Music as Extreme Sport: Tula Vera On Tour
Words and interview by Bennett Kelly
Tula Vera is live. Or rather they were live, back in summer ‘24, on tour of America like Kerouac’s strange and ragged prophets, delivering the dark word to distant ears and scenes on a 24-show, 24-night romp.
Formed as high schoolers in 2015, the spooky blues quartet tapped both familiar and unfamiliar DIY networks in the midwest and deep south on their June-July tour.
The group returned with an eye on relaying the inner workings of a tour that is more accessible to peer bands than they might realize. “I call this music as extreme sport,” said guitarist and singer Clay Parcells, of having so many shows in a short span. “It's super intense.”
What makes it all possible is the “beautiful web” of music scenes across the USA, “communities all over that want to support you and want to support small bands, and are just excited about music.” It also helps if you’re willing to bum it a little bit, Parcells said.
Near and far, the live show is everything for Tula Vera. “When people see us live, they can see the vision very clearly,” said guitarist and singer Dylan Drummond. “Not that they can't through our recorded music or online. But I think when people see us live, it's the most raw, true, organic, emotional connection that happens.”
Though on tour, performing ends up being a mere single-digit percentage of the 24-hour grind; a familiar reprieve between the innumerable highs and lows of running to and fro in strange lands.
“You're getting these powerful amounts of different types of social interactions really, really quickly,” said Parcells. Pinballing daily from sensory overload to six-hour highway drives is “just the most insane dichotomy of emotion.”
It’s not all peaches and cream, either. “I think there's also this expectation of people being like, Wow, isn't tour amazing?” said Parcells. “You get to tour, you're playing music every night, you're with your best friends. And all those things are true, and we do love it. But it can be tough to talk about the things that didn't go well or were difficult,” Parcells said.
“It's also pretty tough to be gone for that long, to be in all these new places. I also think being a queer person in the middle of the country can just be a different experience as well. And leaving your bubble, and the sleeping arrangements, and touring on a budget, and not getting as much rest and whatever,” said Parcells.
“But most of the time, I think we love it. And we're a band that just loves playing live shows. That is what fills our cup.”
As we brave cool winter, come along on a summer journey across that beautiful web, oral-history style with your tour guides Clay Parcells, guitar and vocals, Dylan Drummond, guitar and vocals, Margaret Marino, drums, and Joe Jansen, bass. Also on tour, but not quoted here, was manager and booker Rory Alene of Milkman Booking. (“Not everyone’s as lucky as us to have a Rory!” said Clay). Band interview, edited for length and clarity, was conducted over a Zoom call in August; Tula Vera also kept an iPad journal on tour, pictured throughout.
Tour began June 6th with a Thursday night showcase at Jersey City’s Pet Shop bar, a top Jersey venue for drummer Margaret and the band. “The vibes are always good, the crowd is good,” Margaret said. The food and beverages are good too, chimed the rest of the band. Pet Shop’s design and interested patrons bring out the best of local indie rockers.
Clay: The Charlie XCX Brat record was coming out that night. I was pretty hype on that. I made everyone listen to that record nonstop in the car. And it was a really lovely kick off show to also have it be with Shred Flintstone, who we love and we've played with forever.
Clay: My parents came to that gig. One of my friends didn't realize my dad was my dad, so they were chatting all night, and they just thought it was this funny old dude. But anyway, it was nice to… Those beginning shows really gear us up to be heading out on the road to these unknown locations, where it's a little bit more of a toss-up of how things are going to be perceived, or who we're going to be coming across while playing these states we've never been to.
The next morning, Tula Vera slipped up to Boston for a Friday gig ahead of a double-header Saturday in New York City and Connecticut. The Boston show was in a movie theater, with the venue projecting real-time footage in real-time back over the band with warp and color effects applied, in front of seated guests eating popcorn. “Super trippy,” said Parcells, “But ended up being really cool.” The band slept at Clay’s cousin’s place, except for who decided to homestead in the car in a parking garage, with all the gear, telling the band “I’m nesting in here, I’m good.”
Dylan: It was so late, and we had to get up early because we had a double show in the morning. And sleeping in the car was cheaper by a little bit too, to leave the garage earlier. That way we didn’t have to pay so much. I had a philosophy behind it, it wasn’t just random.
