TOUR DIARY
October 14, 2002
Home! America! Popeyes! Krispy Kreme! Starbucks! Cell phone! Car! Cats! Sniper
shootings. Bad economy. Terrorist threats. Smog. Billions of dollars worth of
food rotting at the docks. Looming possibility of war. What's wrong with people?
Well, it's good to be home nevertheless. It's hard to focus on your own personal
world when so much bigger shit is happening...but that's life isn't it? Well,
in our own little Calling world things have been fantastic. This trip kicked
serious ass! From making masses of girls pass out in London to being chased
by thousands of crying fans in Brazil, the last two weeks of this tour were
full of moments I'll never forget and will tell my kids and my kids' kids for
years to come. Good thing Aaron and I video everything, cause my memory she'sa
not so good. So let's take it back a couple of weeks to that day off in Sweden
after recovering from snaps overload and caterpillar appetizers. Tour diary
#3889724689369696969696969 is now in session.
So I made my way down to the lobby of our hotel in Sweden after sitting in my
room all day doing nothing and loving it. I opened the doors to the outside
cold and bright light and as my eyes readjusted from being blinded I noticed
that there were barricades to the left and right of the hotel entrance and they
were filled with a huge amount of anticipating girls. What's this? Wow, we're
really doing well here I guess? Well, not that good stupid, it appears that
all these little girls are clenching on to Nick Carter pictures and posters
and now you've stepped into the snake pit of sloppy seconds. So I signed and
what not but I wasn't who they were looking for. Later that night at dinner
with everyone, Mr. Carter and his gang of thugs (yes that's right, he thinks
he's black in every way) came and sat next to our table. I have no "ish" with
him and he seems like a nice guy, but when he proceeded to talk shit about me
knowing I was two feet away from him, my open-minded too nice thinking thoughts
were shattered. Whatever, it's meaningless to me, what can you do?
The next day of press was a lot of fun. We did this show called "Wimans" and
it was so crazy. We talked about important things like farting and belching
and Billy even got to do some skateboarding moves right on the host's desk.
I was bummed we couldn't play a show in Sweden this time. I hope we can come
back. So it was time then to head over to the lovely London, England again.
Always happy to go back to London. Right when we arrived and I got into the
car to take us to our hotel, "Adrienne" came on the radio blasting. That was
a good sign and supposedly the song is doing better there than it did in the
US...Yay! Man, we did A LOT of frikkin press in London. Tons of TV shows, magazines,
radio, you name it. We were really anticipating the show there since it was
sold out and our first real full performance in England.
That night was f*cking crazy!!!!! We hadn't played in like a month and a half,
so I was a little worried we'd suck, but it wouldn't have mattered one bit even
if we did. The audience that night was the best we've ever seen. Between the
opera style beautiful venue, screaming/crying girls, water being thrown and
just about everything else, I almost was brought to tears realizing how amazing
that night was. My real Mom who I had seen the week before for the first time
in Germany came for that night to see me play for the first time as well. It
was a really emotional time for me, just all the success and seeing my Mom and
her experiencing my crazy life and how proud she is of me was a lot to handle
but in a very good way. Oh yah, and we like killed a bunch of girls too! We'd
be playing a tune and right in the middle of it I'd see girls just passing out
cold left to right and being carried over the crowd all limp and taken away!
What the hell?!? This was like The Beatles' audience in the 60's that you see
in black and white old movies...I mean really, could this crowd have been anymore
excited? Granted it was hot as shit in there and that had a lot to do with it,
I almost passed out myself, but luckily every other minute the water that was
being passed out to the faint audience was being thrown at me and the band:)
Is that a good thing in England? I hope so.
After the set was over and I caught my breath I went back to the nurse's office
to visit the girls who had passed out just to give them some extra love. Right
when I was opening the door to say hi, the people working there were like, "don't
go in there, you'll kill them for good!" Needless to say, they were fine and
a pleasure to meet. There were a bunch of fans that came from really far away
places, even this one girl who came from Norway and brought us all incredibly
good chocolate... THANKS! These other chicks made us the funniest frikkin cartoon
caricatures of each of us. Aarons as an example was his giant head on a little
girls body with her skirt flying up in the wind, and Dino's had his big old
melon on a little skinny hairy Speedo wearing body holding open a fur jacket!
