Muddy Roots Pt. 2

Saturday morning, I woke up at 8:30 am. The previous day had taken a toll on everyone, and it seemed like we all slept surprisingly well. Everyone awoke at right around the same time, which was primarily dictated by the sunrise (camping…amirite?)

We gathered together for breakfast, which was primarily composed of granola bars and iced coffee.

The original plan was to go to the morning yoga session held at the Big Tent at 9:00, but once that time came, we decided to scrap the idea due to us wanting to make sure that our gear was good to go. We also wanted to be as efficient as possible loading our limited gear onto the stage.

Usually gear checks for us smaller bands consist of the same routines. Make sure no strings have been broken or are about to break. Make sure your guitar picks are where you need them to be. Make sure our wireless packs are charged for our guitars, etc.

My morning gear check included an additional step that takes place solely when we play outdoor venues: I unlocked my car, opened the center storage console between the driver and passenger seats, grabbed a lighter, grabbed a handful of  smoke bombs that I had packed, grabbed a roll of gaff tape, and headed back over to the tent.

“What colors?” I asked

After a quick debate between our party, we settled on blue and purple because those colors would probably show best in the daylight.

From there, I grabbed my Epiphone Wilshire electric guitar, and taped one smoke bomb to the headstock (top of the guitar where the tuning pegs are) and the other one to the body of the guitar, facing away from the cable input so it wouldn’t interfere with the electric signal of the instrument. When the taping was done, I strummed a few notes to make sure the guitar still sounded the same and that none of the tape was touching the tuning pegs. Everything seemed comfortable to me, so I stuck the lighter in my back pocket and set the guitar down on top of its case in the shade for it to adjust to the humidity.

After that, everyone went through their respective routines of stretching and preparing to play. We all changed into our agreed upon wardrobe (homemade army jacket vests screenprinted with our logo) and started taking our gear down to the Big Tent to start loading onto the stage at 10:00am- one hour before our show.

With the stage already being backlined with the guitar/bass amps and drum shells we were going to use, it really only took us one trip from camp to get our gear backstage. I grabbed our big merch suitcase and set it up next to the merch tent, and left it there because the tent hadn’t opened yet. We checked on it every 10 mins or so, but any stolen merch would lead to a manhunt with the Muddy Roots patrons, so we figured no one would bother it because everyone was respectful of each other’s property.

Right as the yoga session ended and we began to head on stage to set up our gear, 2 sprinter vans pulled up backstage. 4 grungy looking guys poured out of each van and opened the rear doors of each. One of the guys in the first van walked up to Vincent and I:

“Do you guys know who’s in charge?”

“Uh…no. Sorry. We are just about to load our gear onto stage, but we haven’t talked to anyone yet.”

He then went into the tent and began speaking with two guys at the sound booth, which was located towards the back of the tent from the audience’s perspective. 

I was anxious about there being a schedule change or something that we had missed, so I watched the conversation from afar. The three-party conversation at the sound booth seemed friendly and cordial enough, so that made me feel at ease for a bit.

When the conversation was done, one of the guys that was already at the sound booth started heading in my direction. 

As he approached, we locked eyes.

“Hey man, are you guys with Titans of Siren?”

“Yessir. We are about to load our stuff on stage.”

“Perfect! I’m Milt. Super excited to see you guys play. Before you load on, these guys that showed up are the crew for the Eagles of Death Metal. They are going to do a quick line check, and then you’ll be good to load on.”

“No worries. We’ll be ready when they are done.”

The rest of the conversation was us thanking Milt for inviting us to play at the festival and how much fun we already had attending. It was good for us as a band to get face-to-face time with the founder of the festival.

While we were confused about the sudden change of plans, it’s important to remember that a band like us has no leverage at a festival like Muddy Roots. We were happy to be a part of it, and we were going to make things work no matter what. Were we told about the early morning line check? No. Did it bother us? No. Of course we were all antsy to get on stage to make sure we had our own gear working for our show, but we knew that the EODM roadies were professionals that could get the line check done super efficiently.

The girls in our group weren’t allowed backstage, so we updated them on the line check news.

Quick side note for those that don’t know - a line check is a quick set up of gear and microphones to make sure that all the equipment is functioning properly. It’s often mixed up with a sound check. A sound check happens after a line check. A sound check the process of the live mixing engineer balancing the sound of all the instruments to make sure the performance sounds the best. In short - a line check is just making sure everything works. A sound check is making everything sound good.

With nothing to do but wait for the EODM roadies, we all thought it would be a good idea to take a quick walk around the festival grounds for 15 mins. We guessed that the line check would be done within 20-25 mins, so we could be backstage ready to load on stage when that time came.

