12 musicians share their biggest Warped Tour disasters

June 7, 2017

Ash Costello, New Years Day

The hardest and hottest drive is the Texas to Florida drive—which lasted a week on Warped Tour 2015. This was the time the generator in our bus decided to die a horrible death. So we had no cold fridge, no ice, no water, no shower, no lights and the worst part, no A/C, which turns that thing into an oven on wheels. We had to wait a week to have it fixed, we all slept in our underwear with zip-lock bags of ice taped around our bodies, ’cause the bunks were too hot. That was a memorable and sweaty week, for sure.

Dan Clermont, Set It Off
During Warped 2013, we had never traveled in anything bigger than a van, so we were super-excited to move into a BandWagon. The very first day in, we were pulling up alongside We Came As Romans' bus, who have always looked out for us, and we sideswiped it and took out their rear-view mirror of their brand new slide-out bus with their faces wrapped on it. Not only did we have to cover the cost, but also the stress of getting it repaired in time for them to make the next show.

Watsky

I caught athlete’s foot from one of the group showers at one point. Only it took me a while to figure out what I had, so I wasn’t able to deal with it for a while, and it was pretty gross. Moral of the story: Always wear flip-flops in the group showers.

Travis Clark, We The Kings

There's always one from every year we tour, but I specifically remember one year that a band from Mexico City had some crazy hot sauce that needed a waiver to be signed before trying or something. Anyway, that went about as bad as you could imagine for everyone who tried it.

Ryan Locke, Seaway
As we were driving out to Indiana to pick up our BandWagon on our first Warped tour, we got a super-sketchy email saying our driver wouldn't be joining us. After a few emails back and forth, we found out that our driver was detained at the airport for an undisclosed reason. We were all under 25 at the time, so none of us could legally drive the wagon. We had eight hours to figure out a new driver or else we wouldn't be able to meet up with the tour. Luckily, our team scrambled to find us a driver last minute and we made it in time to start the tour. Big shout out to Ken The Driver for saving our asses!

Kellin Quinn, Sleeping With Sirens

Having a Fireball machine on our bus was a disaster for the whole band. Ice-cold Fireball is delicious, but super-dangerous—I would/wouldn't recommend it.

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Vinnie Fiorello, Less Than Jake

Lightning. Everything about lightning. Watching it hit stages, lay waste to tents, almost kill the guy from Sugar Ray. There could be a list just on that throughout the years…

Fronz, Attila

We have a few, but one of the worst ones was when we played main stage in Maryland in 2015. It had been raining a lot there, so the whole entire field was a mud pit. I thought it was a great idea to tell 15,000 people to throw mud into the air—worst idea of my life. All of the mud landed on the stage and our instruments, and everything was totally fucked. I think we had to replace our drums and guitars, and our stage manager was absolutely livid. The stage was destroyed. The next day we all woke up at 6 a.m. to scrub the entire stage from top to bottom. Lesson learned.

Awsten Knight, Waterparks

Well, we didn't have enough money to split a bus with someone or get a BandWagon, so we did it in a little sprinter [van] that didn't have air conditioning, which ruled with a capital R. Now, the best part of it was whenever it rained outside, there was a “leak” in the van and we were constantly being flooded, so one of us (never me because I'm a diva) would have to stand while we were driving and hold a trash can under it to catch the mass amount of water and frequently dump it out the window. At least these misfortunes inspired a hit single we made up called “Everything Is Wet,” and that’s very fun to sing. Let me just point out that this was also before some dumbdick tow truck company tried to tow the sprinter and basically totalled it. Stay in school.

Nick Martin, Sleeping With Sirens

[When I was in my band Underminded], 2004 was full of disasters. But those “disasters” were what made it fun—whether it be playing in the rain, getting mud on all our gear, merch tents flying away—being able to laugh off those moments is what keeps you humble. The disasters are all learning experiences.

Matty Mullins, Memphis May Fire

One week before we started Warped Tour 2012 our bassist Cory [Elder] had a bike accident and broke his left index finger. Not ideal for playing his instrument. So he had to rapidly learn how to play all of his parts with only three fingers while wearing a splint.

Skyler Acord, Issues

On our first Warped, our driver got switched out because of a license problem, which was a bummer because he was so cool. The one we got after him was awful. One time she was mad at us for something silly, maybe we flushed toilet paper, who knows, so she turned our generator off before we woke up and took the keys so we wouldn't have A/C all day and bake. I'm pretty sure she can't get a job there anymore, so we gucci.