FROM THE ARCHIVES: And You Will Know Us By The Trail of The Dead
Originally published by Showskii, 2015
Unfortunately for South Florida music fans, they missed out on catching …And You WillKnow Us By The Trail Of The Dead on their latest U.S. tour. However, I was lucky enough to catch their set at a post-Shaky Knees concert. The crowd was exhausted from being in the heat all day, sleep deprived, and no one could take their eyes off this band’s insane live performance.
Lead singer Conrad Keely was captivating, and would refuse to finish playing. The man seemed to be possessed by the demons of music and let them take him for a ride. Bassist Autry Fulbright joined drummer Jason Reece for a two man drum solo. After playing until around 1:30 am, I was lucky enough to catch these guys before they went on their way to continue their tour with Your Favorite Enemies. Arminio “Armi” Rivero from local Miami indie rock band SunGhosts and I were invited by Autry to join them on their tour bus for a conversation and a drink, as well as a beautiful and mysterious blonde girl whose name I never got.
“I founded the band with Conrad and we’ve been in this for 21 years,” said Reece, “our band now legally drink.” He said with a smirk as he took a sip of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
At this point Conrad joined us and offered us a drink as he got a beer for himself. Something about this band we learned that you wouldn’t expect from their sound was that Conrad and Jason met when they were growing up-in Hawaii. “Yeah, I lived on the big island for a while growing up and then when I was older I
moved to Oahu and that’s where I met Conrad. We met in high school,” said Jason. It was amazing to us to hear all this interesting geography. “He’s [Conrad] a little more all over the world than I am though.”
“Yeah, we were reading up on that. You were in Cambodia for a while, right?” said Armi.
“I’m currently there now. It’s no longer a third world country. It’s actually becoming a second world country,” said Conrad. “It’s interesting and worrying at the same time. You know for every mall that goes up, a village is being displaced at the same time. The nice thing about the corruption in Cambodia is that it’s very in your face, whereas the corruption in America is very hidden.”
I asked if it was difficult for them to keep the band going long distance like that. But they assured me it wasn’t an issue. There were other things to consider as well.
“I think the biggest challenge in Jason and I’s life is finding time for our kids. We’re dads now. And I think now when you have a kid you realize the real challenges. But you also manage your time very wisely. Before we were partying all the time when we could’ve been
making 50 records,” said Conrad. “But it’s weird because now I feel like I actually get to enjoy the moments now that I’m not ripped on stage every night. I can actually enjoy the show. It’s this weird chemical thing that happens when you have to have responsibility for someone that’s not yourself.”
After that, Conrad excused himself to go outside with their tour manager and we stayed with Jason. I asked what their rituals were for vocals when they go on tour as many of their songs get very harsh. “Well, Conrad drinks a lot of tea and throat coats and stuff. For me, tequila.” At which moment he brought a bottle and offered us a shot. And there are some things Arminio doesn’t refute.
The tour manager came back in and said they needed Jason out front. But before I had one last question.
“Oh man, the name. You wanna know where the name comes from…” Jason laughed.
“Do you want the honest truth or a lie?” Like any journalist who wants a good story, I wanted both.
“The name comes from an ancient text from a Mayan temple. It was an apocalyptic text and we thought it was cool. It was during the whole Mayan calendar, end of the world type a thing. Alright, so that was the lie. The truth is, Conrad and I worked this shit job. We worked in this office, like this temp thing. I worked in the mail room and he worked like running errands. We were on our way to work and we were fucking hungover cuz we went out the night before
and were just fucking around, thinking of band names. And I said something like…The Crosstops. And that sounded like a garage rock band. And then we started talking about spaghetti westerns, Clint Eastwood type of stuff or horror movies like Suspiria from Argento. And we then said, "And You Will Know Us By The Trail of the Dead.”