuff. All of sudden this car comes by, but we’re not paying attention and then we see these sirens and it’s a cop that had driven by.”

“The cop gets out and one cop looks like Puddy from Seinfeld and the other cop looks like Carl Winslow from Family Matters.”

“So they get out and instantly me and Jason start laughing our ass off because we just cannot believe that a cop actually was the one car that drove by.”

“So I’m watching the cop walk up and then Kyle is freaking out and he runs to the side of the van, but he’s accidentally locked his clothes and keys inside of the van and me and Jason didn’t have our keys on us.”

“So me and Jason just start laughing so hard because we can’t control it. Kyle is standing there at the side of the van just holding his dick and his balls in his hand, doing the pee-pee dance and he’s just freaking out, like ‘oh my god, what am I gonna do, what am I gonna do?’”.

“The cops still have no idea what they’re walking up on. So I see the cop looking at me and he goes to turn the corner to go around the van and he steps right into the shit. At that point I just lost it, I had to like turn around because I wanted to laugh so hard.”

“Then the cop turns around the corner and he sees Kyle standing there completely naked with just shoes on. And the cop just looks like disgusted, confused, you know anything that a stranger would think at all. So, he looks down on the ground and he sees his footprints that are just like shitprints and he’s like, ‘IT’S SHIT!’”

“He freaks out, Kyle starts begging for mercy and starts telling him ‘I’m so sorry sir, I’m real sick, I’m real sick and then the cop is just like telling him ‘Ah, tell it to the judge!’”

“The cop leaves for a few minutes and cleans the shit off his shoe and he comes back and he’s like, ‘what do you do in the band?’ and Kyle’s like ‘I’m the drummer’ and the cop’s like ‘ALWAYS THE DRUMMER’ and he’s like ‘I’m gonna let you off easy this time and I’m gonna give you a ticket, but if I ever catch you shitting on my city again, I’m gonna take you to jail so quick you won’t know what to do.”

“So he gives him the ticket and the ticket says above subjects was called ‘defecating onto the ground, claims he was sick, but yet his friends were laughing and pointing and taking pictures’. So it was pretty interesting.”

Me: That's awesome. How much was the ticket for?

“It was like $150 dollars and this was when Kyle still lived in Nashville and his legal address was his parent’s address, so it’s not like something he would tell his mom.”

“Then like two weeks later his Mom got a letter in the mail from the Detroit court system saying he hadn’t paid the ticket. So he called her and was like ‘sorry I gotta tell you what happened’ and then his mom disowned him.”

There you have it, "The Shit Story" as told by Evergreen Terrace guitarist Josh James. The band hits the stage at the Picador tonight alongside The Acacia Strain, Cruel Hand, and Unholy. Below is a studio and music video from the band: