Tour is drinking piss

On Wednesday October 19, I had the opportunity to sit down with reggae-rock trio Cydeways based out of Santa Barbara, California. Cydeways, who has been together since 2016 was the opening band at the Spokane Knitting Factory. Shortly after opening for The Elovaters and The Movement, the band invited myself and Corey Saling to their green room for drinks and a casual interview. The group consists of Dustin Parks (Vocals/Guitar), Casey Kernohan (Drums), and Daniel Kearney (Bass).

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Ben Smith: How did you guys all meet? What brought you together to form Cydeways?

Dustin: I moved out to Santa Barbara, California from Boston and played with some people… I eventually met Casey who was at school at USCB. We played for a while and then Daniel later joined us after playing for another band at UCSB.

BS [to Daniel]: Reggae Band?

Daniel: Yeah.

Dustin: They were a big college band, college sensation.

Daniel: We played some frats, some house parties.

BS: What’s the music scene like in Santa Barbara?

Dustin: It’s cool, the venues are dying a bit but there is one cool one still. We tend to just make music there and tour… everywhere else.

BS: You guys recently joined LAW Records [label] right?

Casey: It was probably about four years ago now, two of them being during Covid. We signed it, released an EP and then Covid hit. Didn’t help anybody.

Dustin: We’re still with them though, gonna release our new record with them still – love those guys.

BS: How do you like the Kona Town Studio? [SoCal based studio operated by LAW records]

Dustin: I love the Kona Town Studio.

Casey: Fuck yes, Jeff Bates http://engineer man.

Dustin: Jeff Bates and Jeff Nieson are both so killer. We shoot videos there, we rehearse there. It’s awesome. Much more welcoming than other studios we’ve been to.

Casey: It feels like it’s set up in your best friend’s living room.

Dustin: It’s also 5 minutes from Redondo Pier, always cool to walk down and grab a beer, go back and record. It’s a really cool spot.

BS: How does your new self titled album differ from your prior discography?

Casey: It’s.. BETTER.

Dustin: The first one was kind of a trial run, we have a couple good ones off it that we still play but.

BS: You should have played more tonight, it’s got some of my favorites!

Dustin: A lot of people do like that album. For me, it’s like I was a young kid still and now I listen back to it and think ‘Oh God what were we doing with this’. But the new record, I think it’s a bit more mature. We all got together and found our sound a little more, which feels great. I think the next record is gonna be the one where we found our sound, so we’re excited about that one.

BS: Compared to other bands you’ve played with, what’s it like being on tour with The Movement and The Elovaters?

Casey: Both of them are awesome, we’ve done an Elovaters tour before and those guys are the most welcoming guys ever. This is our first tour with The Movement and we are absolutely fired up.

Dustin: We’ve been listening to Movement since highschool. I think I heard set sail or habit when I was a junior in highschool. We’re stoked because we’ve wanted to tour with these guys forever. Elovaters are always fun to tour with, I’m from a similar area as them in Boston. Their music is great.

BS: Do you have a favorite band that you’ve toured with?

Casey: We can’t play favorites, but one thing that’s cool is playing with bands based out of different parts of the country. We were with Kash’d out on our first America tour. They’re Florida guys and it’s cool to see the culture difference between us.

Dustin: Every band you tour with is kinda like a summer camp. You’ve got to get to love them since you’re gonna live with them for a while, but it’s always great.

BS: What do you guys do to pass time on the tour bus?

Daniel: Well we play Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 and NHL 06’ on PS2, make some music, drive, smoke some weed

Casey: I’ve been reading a few chapters a day of a really good book.

Daniel: It’s Catcher in the Rye. He skipped 8th grade.

Dustin: This is our first tour in a bus we bought with a TV and stuff so we’ve been ripping Tony Hawk and stuff

BS: Sounds a lot more entertaining, so what’d you do in the last one, nothing?

Daniel: You lay down in a 12 passenger bus and think about why you didn’t go into medicine or something

BS: I saw you guys are gonna be at the Knitting Factory in Boise in a few days. Do you ever get shit for weed on tour in states like Idaho? In Pullman we’re like 10 minutes from Idaho where it’s very illegal but we have 5 dispensaries in our town.

Daniel: Wait, it’s illegal there? We gotta take the weed off the dash

Dustin: Oh shit.

Daniel: We have a ton of weed on the dashboard of the van.

Dustin: Definitely have to hide some shit, we got a lot of pot.

Casey:  Maybe we can pull a Mötley Crüe. On the shuttle bus, we have an emergency escape on the roof like they have on school busses, and there’s this Tommy Lee story where he crossed borders with drugs by popping the top, putting them on the roof and then pulling it back in when the dogs leave.

Dustin: Knowing us, we’d probably forget and leave it on the roof when we drive away.

BS: Tell me one of your best tour stories.

Dustin [to Casey]: Well he shits on the side of the road a lot.

BS: You guys don’t have a bathroom?

Daniel: We piss in Jugs.

Casey: So on our last tour, we started in Minnesota. We pee in jugs because you drive so long and you just have to. When we got to Minnesota, we were already late for sound check so we parked in an underground lot and I was so thirsty so I ran back to the bus and started downing this gallon jug that was pretty dank and salty… The issue is we have all these Pedialyte packets, so if you’ve had one of them, you’ll know that the texture and flavor of water changes.

Dustin: The color is the same.

Casey: Yeah but the texture is different. So I swished it around my mouth thinking, “Oh it’s just a Pedialyte”, so I go back in for seconds and it just hit me. You ever seen Dumb and Dumber where the cop drinks the beer bottle full of piss? I finally started puking and had sound check two minutes later. It was terrible.

Casey: Me and Dustin were at sound check wondering where the hell Casey was. We texted him and he said he drank piss and threw up everywhere. I thought he was joking at first then he sent a picture of the puke.

Dustin: That has got to be the best tour story we have so far. Bet you didn’t expect to get that one.

BS: I was thinking it would be more along the lines of a party story, but that was 10x better.

Daniel: That’s tour dude. Tour is drinking piss.

BS: Tour is drinking piss, that will definitely be the headline for this interview. Have you guys ever been too drunk to play? Or more intoxicated than you’d like to be before you perform.

Casey: It was kinda like tonight!

Dustin: For me, it was Vegas with Iya Terra. I don’t remember a thing. Every show is kinda like that for me though, drunk or not I blackout a little when I perform. The adrenaline hits and it goes by so fast. That particular show in Vegas was definitely the alcohol though.

Casey: The problem with the Vegas festival was that we were in Vegas for an entire day before, so we decided we might as well paint the town red while we’re there. The next day, we got the hair of the dog. Retox is a detox.

Ben: So who here gets the most women at shows?

Dustin: That would definitely be me because he [Daniel] is married and Casey’s pretty much married. But if they weren’t with somebody, they’d definitely outdo me.

Daniel: No comment.

Ben: Lastly I’ll just ask what’s coming next for Cydeways?

Dustin: We have a ton of tours, festivals, and new music coming out. Can’t thank you enough for having us.

BS: Thanks for letting us come up and interview you guys, it’s been awesome! Are you guys gonna be recording your new stuff at the Kona Town Studio?

Dustin: We’ll probably dabble with it, we record a lot of our stuff at our house too. Our two buddies from Boston, Dana and Trevor mix and master most of our stuff.

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Cydeways currently has over 40,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

Some Cydeways tracks I’d personally recommend are Sun Goes Down, Ocean, and Float.