They were really great. I wanted to sign for everyone outside but it became
complete mayhem quickly. Pushing and shoving and jumping and screaming, etc.
I pulled the plug as soon as I saw this one girl getting squished big time against
a dumpster and she started screaming and freaking out from pain and pleading
to be given space...yah, that's when I got to go back into the club. It was
funny, later that night when I finally left, the few fans that were still there
spotted me as I was leaving with my lady and my guards were like RUN! So there
we were running down the alley to the getaway car of freedom with tons of girls
chasing after us saying "Alex, I love your accent!"....accent? me? No, I love
your accent, the English accent is super hot...I sound like a dumb American.
Oh and I also got the pleasure of seeing all the hard working UK street team
girls...you are all doing an amazing job over there! Thank you so much for your
continued support and I can't wait to meet up again! So that night kicked serious
ass and the next morning we took the train/subway to Paris, France right under
the water.
I felt comfortable knowing you can't get lost on a train. So our trip back to
Paris this time was a success. The club we played there was a quarter the size
of the London gig but it was packed with French cuties. It was also really hot,
and full of technical problems, oh well. Mid show I noticed this one girl's
giant poster she was holding up that said, "You guys rock!" and I was like that's
cool...until she flipped it over and it said, "And You Guys SUCK!!"...heh? I
didn't know what to think. We got a lot of gifts that night and I later noticed
a letter with the same hand writing as the big suck poster, so I tore it opened
and read it..."We love you so much, you guys rock, thanks for coming, blah blah
blah...oh and YOU SUCK! YOU GUYS SUCK SSOOOOOO MUCH! YOU'RE THE SUCKIEST SUCKERS!!
YOU SUCK SUCK SUCK etc.!" ............................?........................It
turned out this girl had learned from some American playing a joke on her that
"You Suck" is a very complimentary thing to say. Well, the band and I got a
kick out of it.
We had to get up super early the next morning to fly to Brazil so I couldn't
sign that night and it was nuts trying to get to the car and out of there. I
always feel so guilty leaving a country we rarely ever go to and not meeting
people or signing, but sometimes we have no choice. So if any French fans are
reading this, we love France! We'll be back soon! The show was f*cking awesome
and you guys SUCK! Just kidding. So the long never ending flight of 134356467523
hours to Rio, Brazil was shitty. I had heard that we're very popular in Brazil
and stuff but the band and I were not in any way prepared for what we were about
to experience. It was Thailand all over...tons of fans waiting for us at the
airport, at the hotels, at radio, at TV, I mean hundreds of them. Our surroundings
were so beautiful in Rio too, huge hotel/spa right on the cliffs looking over
the crystal clean ocean with tropical air, palm trees, and giant mountains with
thousands upon thousands of little homes built right in. We did giant press
conferences with tons of press and never ending interviews that unfortunately
left no time for sight seeing.
Our show in Rio was really fun although we were a little nervous playing in
this crap club cause we couldn't touch each other on stage (that sounds gay,
let me explain). The electricity was all funky and we were told right before
we went on stage that if any one of us touched me they would get 50 volts to
220 volt zapped through them and I would be fried...and let me tell you Aaron
wasn't interested in that...well, neither was anyone. So during the show I'd
run up to Dino's side of the stage like I normally do and threaten to just give
him a friendly pat on the back and he'd give me this look like "dude nnno...g
g get away from me!" Then I'd make my way to Aaron while rocking out on some
tune and he'd give me the look of "get the fuck away from me bitch". It made
the show very entertaining for me :) The crowd was great, I can never get sick
of a thousand people that speak Portuguese yet are singing every word to every
song of ours in English, what an experience. So after a few days of work in
Rio, we made our way to Sao Palo via officially the scariest plane flight to
date.
