Not a Tour Diary. Definitely Not.
You ever know you shouldn't do something but you do it anyway even in the face of the jungle telling you not to? That's BUNUEL. In both spirit and deed.
Sinatra knew that his lifestyle choices were ruining his one claim to fame that wasn’t his reportedly legendary cock. His voice, eventually wracked and ruined, was his moneymaker and even while it was happening, and he knew it was happening, he continued with the behaviors that led to his later life choices to lean on what he couldn’t take away from him: his phrasing.
But his voice, early stage Sinatra, was crystal and beautiful and worthy of any tribute the later Sinatra got. It wasn’t too long though before he was outpaced by Dick Haymes, a modern competitor, in just tonal quality. Sinatra, though, also had an ear and an appreciation for real talent, which would explain his love for Johnny Hartman. And in another later career twist he even dipped into Bossa Nova which, while wonderful, didn’t come close to approaching what he had done initially.
Of his crew though, the only one that had it worse was Sammy Davis whose drink of choice when mixed with all of the smoking, directly attributed to the cancer that killed him, but Sinatra said it best in contemplation of how he had lost it all: “Drink, drink, drink, smoke, smoke. smoke, stupid, stupid, stupid.”
All of which had been largely academic for me. Right up until, while in mid-air, I heard what sounded for all the world like a gunshot. Let’s back up a bit though.
Did I cancel the tour?
Here’s an answer to that question: why would I do that? I mean last time I checked my knee wasn’t doing any of the singing.
Prior to last summer’s tour implosion of my last band, I had hit on a skid of genius. After years of preparing how to not die on tour stages I had tried everything. Sprints uphill with 20 pound bags of gravel. I then had graduated to 40 pounds of gravel. Which, ultimately, gave me what they called Haglund’s Deformity, something that happens when the bone of your heel cuts into your Achilles’ tendon.
I tried slow suffocation as well. Running in a gas mask. Oh, and a full body sauna suit. Which it says right on the package that you’re not supposed to do. After that I tried giant tires, heavy ropes, swimming. Whatever would give me an edge in the 60 minutes onstage when in answering the dictates of your soul, you try to have the energy to do so.
This is without even going into the pharmacopia consumed toward that same end. Creatine. Pre-workout shit up to and including the illegal in Canada, Dark Rage (not kidding…that was the name). Glandulars. Pituitary. Adrenal. Vanadyl Sulfate. And these were just the legal ones.
All in the service of both the show and my crippling addiction to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ).
One fed the other but in terms of cardio effectiveness I finally hit my big stage stride in the summer of 2024. So well that it seemed like I was cheating when playing. I’d be sweating like a pig but not breathing heavily. Something I increasingly had to admit was a product of CrossFit.
“You ever try CrossFit?” Cameron Earle, a now-incarcerated BJJ phenom, had asked. I hadn’t and he told me about this guy in Santa Cruz that had come up with this way to train that worked hand in hand with BJJ. Something I ignored until almost 20 years later when it had become imperative to do something/anything to both stay alive on the mat and on stage.
So I did, and it was a game changer, a phrase I use here semi-ironically because I was always mindful of the One Dangerous Thing rule. BJJ is that one dangerous thing. BJJ and snowboarding? Nope. BJJ and skateboarding? Nah. But BJJ and CrossFit? Well, whoever got hurt jumping rope?
But I did the CrossFit open in February. Then went off on BUNUEL’s Italian tour. Killed it. Came back a full cultist and started in again to prep for the first part of the Euro tour. BJJ seven days a week, CrossFit twice.
[W]hat has duct tape, pills and knee braces NOT been able to cure? I just couldn’t kneel. While it made fucking tough, it was not a deal breaker for shows.
In October. I took a spill at jiu jitsu showing off by outrunning a 26-year-old. Something snapped and I hit the mat but I rehabbed it myself, and yeah, the aforementioned killing it in February. So out of the woods right?
Wrong.
Next to last set of 12-inch box jumps it happened, the shot I heard, loud enough that I knew what it was, I couldn’t land on it and spun to the ground, falling heavy. I’d say like “a sack of potatoes” but I know you know what I mean.
Then: the lies. I’d be fine. It was just a muscle tear. Why go to the doctor?
But I pay a criminal amount for health insurance (#freeluigi) and so used it. Though it took a herculean effort to get insurance to cover the MRI, after eight tries and eight cancelations on the last go around, days before I was to embark on BUNUEL’s 2025 Euro tour proper, it came clear.
The results, despite my efforts to spin it to my doctor friends, were conclusive: ruptured quadricep tendon, displaced patella, and damage that could have only accrued from years of heavy weights, jiu jitsu and stage shows, at least a thousand by my measure.
Did I cancel the tour?
Here’s an answer to that question: why would I do that? I mean last time I checked my knee wasn’t doing any of the singing. Also what has duct tape, pills and knee braces NOT been able to cure? I just couldn’t kneel. While it made fucking tough, it was not a deal breaker for shows.
So here I am, five shows in to a 12 show run. All hotel rooms must be on the ground floor, since climbing stairs is murder. I can’t load equipment but that’s not so much a punishment for a singer. Driving in the van IS murder though and after five hour drives my foot won’t fit in my shoes, swollen as it is.
I remember being backstage at Supersonic Festival the last time BUNUEL played there. I was talking to Nate Newton from Converge, though he was there with Cave In. I was trying to wait for him to leave so I could begin the older musician ritual of repair. But he hung around, so fuck it.
I pulled out the ointments, the unguents, tape, pills and straps needed to get my ass on stage. He smiled and said, “here, try these…” and he gave me some adhesive painkilling patches. Then, surprise, surprise, I got to watch the guys in Cave In do the same thing.
Moreover on tour last summer with Mr. Bungle, Mike Patton passed me some Chinese medicine stuff. Introduced me to his acupuncturist whose treatments have been invaluable.
Then it dawned on me that AC/DC should never have been doubted. It is, indeed, a long way to the “top” if you want to rock and roll.
The key? Just don’t make the mistakes that some older musicians have made: cocaine wasn’t good for you at 20, even worse for you at 60.
And those splits? Fuck those too.
But I’m just about to go onstage in Brussels now. And will I be able to answer the dictates of my soul? Here’s hoping (the refuge of scoundrels and lunatics)…
Shows have been added!!! Get tickets HERE.
My grasp of your situation here is of a molecular level. Life HURTS, quite literally. What else are us creaky old frontmen supposed to do though? Let those damn youngsters make us look SOFT? Not on my watch. (shakes fist at sky while taping knee and rubbing on Biofreeze™️)