ROAD WARRIORS Oil for the truck was hard to come by, but at least the boys didn’t get busted. |
"We toured in a Vietnam-era, two-and-a-half ton military truck," says Ryan Major, singer/guitarist of Allston '60s garage-rock revivalists the Fagettes. "Our particular model was service and recovery, basically a mobile tool shed, not quite fit for human occupation. Nine people in there, brutal."The Fagettes tore through a sweaty opening set at an Allston DIY spot last Friday night, but more importantly, the band recently returned from a West Coast tour that ran from Los Angeles to Seattle and back with friends Rotten Apples. The colloquial term for their veggie-oil fueled behemoth of a tour truck? "Deuce and a half."
"Rather than go through legitimate means [of obtaining veggie oil], we decided it'd be easier to see who would give it away," says Major as he sits shirtless on the sidewalk after his show, swigging from a bottle of Jameson. "So, we took grease full of the ends of French fries, corn meal, whatever, filtered it [through a cheese cloth hung from the truck's mirror] and put it in the tank."
That proved to be as gnarly as it was risky. Somewhere in central California, Major and Ryan Riehle (of Rotten Apples) chose on a whim to search out some fuel, which came in the shape of three barrels found behind a gas station.
"Turns out you can't steal oil at one in the afternoon while wearing purple pants and with a guy in a cocktail dress and cowboy boots," Major says, that last tidbit referring to Riehle (see photo). "So we got caught, spoken to sternly, and threatened with legal action, but nothing ever came of it."
But the West Coast seemed like the Fagettes' kind of place. "I think I got used to the lawlessness and free marijuana," says Major. "But it is good to be back with people who are super intense, because all the good vibes start to make me uneasy after a while."
