Four Austin bands share the highs and lows of life on tour

Crooks

Josh Mazour (vocals, guitar), Sam Alberts (electric guitar, mandolin, banjo, trumpet), Andrew VanVoorhees (bass), and Rob Bacak (drums) of Crooks are garnering attention for their unique brand of country that’s as at home on Red River as at The Continental Club. They play gritty Texas outlaw country, with songs about guns, the road, bars and booze. Last year Crooks released an EP aptly titled Lonesome, Rowdy and Restless, and they are currently working on a full-length, due out late this summer. To sample their songs and for upcoming performance dates, visit crookscountry.com.

Their Story

In late February 2010, we hit the road with our close friends Western Ghost House for a West Coast tour with the bold goal of traveling about a fifth of the circumference of the earth in just a week and a half. This was a no frills tour. We had eight dudes riding side by side in the unsung ninth member of our crew, an eight passenger old Dodge Ram with an insatiable thirst for oil and a noticeably receding tread-line. This curmudgeon of a van characterized the tone of the trip, illustrating the natural fragility of a frugally funded cross-country tour; teetering on the brink of total disaster throughout. Yet despite grim presentiments, it carried us all the way without quitting, though not without a few close calls in the process. Maybe the worst was our overnight drive from Las Vegas to Boise. 

After a relatively uneventful day’s drive, Andrew, our bass player who’d only been a Crook for a month at this point, took the wheel somewhere in Utah. As we approached the mountains and darkness fell, so did the worst snow storm any of us had ever driven in. I woke up to see us barreling down the side of a mountain, at what appeared to be warp speed by the look of the snow coming at the windshield. Josh was perched between the two bucket seats, with a white knuckled grip on the head rests repeating the petrified mantra, “Hey man, tell VanVoorhees to slow down…Hey man…” In retrospect it seems pretty funny—eight dudes straight out of Texas, scared [explitive], riding in a broken down old van on four bald tires, speeding down a mountain at night in a snow storm, skidding and sliding with a U-Haul full of gear fishtailing in tow. We ended up making Boise alive, and after about a four-hour motel stay, it was on to Oregon. - Sam Alberts, Crooks

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