Imagine rocketing down the runway at twice the speed you normally do, abruptly
lifting off the ground at a 90degree angle over water, the G force stuffing
your brains into your feet, then immediately taking the sharpest turn possible
hurling you into the old woman next to you without flipping over where looking
out of one side of the plane you see straight down to the ground and looking
out the other side you see nothing but sky and fucking space, then throw in
a few nice long freefalls and a really steep angle of decent and a shit slam
bam thank you mam landing and you get the worst flight ever. Oh yah...and the
smoke clouds wafting through the cabin and the smell of cigarettes? What's that
stewardess? Oh well, the captains got to smoke you know....no, I don't. Aaron
and my fingers were blood red and practically had to be ripped off of our seat's
arm rests once we landed. Not cool.
Flying over Sao Palo you can really see why it's the second largest city in
the world...I swear it looked like Lego Land. Picture Los Angles' massive size
but replace every house with an identical skyscraper in different colors and
you get the biggest looking frikkin Lego Land ever. I swear that's what it looked
like, Lego Land. Just endless. Our greeting at the airport there wins the award
for the craziest so far. We had like 15 body guards creating those ever so popular
human walls while we ran through, Aaron and I filming everything as we passed
by the girls freaking out and lunging towards us through tiny cracks in the
human wall, throwing letters and gifts and flowers at us. Then once inside the
car they all surrounded us pounding on the glass windows till they cracked,
screaming "Billy! Billy! I want to love yours! I want it to love yours!"...wha?
The first letter I opened after we started to drive away said, "Alex, I want
make love with you" written in what seemed to be blood. So this is how our life
was for the next week, but it only got crazier.
Every radio/TV we went to that same situation would happen but add in these
few things...1) Once coming back down outside to leave, finding the SUV's we
travel in completely covered with lipstick kiss marks and writing from one end
to the other all in broken English over and over 2) The sight of at least two
hundred girls literally chasing the cars once we drove away, like Terminator
2 style, and they would actually catch up do to traffic and short cuts they
knew through the city to run through so it was never ending. Oh the footage
I acquired is priceless. We performed on this one TV show that was hosted by
what looked like 6 transvestite ex prostitutes with an audience of young girls
all in the round. We were awarded our platinum record plaques on the show from
BMG and then performed WYWG. I didn't even have to sing because of how loud
this frikkin audience was singing it already. I caught a glimpse of the interview
part afterwards and noticed that Dino was making out with his Platinum record
the whole time behind me. It was, well, it was like nothing else.
Our show in Sao Palo was huge! Way over two thousand anticipating fans and press
all suited up with hand made Calling shirts and hats. That was a seriously outstanding
show right up there with the London one. No dying girls though :( We did get
this one letter that was all rolled up. We unrolled it on stage later that night
to realize it was at least 50 feet long and in little hand writing it said over
and over again, I LOVE ALEX, I LOVE BILLY, I LOVE AARON, etc. I mean, I swear
this must have repeated at least 100,000 times if not more and probably taken
at least a month to make. That one I'm keeping for sure, it's in my luggage.
Has anyone seen that picture of me from the gig that night where I'm mid flight/jump
(depending if you want to rhyme or not:)? It's pretty damn funny. By the way,
for you "get Alex a new wardrobe" people, I travel with 12 different jackets,
25 shirts, 15 pants, and 6 pairs of shoes yet the few photos that surface the
net always seem to have caught me in the same red jacket. Oh, and that jacket
is spray painted to look beat up pleather that isn't really dirty in anyway,
just thought I'd let you know. I'm an extremely clean person (I like my sunglasses
too). Can you tell I read The Loft? And while I'm on that subject I did write
a little note on there again under the name Alex888 but anything else is bullshit.
There won't be anymore random name posts from me, so don't believe anyone. I
will from now on use an official name through Zach to make things easier on
you guys. I don't want anyone confused and sorry if you have been before. So
back to Sao Palo.
