1995 was an incredible year: Michael Jordan returned to basketball, O.J. got away with murder, Tom Hanks tried to go to the moon with Kevin Bacon and that guy from Twister, but they got stuck (never saw the end, nor the sequel Apollo 14, so I assume they are still orbiting?), and every one of us got kissed by a Rose on a Grave! OH MY GOB what a year! Yet, I think the most defining moment was when a new music festival emerged, one that would change the course of your life… and mine.
Originally titled “The Bomb,” cripes, who pitched that turd of an idea? I can only assume somebody looked at the guy who pitched it and was like, “The bomb? In this economy? That’s kinda WARPED, don’t ya think?” That’s when a gentleman named Van stepped forward, or wait, maybe there were two of him since the name is plural? Yeah. They were TWINS, that’s it!
So, VANS spoke up, in unison of course, “Instead of naming this tour after a Hot Ones hot sauce; It shall be named the Warped Tour!” Then somebody probably shouted, “What’s Hot Ones!?” The VANS were so ahead of their time, so much so, they knew about branding, so before anybody could vote, they wrote their name in sharpie on the poster and BOOM, music history was made: the birth of VANS WARPED TOUR. (This is historically accurate, no need to fact check it, I ran it by Ask Jeeves.)
The Vans Warped Tour quickly became the home of skateboarders and punk-rockers, and they even let in a bunch of dudes who failed out of Bandcamp and danced like Elaine from Seinfeld, which we’d come to know as Ska fans. The Van twins, or VANS as we now know them, also decided to make this festival as hot as possible. Not in a Paris Hilton, ‘that’s hot’ kinda way, in a ‘Hey, you’re going to be in a giant field with no shade, shoulder to shoulder with thousands of sweaty humans with chain wallets in the dead of summer’ kinda way.
This, to my surprise, really caught on; soon the Vans Warped Tour was growing each summer, shedding light on the biggest and brightest names in music, while also bringing along a ton of new up-and-coming bands. Over the next two decades, they came to the conclusion that if they could end the festival, and then a few years later bring it back under the guise of it being a “revival,” this could turn into an event that could live forever! Until 2018, that is, when they deemed it “The Final Warped Tour.” Don’t be sad; something tells me it will get revived. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, cough, cough, growl, growl.
I’m pretty sure in 2018 the VANS twins were seeing the gaping hole in their green representation. They knew the only remedy was to finally include the premier goblin-metal band Nekrogolikon. There I was, Hawaiian shirt and all, ready to go goblin mode on my first-ever Vans Warped Tour. Something about seeing all these bands backstage, wandering aimlessly looking for both catering and a place to poop, I came to the realization that I would love to interview these bands, and I’d love to do it, RIGHT NOW!!! I did not discriminate: I interviewed musicians, clowns, clown-musicians, and even Jeff Buckley.
2018, it was deemed “THE LAST WARPED TOUR”… until… ya know… the next year when the Warped Tour also took place. Sending a trend? Yeah, same.
CUT TO: 2026. Warped Tour is rumored to be back, again… again. I told them, whatever you do, do not throw it on any short beaches; that shit will not be able to handle all the rocking’n’rolling. So they found a Long Beach, set it on the hottest day of the year, and once again, I felt the calling. These poor musicians are going to be talking to human after human on press row without a single interaction with a creature?!? I could not let this be.
I took my crew, and I got my hump down there.
I remember the VANS turning to me and asking in unison, “How many bands do you want to interview… five?!?” I scoffed. Yeah. I know how to scoff. “Five? Uh, try five TIMES that!” They responded, “You want twenty-five bands?!?” I thought, OK, that seems like a few too many; “Maybe we call it twenty?!?”
Now I know a lot of you are thinking, so wait, you did Warped Tour interviews in 2018 for your Right Now webseries, and then you didn’t do any more Right Now episodes for years, then you brought it back as a podcast, and now, seven years later, you are back doing interviews at the Vans Warped Tour? To that I say, yeah, haven’t you ever heard of a REVIVAL? It’s a little trick I learned from my friends, nay, my mentors, The VANS.
Warped? Sure, but… aren’t we all?