Road Report: Freelance Whales Endure a Harrowing Drive Through Wyoming
After much buzz, New York's Freelance Whales are ready to unveil their debut album, 'Weathervanes,' on April 13. The band just wrapped an 11-show stint at Austin's SXSW Festival, and are continuing on the road in support of their new French Kiss/Mom + Pop release before joining Shout Out Louds on the road in May.
Until then, the band will be checking in with personal photos and stories of their travels. In their latest Road Report, drummer Jake Hyman recalls the hardships of inclement weather, which force Freelance Whales to make a pit stop in Laramie, Wyo.
On our first tour, we had very few night drives. It's a fortunate thing to be able to get back to the hotel/friend's house early enough to catch more than five hours of sleep. Since there were only two bands on tour No. 1, it was much easier to keep our schedule running on early bedtimes and early wake-up calls. This time, we're dealing with the opposite. Even the short drives are longer than they were the first time around, and because there are three bands on the bill, most shows don't end until midnight at the very earliest. As such, we've had to endure some rather lengthy, exhausting, and sometimes treacherous late-night drives.
As the tour has gone on, the shows have been ending later and later. We crossed the border from Vancouver to Blaine, WA at 2:00 a.m. just this week, and didn't get to our hotel until 4. We've had more post-midnight check-ins at hotels in small towns between venues than I thought possible on a single tour. Asheville, NC. Las Cruces, NM. Bellevue, WA. Baton Rouge, LA (fine, so that's not such a small town). Subsequently, as we've gone further north, the weather has gotten progressively worse. Last night, we drove three hours out of Salt Lake City and landed in Rock Springs, WY. It had been snowing for hours
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