I was in Brazil with Sepultura, getting ready for a US tour. We were excited and getting geared up! It was our first big support tour and we all had big expectations. When the phone call came through, I was floored. I hung the phone up and looked at the band..."we are off the tour!" The conversation stunned my ears. The advertising was out; tickets were printed; tour support in place and we got kicked off the tour? Bull!!!
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| Chillin at the house |
What can you do at a time like that? You can get mad!! I phoned my agent and asked him to make my own tour, with my own 4 bands..Sepultura, Sacred Reich, Atrophy and Forced Entry. One thing lead to another and the package morphed into Sick of it All, Napalm Death, Sacred Reich and Sepultura. I would use different genres of music and call the tour a spoof name...The New Titans On the Bloc. I would drop the 'k' off block so the New Kids couldn't mess with me, and cruise America! Phil Rind had come up with the name one day when we were laughing our butts off, being sarcastic. The name would now serve its purpose.
I don't know what the big deal was with the name and the package, but it sure irritated people. The record label phoned and said they wouldn't support the tour because they had issues with one of the bands. I could care less. There was boiling blood in the creation of this bill, and I was just the person to stand up to them.
The tour was a huge success, packing the venues in every city. Only a couple misdirected white power incidents; people wandering into the wrong show apparently. In Allentown, Biohazard was added and they surely tore it up!! Someone got maced during the Sick of it All set and a huge brawl erupted, but what the heck...it made good memories.
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| Iggor and Andreas |
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| Arise Backdrop |
We made super-cool tour jackets, tour passes and all the adds were co-ordinated with our artwork. Apparently we attracted a lot of attention, because after a couple weeks on tour, I received cease and desist letters from a couple managers who felt they "owned" a few of the words in our tour name. Few days later, I got a letter from The New Kids on the Block manager stating I could not use "on the bloc." Haha I ignored the pests and carried on, knowing I had 30 days to comply---but only 27 days left in the tour!
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| Biohazard |
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| Sacred Reich |
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| Sick Of It All |
I smiled inside as the tour wrapped up. The label admitted this was the tour that launched the Seps in America and a big metal mag named our tour the best tour name of the year! Sweet revenge!!
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| Iggor |
Class dismissed....