[RH Interview] MiniBoone

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Tour life can get stressful. New York City rock band Miniboone found that out the hard way on their most recent foray out of the Big Apple as they set out at the beginning of October to tour in support of their latest, self-titled album. While traveling from South Carolina to Georgia, the group's vintage Chevy Express broke down and didn't get up, eventually settling in at a southern junk yard. With shows to go on and few options, James, Craig, Doug and Drew got a rental car and continued on, ending up at Township Cafe in Chicago's Logan Square on October 23 where I was able to meet up with the band and talk about their album, the particular sound they are trying to achieve and what is next for a band that just lost it's wheels.

Jake: You all just got into town, what's life on the road been like?

Doug: It's been stressful. We toured down to Georgia because a bass player that tours with us was getting married in Atlanta. So we went to the wedding and played some interesting shows on the way down, and then our van died a few days after that. So literally two days ago we droppedo ut van off at a scrapyard where they're going to cruch it down into a washing machine.

Drew: That was yesterday and it seems like a week ago.

Craig: Yesterday was easily the longest of my life.

Jake: So yesterday you dropped you van off at a scrapyard, not a great start?

Craig: It was a '99 Chevy Express that we've had for about three and a half years.

Doug: It was called Tracy Chap-van

Craig: We were going through the mountains from Athens to Knoxville and it started puttering out and it lost of its strength, we pulled off the road on this road somewhere in South Carolina and took it to a mechanic and they told us it was done for and we picked up a car. . . it's such a long story.

Doug: Long story short:Cindy at Budget rent a car at the Knoxville airport helped us out and now we have a rental and we took our old van to be made into scrap metal.

Joe: The really sad thing is that the price we got for the van was about half of what the rental cost. We got $447.47. I thought we were going to have to pay them.

Drew: I'm just upset we didn't get to watch it.

Jake: That's one hell of a hiccup while you're on the road, what's the rest of things been like?

Craig: Well it was a fun tour, we got to go to a wedding.

Doug: We had a really good show in North Carolina on our way down. It's been pretty unconventional, but not unimaginable, you know? It happens to bands all the time, their van breaks down on tour or whatever, so it's not too out there.

Jake: Road problems aside, what have the shows been like so far?

Doug: Fine shows, good shows for a band at this level.

Craig:The most fun show so far was probably the Greensboro show. We played their festival that they were having for four days. There were tons of bands and we played really late but everyone was really drunk by the time we played and were screaming and rolling on the floor basically, trying to lick our instruments.

Drew: He was trying to cast a spell-he wouldn't touch it, he would just get really close.