We walked down the food alley, and got some fun pictures. 

From there, the group headed straight to the wood stage, talked for a bit, and then we turned around to head back to the Big Tent. Anxiety was slowly creeping in, and we wanted to get our gear set up as soon as possible.

When we got back to the Big Tent, I immediately was hit with a wave of nerves and frustration. Nothing on stage had moved except for half a drum kit now being on the drum riser in the back of the stage. I didn’t think about it before, but I now realized that Eagles of Death Metal had their own amps and drums. The roadies had to set them all up on stage, and make sure they all worked. 

It’s important to clarify here that bands like Eagles of Death Metal don’t have 1 amp each. I think each guitarist had 2 half stacks of amps. Along with a big analog pedal board for guitar effects. The bass player had 1 half stack of amps, and of course their drummer had their own drum kit.

So far, the progress made by the roadies had been putting a kick drum on stage and getting all 5 half stacks out of the sprinter van…and placing them off to the side of the stage.

At this point, the drum tech for Eagles of Death Metal came up to us when he saw us return.

“Hey, you guys are the first band, right? Remind me what time you’re playing again?”

“Yes, we are. And we are scheduled to go on at 11.”

He grabbed his phone and checked the time. Everyone’s nerves were on edge at this point. It didn’t help that the drum tech’s only response to our set time was him looking at his phone and saying “ohhhhhhhhh” after he saw that we were scheduled to play in 40ish minutes.

I’ll summarize the rest of the set up:

Eagles of Death Metal roadies got their line check done just before 11. Luckily, we were told by Milt not to worry about time and that we can play our whole 45 min set. It was all great until we began putting our stuff on stage and realized that lots of things were missing from the gear that we were being required to use. Neither guitar amp had a power cable nor a ¼” cable to connect the amp heads to the speaker cabinet. The EODM roadies kept all of their gear on stage, which was taking up pretty much all of the power outlets, so we had to selectively unplug what we thought wouldn’t really affect their gear. We were given the stage manager’s contact info beforehand, but we didn’t know who or where he was, so we had no one to ask about the missing necessities. The production manager had introduced himself, but he wasn’t in charge of the gear. There wasn’t anyone outside of Milton that seemed to be in charge of knowing how to solve the backlined gear problems. I was guessing that he had the correct stage manager on his walkie talkie communication as there was an awkward moment when everyone around could hear Milton telling some off in regards to the “pieced together” backline and sloppy organization of the gear on stage.

Luckily, a quarter after 11am, gear had been set up, cables had been retrieved, our lines had been checked, and we were ready to rock and roll.

A few folks had filtered out due to the pushed back start time of our set, but we still had a decent crowd, and I was confident that many more would return due to us still being the only band to play from 11am-noon.

When it was time to start, our drummer Julian counted to 4, and I started the intro riff to our song, “Dopamine.” Despite the nerves I had when we started the set, I had played the song thousands of times before. I began the show by playing my Gibson Explorer, and I couldn’t have felt more at home once Riley started playing the airstrike siren. Was it loud? Yes. But there was something comforting about it being that that made the performance finally feel real. The anxiety involving load in and gear was behind us, and now we got to do what we do best: throw an unforgettable performance. Once I got through the first guitar intro and the entire band joined in on the opening riff, we were immediately in the zone.  My guitar sounded great. Everyone on stage sounded incredible. The on-stage mix was clear as day, and everyone was coming through perfectly in the mix.

With this being such a big show for us, I remember reminding myself to give it 1000%. We had one chance to make an impression. Show as much excitement and emotion in the performance as possible. I knew the songs. If I mess up, who cares? No one will know. Play it off like everything is done intentionally.

Finishing our song, “Dopamine” was certainly a “pinch me” moment. We are used to playing smaller local shows where the music is louder than the applause. You can have a great show, but with ear plugs in, sometimes the applause can sound like a few sporadic claps. At Muddy Roots, we hit the final note of our opener, and there was LOUD roaring, cheering, screaming. It was absolutely surreal. 

From that point on, I knew it was going to be a great show.

• ^ Photo credits to Hyposoda Photography

We got similar applause after our extended outro to “Pretty Girls (Make Me Nervous).” I remember getting an adrenaline rush looking up and seeing the crowd growing.

Our next song was “Nothing Wrong With It,” which is one of my favorite songs to play because it’s the first time in the set where I can showcase my screaming ability.

We always end the song by doubling the outro riff (compared to the recorded version) as I scream over it. I always try my best to scream beyond the end of the song, which is usually around 15 seconds - depending on how fast we play the song. One thing that no one thinks about when performing a physically demanding part on stage is the weather and temperature in which you are performing. For example, in the winter, indoor venues tend to be colder with the constant opening/closing of doors, so it becomes easier to scream when your body and voice has warmed up.