Dylan: Then it was cool because the next morning, I woke up early, I got the car out of the garage and I was going to try and find coffee. And I ended up just driving around Boston. And it was very serene, nobody out, and the sun was coming up. I drove over this bridge six times because it was like every Dunkin’ Donuts in Boston wasn’t open yet.
Clay: You had a little nice morning for yourself.
Dylan: It was a fun little adventure. And then I met up with the gang, and then we left.
Joe: And then we went off to Punk Island.
Clay: That was an intense move on our end.
Punk Island is a New York City festival of tented stages in a circle on Randall's Island, with multiple acts playing at once. A lot of hardcore bands. In between songs, guests could hear all the other music going on when standing in the center. Tula Vera’s set was at 12:25 pm, which they made on time after the early wakeup in Boston. “Never seen a band rock harder than us at 12:25 pm,” Clay joked. “It was fun.”
Afterward, the band lurched back north into Connecticut for the day’s second gig and third in 24 hours, at “one of the nicest house venues that you can imagine.” They crashed there afterward with bill-sharing Bruiser and Bicycle, reunited from the night before, “one big happy family.” Sufficiently warmed up, the journey west began a couple days later, to Pittsburgh for a Tuesday gig.
Dylan: That first Pittsburgh show was stressful. I'm a little hesitant to be specific about dogging them. I don't know. I'm trying to think of the best way to say it.
Joe: It was a very cool space.
Clay: It was. They were used to having much bigger acts coming through. And they had more recently started having more local acts coming through, bands that are smaller, touring acts that are still playing more DIY spaces and not 500-cap. And I think they just had an unreasonable expectation set for smaller bands, for like a Tuesday night, and didn't really voice the things that they would need. So it was a little bit disappointing. It was the only place, I think, that we had something like that go on. And they didn't treat Rory with the respect that I think that they deserve. So that was disappointing to me.
They got a good glimpse at some new, out-of-town music though. “The bands that night were amazing,” said Clay. Trans-fronted “folky-hyperpop” Sneeze Awfull used electric cello with a ton of vocal effects on top, “really cool and just really good musicianship.” Another act, I4A, used an EBow-like device on guitar to create droning, prolonged notes for otherworldly sounds.
Clay: We had been to Pittsburgh before, but we hadn't really hung out or anything. And it's just so cool to see these pockets of really cool folks making cool stuff. That's what I took away from the night. But it was disappointing on a bureaucratic level that this venue couldn't figure out how to run themselves.
Then they were on to Cincinnati. The first signs of recurring tour trouble: their three-act bill was falling apart. The lead singer of one band caught a stomach virus and couldn’t play. “We were trying to find folks and really having a tough time. And we’re also not from there,” said Margaret. “We were finding people and then an hour later, they’d be like, Oh…” In Cincinnati, one of the acts was able to wrangle another band for the bill, at a cool venue called the Motr Pub. Then down the river for a Louisville gig, Clay swiped right for an unlikely supporting act.
Clay: The Hinge show. The Hinge show was unhinged. I had been putting my location on Hinge to be the next place we were going on tour on occasion, to invite people to shows. I only did it twice.
Clay: This was one of the times. And this guy was actually super cool. He was like, Yeah, I'll show up with some friends. This sounds fun. I'll be there. And then he had an acoustic guitar in one of his photos. And I was like, how crazy would it be if we ask this guy to play? So that's what happened. He got a gig from Hinge. He brought friends that were excited to be there, and all of them seemed to be into our stuff.
Margaret: That was our second time playing there. Last summer it was a fun show, but I remember a lot of people walked out during our set. I remember being so disheartened, like, damn! Wow. But this time around, people stuck around and were super into it. It was a lot of fun.
Clay: Definitely a step up from the year before. That show I think was the most nerve-wracking though, because it was just the mixture of just having all these people drop. I remember all of us in the van at one point, just a moment of silence and just being like, What are we driving to right now? What is this gig about to be? But it ended up being cool. It was all good. But it was really funny. It was like, this is just not... We were just on an adventure. Let’s see what happens.
