So, Trash Talk, tell us a story
Botched Steal In The Hour Of Chaos
Lee Spielman is the vocalist for Sacramento, California, hardcore thrashers Trash Talk. Their latest, Trash Talk, on their own Trash Talk Collective label, is 14 minutes of vitriol, violent riffs and, sure, even a little trash talk. But none of that could compare with what Spielman matter-of-factly says his band faced in St. Louis…
Lee Spielman: One time, we went to Whole Foods in St. Louis on tour to steal some groceries, because we didn’t have any money at the time. And we were going to get food. Our roadie went next door to the REI and tried to steal, like, a jacket in the middle of the summer. I don’t know why. But he ended up getting caught up front. And he picked up the security guy and threw him through the window. The guy got all cut up and came back and then they called the cops. The cops grabbed [our roadie], or whatever, but he had the keys to our van, [so] the cops found out we were all in the same van. As we walked out of Whole Foods—like, Whole Foods didn’t even know we were stealing. But as we walked out, everybody got popped, one by one. Everyone just kept getting caught. On the road as you looked to the left, everyone’s on the floor so we just kept walking across the street. We got across the street and we see all these cops looking at us, being crazy, so we threw our bags to the side and once we hit the corner, where no one could see us, we started running. The cops came around the corner and pulled out guns and told us to get on the floor. It was mid-summer, so we get on the black asphalt. We’re, like, face-down, burning. Our other roadie goes, “Yo, could you let us up off the floor? This ground’s very hot. It’s literally burning my face.” And the cop puts his foot on the back of my neck, and pushes it to the ground and says, “Let them burn.” So we all got arrested, went to jail.
How’d you guys get out of jail?
It was just, I guess, a theft charge. So they let us out of jail. The second we got out, it immediately started thunderstorming in the middle of the summer. We had to walk two miles to the impound spot to get our van back.
Anyway, we had an Enterprise rental van for that tour. We weren’t supposed to leave California with it. This was in St. Louis. [The cops] called the Enterprise place and told them, “Yeah, I got your van” or whatever. And they told us if we wanted to get our van out of the impound, it would cost, like, a hundred dollars. We paid the hundred bucks to get it out. Then once we got there, we found out that Enterprise wanted their van back and they said that we couldn’t have it back. And that’s where our tour ended. We got to keep our gear and stuff.
Some of us caught rides with friends who were coming back from a festival on the East Coast. Some of us flew. Our bass player took, like, a 20-hour Greyhound bus ride to Denver to meet up with some kids who were heading back to California. It was a pretty wild time. We all had warrants for a little while in St. Louis that are finally cleared up. But it was pretty sketchy going through there.
What did you do about all your gear?
Some of it went on planes. I think our guitar player left his [amplifier cabinet] there and sold it. I’m not exactly sure. Everyone had one piece of something. I was going on the Greyhound with, like, a floor tom and, like, a cymbal stand. It was pretty crazy.
How did all this not break you up?
Oh, we’ve had worse happen.
Oh yeah? Care to share?
I think we better leave that alone.
Also on PaperThinWalls today:
Kory Grow reviews Trash Talk's single "Dig" here!
Phil Freeman praises new Jon Chang band, Gridlink, here!