Cookeville, TN tends to be pretty damn hot in the late weeks of summer. It had to be at least 95 degrees when our set started. The tent probably gives 10 degrees of relief, but with gear on stage, heat rising, and us already sweating from constantly jumping, head banging and moving around, it probably felt more like 100 degrees on stage.

Either way, I told myself to keep going until I absolutely couldn’t anymore. Shout out to Abi for catching the scream on camera because I was extremely proud of it:

From there, we played our “punk rock” cover of Benny Benassi’s “Satisfaction.” If you’ve heard the recorded version or seen us live before, you know that there’s a call and response that we throw into our version of the song.

Riley - “So I can get my…WHAT???”

Audience - “SATISFACTION!!!!”

As you can imagine, it was really cool getting the audience to sing along, even if it’s one word in every verse. The crowd was loud. The crowd was audible. The crowd was excited. It was awesome.The Satisfaction cover went over just as well as we thought it would. 

The next song on our setlist was  “Dunk Island.” It’s another one of my favorites to play live because of the guitar riff I play. Admittedly, this was the song I was most nervous for. Why? Because this was the song I was going to use my “smoke bomb” Epiphone Wilshire for. 

There have been numerous Titans shows where our gear malfunctions. Cables get unplugged, our wireless rigs lose signal, the cables on our pedal boards break, amps lose power, etc. A lot can go wrong. We actually have an ongoing joke that “it’s not a Titans show unless a piece of gear malfunctions.” Knowing all the variables, I had rehearsed switching from my wired Gibson Explorer to my wireless Epiphone Wilshire numerous times heading into the Muddy Roots show. I cannot describe the amount of relief I felt when I turned on the wireless pack on the Wilshire strap and immediately got a clear signal from my wireless receiver and the guitar amplifier. 

After quickly tuning my guitar, I looked up to give Vincent the cue to start the song. We had rewritten the intro to “Dunk” so that the bass starts the song. Riley’s guitar enters shortly after the bass, then my guitar part starts. My guitar part is the final cue before the whole band enters the opening riff together.

I was looking for Vincent, to tell him that my guitar is in tune and to start, but I couldn’t find him. Wherever he was, we were on the same page as the bass intro was coming clearly through the bass amp on stage.

So where was Vincent?

As we were told and showed via video from multiple attendees after the show,

Vincent had somehow climbed on top of the shipping containers across the walking path from the stage. No one had any idea except the folks in the crowd that could see him.

I want to note here that 90% of the things that Titans does isn’t scripted between the 4 of us. Obviously, if we modify songs, we rehearse. The only “antic” that involves all four of us is the beer chug that takes place between Vincent, Riley, and I while Julian plays his drum solo at the end of Dunk Island. The other 99% of the time, we haven’t planned anything outside of playing the songs. That’s how we like it because it keeps things authentic for us. If anyone has their own idea or “antic,” we just tell the others the plan and figure the logistics out on our own. For example:

Me: “Hey, I’m going to attach smoke bombs to my guitar, and light them during the bridge of Dunk Island.”

Everyone else: “Ok.”

So that’s what happened. When the 2nd half of the bridge begins in the song, I’m resting and Riley and Vincent are playing. When that part came, I sprinted backstage, hopped the waist-high steel barrier, pulled out my lighter and lit the smoke bombs. From there, I ran off to the side of the tent where I was visible for the crowd. It went over very well with the exception of the fact that I burnt my leg. The smoke bomb I had taped to the body of my guitar was pointed directly at my left thigh. Upon lighting the smoke bomb, sparks landed on my leg and the smoke was obviously burning hot, which led to debris burning my leg. I still have a small scar, but I remember telling folks that it felt like a “bee sting, but not even that bad.” Worth it.

After ending Dunk Island with our customary beer chug/drum solo routine, we had 2 songs left to play. After stepping up to the mic to introduce the next song, the production manager got our attention on the side of the stage. He was gesturing by sliding his thumb across his neck, meaning, “you need to stop.”

After I gestured about one more song, he repeated his gesture while apologizing.

I stepped up to the mic to announce the end of our set.

“Hey guys, we gotta cut it short. Thanks so much for hanging out with us, and thanks for bearing with us through the late start! We are Titans of Siren, and we’ll be hanging out at the merch tent for the next hour.”

Lots of applause

That’s the story of our set at Muddy Roots. Playing was an unforgettable experience and it definitely helped us grow as a band. The story isn’t quite done as I’ll be adding a part 3 to describe the funny one-off stories and experiences that we had post-show. It’ll be more of a “chronicles” type entry. Thanks for reading up to this point! More to come!