Sanity was restored in familiar Chicago. “Vibes in Chicago are immaculate,” said Margaret. “I would spend several days there. Always such a great time.” It was their second year playing Chicago with Los Black Dogs, a band Margaret found when booking the tour last year. “I was really blown away by their music,” said Margaret. “They spoke to me in a lot of ways, especially just overall feel, right down our blues rock, classic rock alley.” The Chicago scene is home to several local connections.
Dylan: Shout out to Rachel!
Clay: Yes. Rachel is a wonderful friend of ours. She might have been our first fan. She came to multiple of our shows before Margaret and Joe were in the band, like 2015, 2016.
Dylan: It was, she played a shitty Stone Pony showcase, where they hit all these kids and people to bring as many family members as they can, and then don't pay them.
Clay: [Laughs] Oh they played that?
Dylan: Yeah, the first time we played it, Rachel played it, too. And they became a friend of ours right then and since then. This year and the last year we got to hang, and they graciously let us stay in their apartment. It's great waking up and being able to hang out and talk to people that we're tight with instead of... Not that other bands or people aren't super great hosts, anybody who's going to let five people from New Jersey just sleep on the floor is cool. But I just remember being able to lay down and drift off to sleep and hearing friends talking. And that's a nice sentiment.
The Chicago show was at Live Wire Lounge, a “legit venue” that fits a good amount of people while giving the comforts of rock ‘n roll-dive bar dinge. “You can sit and have a beer and talk with a friend over here, but then you can also be right up in front of the speakers too, right up in the band's face,” said Margaret.
Margaret: It was probably one of my favorite venues of tour. And there was a really good crowd that night, too, if I'm not mistaken.
Clay: That night was well attended. A bunch of people from Jersey it seems have moved out there too. It draws the Jersey crowd. I think Chicago has treated us very well. That was one of my favorite shows of the tour.
The band leapt back into the wilderness, heading south, first down through Illinois into hardcore St. Louis, and then southwest into its tumbleweed neighbor, Oklahoma.
Margaret: St. Louis was certainly something.
Clay: Oh, it was that show.
Joe: Yeah we all kind of blocked off that one.
Margaret: The venue put us with all hardcore groups, which, cool. I like hardcore music. Nothing wrong with that. But the pairing was a little shocking.
Clay: I remember all of us being on stage, and we were going to just do our heavy hitters of playing “Liar Bitch” and “Truck Driver,” and these songs that are heavier. Which is still not really hardcore, but it's just a little more punk rock. And then I turned around to the band and was like, let's do “Reality/Fantasy,” which is the one that has all the three-part harmony, and Dylan's stuff that has some more the R&B thing. And everyone was just like, is this the setting for that, where all the other bands were screaming? And I was just like, they said they wanted us here. These are our songs.
Clay: And then, people got down with it. Hardcore kids dancing at the front of the stage to these songs. And first they had been putting on the front the whole night of, “Who are these guys from out of town that don't make hardcore? Whatever.” And then they were getting down with their friends to “Reality/Fantasy.” And I feel like all of us were so shook. It was also a younger crowd. We were just like, whoa, this is cool. Super bizarre night, not a favorite at all. But there were some sweet moments.
Margaret: And the dads liked us.
Clay: Yes, the dads did like us.
Joe: So did the moms.
Clay: Yeah.
Joe: We’re not gonna talk about that though.
Margaret: We can say the moms liked us. Joe especially.
Joe: [Wants to change the subject] Yeah, and then Oklahoma!…
June 16th was Dylan's birthday, and also Father’s Day. Tula Vera spent it at the house of their “road parents” Sherry and Josh, repeat tour hosts and musicians themselves. The house is stocked with music memorabilia, and “everything” memorabilia, including a bathroom dedicated to the Alien movies, and other wacky trinkets and comic books. Tula Vera stayed there the summer prior.
Clay: I feel like at that point on the run, especially after the slightly demoralizing show in Missouri, I was so glad we were staying with them. It was very wholesome. You hit a bit of a wall on tour where you’re just starting to get a little bit tired. And it's still so fun. But we weren't really partying like crazy on this run, because I call this music as extreme sport, playing this many show dates in such a short period of time. It's super intense.
