So, we just finished our tour and we’re back home for a few weeks before embarking on the Mayhem tour with Slipknot. We completed a six-week run with Disturbed, and it all seems like a blur. Sold-out show after sold-out show–maximum excitement!

The day starts with waking up in a foreign town, not knowing what day it is or where you are. The next step is to get off the bus and successfully locate a decent restroom and a cup of coffee. Once you’ve completed that exercise, you usually walk in and find your tech to check on the status of the abuse your equipment took the night before. You then either do sound check or are shoveled off to the radio station for interviews.

Once we’ve taken care of interviews, press, etc., it seems like we’ve already been waiting to play for at least a couple of days. There’s a lot of hurry up & wait, as you anxiously just want to play the show. At some of the places you play there’s absolutely nothing by the venue, so you’re trapped with nothing to do. If you don’t have interviews or meet & greets, it can be absolute torture. Sometimes to make it worse, there’s no Internet or satellite connection, so you’re floating on a deserted island. Advertisement

After locating a meal, my attention usually turns toward the warm-up routine. This is something that I’ve come to believe is a vital part of the touring process. Growing up, I would play shows with serious physical drumming and never even consider stretching, because my body could bounce back with no problem. These days, after years of drum abuse, my body doesn’t quite cooperate like it used to. I have to stretch and roll out on a hard foam roller and lie on these hard rubber balls to loosen the muscles. With all the double bass that’s in our music, I would say I work out the equivalent of running three to five miles a show.

Finally, you get to show time, and everything seems to fade away as you get the benefit of all the excitement and energy coming from the crowd. Sometimes it’s out of control, bodies smashing into each other and people getting knocked around in our mosh pits. Occasionally someone leaves on a stretcher, which isn’t cool. Before you know it, the show’s over and you’re mingling with fans and perhaps participating in after-show debauchery, which doesn’t help you feel very good the next day.

Before you know it, the day is gone and it’s off to bed in the little bunks we call our “tomb.” It truly is a sanctuary, a place where you can mentally review and relive the day. If you care to forget the daily events, you can either watch a DVD or get on the computer and hope the Internet connection is good. Or simply pass out. All of them seem to be pretty satisfying. This routine happens every day–we call it Groundhog Day! It’s like one big vacuum or bubble that is picked up and dropped in a new town. Ahhh, a day in the touring life of Death Punch! Advertisement

 

For more on Jeremy Spencer and Five Finger Death Punch, go to
www.fivefingerdeathpunch.com, www.drumsfromhell.com, or www.myspace.com/jeremyspencer.