We did this big show at MTV there that was going to be shown on TV a million
times and at that point we had played three shows in a row, 4 TV appearances,
5 radio stations, God knows how many interviews asking important questions like,
"Hey Alex, who do you like more, Brittany or Shakira? What's your favorite color?
What kind of underwear do you have on? FUCK OFF!!! What about the music? Anyway,
the last night was crazier than anything we ever did just when I couldn't imagine
anything getting crazier. We did this late late kids TV show. We had partied
earlier that night and were all plastered and dizzy with fatigue and jet-lag
and felt like we entered the Twilight Zone, I swear I even heard the creepy
theme song, but it was just the sound of my liver dying. So wired up already,
the host walks into our dressing room looking like a hippy with a black Brazilian
midget dressed as Rambo and a 7 foot tall crow with a giant yellow beak!?!?!?
He said the show is off the wall and he wants us to do whatever we want when
we perform...cool. So we immediately went into hair and make up like good little
boys. 30 minutes later we emerged anew. I had a black beanie on with dark sunglasses.
Nate had full girl make up with a Calling T-shirt that had a picture of Homer
Simpson sucking a $%^@ on the back drawn by yours truly. Dino's Calling T-shirt
said in Portuguese "Attention all bitches, no peeing on the floor"...How, do
you ask, does one come up with that in another language? Well, I just walked
around the studios writing down random words from random signs all over the
building and the bathroom and put them together not knowing what I'd get...It
was brilliant! Billy was complete with a messy spiked up "do" and a French style
mustache drawn on with a Sharpie. His shirt had a giant arrow on the front pointing
down to his $%^@ and the back said something so horrible I can't even repeat
it. Aaron after a lot of mouse, hair spray, and a whole bottle of gel, sported
a real tall MO-hawk and an unlit ciggy hanging from his lip. What was happening?
So to make a long story short, we performed, there were hundreds of screaming
girls, I danced with the black Brazilian midget dressed as Rambo, the crow was
hitting himself in the face really hard with a ukulele, Billy dropped his pants
and exposed his bottom to 10 million viewers, the crow ran like a fucking football
player and tackled him, they rolled on the ground and fought while the rest
of the band destroyed there instruments and fell into the drums, all while playing
WYWG! IT WAS COMPLETELY INSANE!!! The next morning we were sad to leave Brazil,
but it was off to Mexico City, Mexico, the biggest city in the world.
Our success level was equal there just not quite as crazy fans willing to jump
in front of the car to stop it like they were doing in Brazil (honestly it's
truly amazing no one got run over at certain moments). It was nice to be in
Mexico cause we felt very close to home and since Los Angles is 99.9% Mexicans
these days we felt, well, like we were home. Jethro my bud is half Mexican...word
up Jethro! Mexico City was really cool and all the fans there were very very
sweet. We played a sold out show at the Hard Rock for fans and press. The stage
was really awkward and like 20 feet high, so I couldn't reach the audience which
was weird for me cause like half of my gig is being able to communicate with
the listeners. Besides bad technical problems with my in-ear monitors and the
6000+ feet altitude that made me want to puke half way though the show, the
audience made it all worth while. They threw more shit then I've ever seen on
stage. Later I turned to realize near the end of the show that Aaron was playing
wearing a black sparkly Sombrero hat on his head that was bigger than Nate's
entire drum set and Billy was wearing this giant straw hat that cover his whole
face. I got so many bracelets I started throwing them back.
Mexico and its people, food, and atmosphere are terrific although oddly we couldn't
find any Mexican food that wasn't shit. You'd think in Mexico you'd get the
best Mexican food...nope. We finally had a day off the next day and that would
mean in almost four weeks we've had only 2 days off. What the heck? Anyway,
we got to go to the pyramids for the day and learn all about the Aztecs and
the history of the ruins that date back to 500 B.C. It's creepy, there were
like 9 temples along this main street that represented the nine planets in our
solar system, and one giant pyramid for the sun and one smaller one for the
moon. First, how the f*ck did they know 2500 years ago that there were nine
planets and here's where it gets weirder. The measurement of space in-between
each planet temple and sun/moon pyramid is exactly what they really are in space,
just on a smaller scale. Also the pyramids in Mexico are on the exact same Longitude
as the ones in Egypt. Weird stuff. Aliens? Michael Jackson maybe? Who knows.