Margaret: I remember asking Dylan what he wanted for his birthday, and he goes, Just for this show in Tulsa to happen [glumly].
Dylan: [Laughing] Yeah, there was about a week there where a bunch of bands were dropping from the bill. I was messaging literally twenty bands within the span of twenty minutes being like, Hey, we're playing tomorrow. We would love to play with you if you can make it. It was just that.
Margaret: And it worked. We did play the show. We're out in the middle of what felt like tumbleweed Oklahoma. But then we found this really cool artistic space, which was so incredible.
Clay: I think every time we book one of these, we learn how to do it better the next time. Especially when you get farther out, there are less venues to be choosing from, and there are just not as many people. There's a little bit of detective work that you're doing where it's like, okay, we're pulling up. We're going to have fun. We're going to see what the vibe is, and then we're setting ourselves up for the next time around.
Dylan: And then after all of that, you're on the road, you're two weeks in, it’s the day before, and then they say, Hey, I'm sorry, it's my sister's birthday, and I can't miss it, and I forgot. And it's like, [exasperated!] We had holds! We had emails! You're in the email chain! You shared the flyer!!
Clay: That is one of the whirlwinds of being on the road. One moment, someone drops from the bill. Then the next, you find another band. Then the next, you find this really cool person who said we can crash at their place. Then you're at the gig and you're playing. It's just so much all at once. Then also nothing at all because you're sitting in the car and driving for five hours. And it's just the most insane dichotomy of emotion.
Dylan: Then they're like, Yo, you got to come back on a Friday because we're going to light it up on a Friday. And they tell you this place, and they're like, Dog, you get a gig there on a Friday? A hundred, hundred-fifty people. We're like, okay, cool, let's try and come back here on a Friday. And then you're trying to figure out, okay, so we got to come back to Oklahoma on a Friday. We got to try and figure that out somehow. So you're putting that in the back of your mind.
Clay: A lot of these people are taking a chance on us, too. Especially the folks that are letting us sleep over and stay in their homes. They're letting these five strangers they've never met, helping us put a show together, letting us play, and then letting us crash. You're getting these powerful amounts of different types of social interactions really, really quickly.
Wholesome, tumbleweed Oklahoma seems to pack a lot of DIY punch and inspiration. But Texas is the reason, err the state with a little more action, with five gigs marked on the band’s original tour flyer.
The Green Room in Tyler, and then Rubber Gloves in college-town Denton, a city proud of its music scene, were two of the band’s favorite places ever played. Denton “was super artsy. They just treated bands really well. Their scene is really cool,” said Clay. “And Tyler was a great show because the other bands were really great.”
Clay: I didn't know Tyler, but we found it, this cool spot in between Denton and San Antonio. We were like, great, another show, we'll play it. And it ended up being one of the best ones of the run where a ton of people came. I think in some of these spots, people get really excited when a band from New York or far out will stop. Some people just come out to shows because it's the place to be. And so they were like, Oh, we saw there was a band coming from New York, we checked you out before we got here and then decided to come just because they were really excited that someone from out of town was willing to come and play. Which we also found in Mississippi, and same with Alabama.
Margaret: In Texas, I had the best brisket of my life.
Joe: Oh my god.
Margaret: I had looked up Diners, Drive-ins & Dives, where to go in Texas. I had this place, I think it was in Austin.
Joe: Slabs.
Margaret: Yeah, Slabs, barbecue and beer. It was so good.
Clay: Oh my god.
Joe: [Just a saucy medley of moans, agreeing.]
Margaret: I think that was probably in the top two meals I've ever had in my life.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. You like that brisket, don't you, Dylan?
Dylan: I didn't get the brisket.
Joe: Oh, no, you didn't. Whatever, dude. You like their pulled pork, though.
Dylan: Yeeeeah.
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia were all coming in hot. Some dates got shifted around or canceled, like Baton Rouge, which instead became a day off in New Orleans’ French Quarter, where they “couldn’t cut through the humidity with a knife,” said Dylan. But they had a comfy crash pad in New Orleans with Clay’s college roommate and enjoyed beignets at Café du Monde. The New Orleans gig was at a gothic place with goats and pentagrams on the walls, and other witchy essence of voodoo, a fitting locale for Tula Vera’s spooky blues.
