Split Chain: Tour Diary - Day 6 - Raleigh

Woke up, Packed the van, and rolled out of the Airbnb by noon.

Spent the afternoon in Fayetteville doing laundry and making a pit stop at Guitar Center to grab a new mixer. The guys were just hanging around, throwing a football in the lot while the clothes spun. A couple employees from Family Dollar recognized them and came out for a photo with them—small world.

We made it to Raleigh and hit a Subway for a bite to eat before load-in. I messaged a photographer friend I’d met online to see if he was still down to link up and shoot the set.

During some downtime, I slipped out for a slice with a few of the guys from Dull Mourning, then headed back to Kings.

The crowd tonight reminded me why southern shows hit different—loud, locked in, and just really there with you. Felt like the room was breathing with us.

Split Chain: Tour Diary - Day 1 - Pittsburgh

Today kicks off the first day of tour with Split Chain—I’ll be tagging along through May 2nd, documenting the ride as we make our way down the East Coast.

Caught a train to Hoboken to meet up with the guys and load into the van with our driver, Josh—a Canadian from Windsor who honestly could moonlight as a stand-up comic with how funny he is. Once we hit the road, I spent most of the ride with my back on the dash, filming and chatting about music and whatever else came up, usually random tangents.

We looked into booking a cabin for after the show, but quickly realized it didn’t have a bathroom—which, with seven people, was a no-go.

Eventually made it to Preserving Underground in Pittsburgh. Such an amazing spot—really felt like a true community hub, with all kinds of people, young and old, coming together. After the show, we packed up, hit a Walmart for food, and drove on to Ohio to crash so tomorrow’s haul to LDB Fest won’t be as brutal.

Writing this from the van en route to a Days Inn somewhere in Columbus, Ohio—it's 1:28AM, but there's a Waffle House across the street, so I’m not complaining. I brought about 40 rolls of film for the trip, but for these end-of-day posts, I’ll be sharing snapshots from my little Contax digicam.

Just woke up at 6:40AM and found out the Waffle House is to go orders only (horrible).

I was planning to sit there and work on this post, but looks like Waffle House will have to wait for another day.

Behind The Scenes at Split Chain’s First Headline Show

Jasmine from Epitaph Records asked if I’d be down to shoot Split Chain’s first U.S. headline show at TV Eye.

I said yes—but only if I could spend the whole day with them. I get a little nervous before things like this; I tend to go all in with people right away, and sometimes that energy can be a lot. But they were totally on the same page. Everything flowed—karaoke, doodles, pizza. I wanted to cram everyone into the photo booth, but it was sadly out of order.

Earlier in the day, we’d joked about stage dives and how some people just don’t get stage etiquette.

Sure enough, once the band got on, two kids started aimlessly wandering the stage like they thought they were part of the show. Eventually one guy got the memo, I pointed to one of them and said, “See that dude? He’s your responsibility. Keep him off stage.” He just smiled and went, “Got it.”