“Yeah, paying bills and that kinda thing, uh, doesn’t agree with us,” Flood adds. “We figure if we just keep movin’, nobody will find us.”
At some point, perhaps, all the hard work will pay off. Though they’re also soberingly aware of the other possibility — that “at some time it will all break down, and we’ll all go home and get regular jobs,” Hall says.
“Right. And then we’ll end up resenting music entirely, and be going, ‘Shut that video off!'” Flood mocks.
Johnson has the last word on the matter: “I’ll see a No Depression in a bar when I’m 50 and say, ‘I was in that fuckin’ magazine!'”
And yet the Drunk Stuntmen have already weathered storms that would have done in countless other bands. Indeed, no story about the Stuntmen would be complete without discussing an incident in the winter of 2002 that provided their most indelible, if unenviable, road memory to date.
“We’d played in Athens, and were going to head to a friend’s house in Atlanta,” begins Connell, explaining that they were all eager to watch their home team, the New England Patriots, play in the Super Bowl that weekend. “And the transmission just completely blew. We drove from Athens to Atlanta for like 40 miles in first gear.
“So we had a few days off, and we got it fixed, or so we thought; we got a rebuilt transmission put in it. We headed from Atlanta to Savannah, and played a really fun show.”
“As Super Bowl champions!” Flood interjects.
“We left Savannah around 4:30 in the morning,” Connell continues. “I happened to be driving. The van was running fine into South Carolina, and then it started to lose power. It was acting really sluggish, so I nailed Steve in the arm, and I’m like, ‘Dude, the van is messed up again, there’s something wrong.’ So he says, ‘Pull it over.’ And just as I get to a complete stop on the side of the road, in Manning, South Carolina, this white cloud of smoke just surrounds us. And as I’m getting out of the van, and Steve gets out of the van, I hear him just start screaming, ‘Get out! Everybody get the fuck out right now!'”
“I noticed the asphalt was glowing,” Sanderson explains.
“Yeah, I looked down, and the ground is literally glowing,” Connell says. “The transmission fluid is on fire, creating this pool of fire underneath the van that’s now re-igniting the van. So after a real quick vain attempt to try to put it out with some bottled water that we had, we all just backed away, got on 911, trying to tell the operator where the hell we were: ‘Oh yeah, you can’t miss us — we’re on fire!’ By the time the first trooper showed up, it was pretty well engulfed.”
Sanderson picks up the story. “The trooper walks up, casually, and he says, ‘Anybody in there?’ And we said, No. ‘OK.’ And I go, ‘Do you have fire extinguisher?’ He goes, ‘Sure don’t. Fire department will be here any minute.’
“So we’re waiting for the fire engine, and we hear it scream by in the southbound lane. The trooper walks back over while we’re getting the marshmallows ready, and he goes, ‘Well, I told them boys to go down and use the next exit, and they tried to cut across the median strip and they got stuck in the mud!'”
“Meanwhile, we’re trying to figure out a way to unhook the trailer with all of our gear,” Hall says. “We’re yankin’ on it and pullin’ on it, and finally we just opened it up and did like a brigade of gear, just throwing it onto the side of the road, got everything out. When the fire truck did show up, the guy helped us pull the trailer off, but the van was toast. It was completely done.”
Once again, Johnson has the last word: “That’s the price you pay for winning the Super Bowl, I guess.”
From Raleigh on this January day, the Drunk Stuntmen are heading west for a series of ski-lodge dates in Colorado, before eventually finding their way to Florida for another biker event. So far, the road has treated them well on this trip. “We’ve been lucky with the van we have right now,” Brandon observes.
Everyone simultaneously knocks their knuckles on the wooden picnic table at Sadlack’s.
ND co-editor Peter Blackstock never saw Lynyrd Skynyrd, but he did see Molly Hatchet, with Blackfoot and Jon Butcher Axis.