Clay: That show was super fun. We had the day off, and we ended up just getting drunk in the French Quarter.
Margaret: Joe introduced me to pineapple daiquiris.
Joe: Always having daiquiris.
Clay: Yeah, the daiquiris were good. It was super hot. That was something that was pretty tough about going down south. Rory said something really funny where, almost everywhere that we went on this run, we would go somewhere and were like, This just feels like a different part of New Jersey. Every landscape felt like just a different part of New Jersey. But the one place that didn't have that was New Orleans, because they have these really beautifully wispy trees. I have a really lovely photo of Rory laying in a tree.
Dylan: There was probably the best compliment that we got on tour, was from southerners being like, You sound like y’all from here! We're like, Thank you!
Onward to Mississippi, for what was meant to be a coffee shop gig in an old house, but was moved outside in the heat because of a power outage right as Tula Vera arrived. But their intrepid hosts were able to use their neighbor’s supply and outdoor space to accommodate the show.
Joe: It wasn't even their property. It was one of the businesses on the other side that had power, and they let them set up in the backyard and do that. And everyone was doing something. Even if they were just there for the show, they were helping.
Margaret: Like a line of ants. We were all carrying an amp or some cables or a drum item or chairs.
Clay: This person, Brent, books a bunch of shows out there and said, My one criteria of a favorite band is that they're willing to come out and play in Mississippi. He was so excited that we were willing to come through. There were some New York bands that had played there.
Clay: That was another fun thing, seeing a sticker in the bathroom from bands that we know from back home, or talking to someone who knew one of those bands, and just recognizing in the circuits you're in, that there's only so many venues and bands. That was one of those shows that made me really feel that way, in part because of having that technical difficulty with everybody all coming together.
Dylan: We liked the space so much we went back in the morning for breakfast.
Clay: We did. That's true. I also left my water bottle and needed it back.
Joe: Oh, yeah. That's why we went back. No, it was good coffee, though. And they have pies.
Margaret: Oh, yeah. Oh my god. That was the best pie I've ever had.
Joe: We had fucking pie. Good pie.
Clay: We ate the best food on this tour. We were eating so good.
Joe: Like royalty.
Clay: We were eating way too good on this tour. People talk about tour where they're just eating gas station food, and there was definitely a lot of gas station food, but we were eating good. We were getting good food.
The digs were DIY-tight again in Alabama. The crash pad was above the venue, a windowless one room apartment, “very tight for six people to be sleeping there.” Dylan slept under a desk, and Joe’s head rested between an oven and a fridge. “We were making it work, but it was a little comical.” The pad belonged to a member of one of the best bands they ever heard live, Sam and the Big Boys.
Clay: They were the sweetest people, so fun, and it was just one of the more wacky setups for crashing. We were grateful to not have to pay for a hotel, so we were easy peasy. But that group, they actually just messaged us [in August] about putting a show together up here.
Dylan: Sam and the Big Boys. They were mind-blowing. Was it four-part harmony?
Clay: Yeah it was. Two of them are brothers, and that’s the mind-reading that I feel like only people who have known each other their whole life can do. The level that they're locked-in, playing-wise, was very cool.
Dylan: The drummer was singing most of the songs lead. The guitarists had one pedal each. It was just so cool.
Clay: The songwriting was really awesome. They rehearse there twice a week or something, and they're just all always hanging out in this space, which also was a very cool set up and brought more of a homey vibe to the show, even though it wasn't a house venue. Plus one of them lived upstairs and they're just always there. It was a cool thing.
Tula Vera had to move another show or two around in Georgia. In Atlanta, they wound up in an underground mall that projected an outdoor street scene simulation around them; “weird,” “surreal,” and “bizarre.” Another gig was happening just two or three mall slats down from their underground spot. And like much of Atlanta, it was hard to get to and to get around, amidst a busy week there, the same night as the Biden-Trump presidential debate and some other sporting event. “It was just a strange vibe,” said Clay. “I would be interested to go back to Atlanta because their music scene is cool. I just think we didn't quite find the scene,” though they had a good bar hang afterwards with familiar people..
