Road Warriors with Hitman

Hitman

Let's talk to those good boys from Nova Scotia, Hitman, one more time.

Did you check out their thumpin' good EP, The Offering yet?

If not, Bandcamp's got you covered right HERE. It's even for sale in Canadian Dollars. How exotic. For the low price of a fiver and a toonie, you can have this traditional heavy metal to spin to your heart's content.

In the meantime though, let's find out what they're like on the road....

1. What's the right length for a tour?

There’s definitely no rule written in stone, but for us, we usually try to stick to a few weeks. As a band we are usually sleeping on someone's floor or in the van so it does get pretty hard on us. We save hotels for days off when we are absolutely beat from the road, so luxury is pretty rare, assuming you would call 4 guys splitting 2 double beds in a hotel room luxury.

Eating healthy is also pretty tough, so we tend to actually put on a bit of weight during a tour rather than lose it but we find no matter how long we are on the road, once we spend one night in our own beds we are always ready to get back to it.

2. I've heard some great stories about strange ways of eating on the road. What's your trick to keeping your belly full while out there?

We always try to bring a bbq in our trailer.  That helps out a lot on costs and opens us up to a bunch of stuff we wouldn't usually be able to afford on the road such as steaks, chicken, and even a good breakfast. But besides that it’s usually Subway or “Mcgangbangs”, as we like to call them, which is a junior chicken inside of a McDouble. 

3. Tell me about the best club you've played? The worst? Names can be left out, or in...whichever.

One of the best shows, not actually at a club, would be The Warped Tour show we played in New York. It was amazing to be able to play alongside some huge names and then party

backstage with them.

One of the worst clubs we played, it wasn't actually the venue’s fault, it was a miscommunication. It was a very French speaking promoter in a very French city. 

We booked a show and they noticed we were doing a Pantera set for one of the shows a few days later. We only had about a half hour of material since there were 4 other bands on the show a few days away but with this show we were promoted us being a Pantera tribute band and we were supposed to play for 2 hours. 

We tried to explain on stage that we are not a Pantera tribute band; that we are a band who just knows some Pantera songs but no one understood our explanation on or off stage because of the language barrier. It made for a very uncomfortable show.

4. Whenever I get behind the wheel of a car for a long drive, I always play a Mitch Hedberg comedy album. What's your routine?

We go between stand-up comedy and whatever music we feel like listening to. A lot of times we also just have someone in the back watching cartoons so we will hook the audio up.  

Other times we bust out the acoustics and jam along. 

5. How do you settle band fights while in the backseat of the van?

Band fights are pretty quick and rare. We all get along really well and tend to think of each other as brothers so fights don't last very long and we are usually back to enjoying ourselves pretty quickly.

6. Tell us about the best response you've gotten outside of your home town.

We have had tons of great feedback and tons of great shows outside of our hometown so it's difficult to pick one instance, to be honest.

7. Have you ever played in St. Louis?

We have not but would love to play as many places as possible.