We climbed like a gazillion steps (really only 250 or so) to get to the top
of the big pyramid and people were up there praying in big groups. The view
was incredible. Needless to say we all should have put sunscreen on that day,
cause now we're all really "red necks"...well, and Aaron's red face, and raccoon
eyes. I didn't know the top of your head can get sun burned if you have a full
head of hair...well, it can. No hats for me.
We ate that night at this famous Mexican restaurant from like 1900 that was
in a giant cave underground. It was really cool although it smelled like rotting
cow pie...yummy. They had like tribal dancing and music while we ate. I ordered
steak and it smelled and tasted like a barnyard, but I'm still alive so I guess
it wasn't too rancid.
So the following morning we made the early trek again to an airport and got
on the 10 hour flight to Atlanta, GA...The US! That flight wasn't quite as freaky
as the Brazilian one, yet it was really turbulent the ENTIRE time. We went through
a giant storm over the Amazon then right through this huge hurricane by Texas.
We actually had to fly at 41,000 feet which is about 11,000 feet more than average
cruising altitude. But you couldn't get a drink or food or get up to pee or
anything forever. Too much cranberry juice!!!! Bladder exploding...must get
to toilette....eyes turning yellow...I'll just let it go right here in my seat...yah...just
let it go...aaaaaaah...warm. NO, just kidding, the flight arrived safely in
overcast Atlanta. Oh my God, it was so annoying, because of beefed up security
or whatever, you had to go through customs, get your luggage, go through customs
again, recheck all your luggage, go through security screening again, take a
tram to 6 terminal stops later, then recollect your luggage again...and this
was all just to leave the frikkin airports! Airports! Flying! You are the bane
of my existence! Anyway, your probably wondering why we went to Atlanta huh?
Well, there's this guy named Jeff we don't know, and it was Jeff's 40th birthday,
and Jeff wanted The Calling to play his party at a big place called The Tabernacle,
and Jeff is not poor, The Calling likes Jeff. In fact, I dedicated every song
in our 70 minute set to him, it was really funny I was like, "Well this first
one's for Jeff. Yah this one goes out to Jeff. I want to dedicate this one to
Jeff! Jeff, if you're out there, this one is for you! It's Jeff's birthday,
I'd like to sing this one for him! Jeff...I love you." It was good fun, although
the crowd was how you say, not our demographic? Maybe Generation Gaps? And so
hear we are now, home.
Now that I'm home for a little bit, I'm going to really try and answer everyone's
questions that you've all posted on The Loft as much as I can. Could It Be Any
Harder is making its way slowly at radio and the video should be playing on
MTV/TRL momentarily. Well, it's getting close to the Holidays now and this is
my favorite time of the year...the time of giving, and sharing, and...presents
:) Yah, presents. Anyway, our work isn't over yet. The near future holds some
TV such as Regis for the third time and presenting at The European MTV Awards
and more UK visiting and possibly back to France. I'm going to sing the National
Anthem for the Kings hockey game here in LA at The Staples Center this week
and I'm nervous!! Why you ask? Well, let's just say my school was too cool to
teach us brats our anthem and now I'm cramming for a test :)
The band says hi and all is good, I'm looking at Aaron as we speak and he still
has that giant sparkly sombrero hat on walking through the airport...knocking
things over left and right. So everyone, until next time, keep up the good work,
drive your radio stations crazy, vote a million times for our MTV award, and
I'll contact you soon to start pounding TRL. All the love in the world and the
best wishes for all my readers!
Running low on clever names,
Runninglow Onclevernames
P.S. Was this too long? Shit, now it is.