The last phase of the run was through the Carolinas. Their first time being in South Carolina, they found the “treasure” of an all-ages venue called Tua Lingua. “It's a legit venue, but it’s also a house, but I don't think anyone lives there,” said Clay.
Clay: It was pretty packed, and really fun. It was also a younger crew. It was really reminding me of the New Brunswick days, that nitty-gritty basement show vibe.
Dylan: Energy-wise, that might have been one of the best shows.
Margaret: Definitely. I think the most energetic of tour. It revived me. Would return.
The band then rolled through Asheville, a place they’ve played four times now and their third at the venue, Fleetwood’s. This was June 29, three months before Hurricane Helene barreled down the mountain creeks and left much of Asheville destroyed. The venue touched on here, Fleetwood’s, published a GoFundMe that remains active, but structurally they were largely spared and resumed some activities in mid-October, once water utilities started coming back.
Dylan: We love Asheville.
Clay: Yeah, that show was really fun. And let's see, I'm finding it here.
Joe: You have the book?
Clay: I have the book. Geddi Monroe, who's a photographer in Asheville and has been taking photos of the scene for five years, makes these zines of the shows that she shoots. And she ended up making a real book, hard copy for the 10th edition. It's got hundreds of photos in it, it's got a whole list of all the bands.
Clay: Our show wound up being her birthday show mixed with the release show for the book, so that was so cool. And Fleetwood’s is really kind to us, and they're really fun there.
Joe: It's also a wedding chapel.
Clay: It is. It's also a thrift store, and they give bands discounts on clothes. It's kind of a really wacky spot, but it's really cool. And some prior people came out to that show, since we’ve played there a couple of times now. That show was pretty well attended and was really fun. One of my favorites.
Last, they played Bandito’s Burrito Lounge in Richmond, Virginia, and returned their tour van the next day in New Jersey.
Clay: We got charged extra because we went over the mileage for each day.
Margaret: We did? [sarcastically]
Joe: Of course, we were driving like six hours a day.
They had mostly split the driving. Mostly.
Margaret: Not me. I'm afraid. We'll get over that one day, though.
Clay: Really, you will?
Margaret: Yeah!
Joe: Then you're going to drive the whole time. You gotta make up for lost time.
Margaret. Oh my god. Okay.
Clay: I’ll be excited for that day. I’ll get party streamers.
They had one more gig to play, an out-of-state encore on July 5, but first had a few days at home to decompress.
Clay: I was exhausted, and withdrawing from it. I had to go back to work, and move everything I own back to my apartment. I had a crazy set up where my lease was going to be up while we were on tour. I had sublet it, then had just moved into a new place right before we left. I sublet both places at the same time and brought all of my things back to my parents’ house so that I could tour and not have to pay rent. So that was really insane. Getting to crash at my parents for a night, though, before having to do all of that, was nice.
Margaret: I got a good night's rest and cleaned my drum rug. Threw it on the driveway, threw it on the pavement, soap, vinegar, water, scrubbed that thing down for a while.
Clay: That sounds like a nicer day.
Dylan: I had some time off from work. I think we had a couple of days. And then we drove down to D.C., and we played that last show, which was really great.
Clay: Yeah, that show we were really looking forward to.
Dylan: Roxplosion. At Pie Shop.
Clay: We were pretty hyped about that show. There's a good crowd whenever we play in D.C., some recurring characters and friends that come to our D.C. shows now. And their pie is really good. It is a real, legit pie shop.
Joe: Yes. They have savory pies.
Clay: Yeah, and they'll give it to you if you're playing.
Joe: Yes. Free pie.
Clay: That show was a lot of fun. Getting those five days to sleep in our own beds, but then still be just as tight from playing all of these shows together, was awesome. We were still so tight from being on the road for so long. A good scene, good crowd, a top-tier show. It was a good hang.
That’s it. More words? We’ve already spewed so many. Let’s just say the show goes on… Catch Tula Vera live, you won’t regret it.
You can check out Tula Vera’s music on all streaming platforms. You can also keep up with the band by following them on Instagram.
Band photos by Sydney Tate
