Twelve Foot Ninja are wrapping up their first US tour with Periphery, Born of Osiris and Dead Letter Circus, and we asked guitarist Stevic Mackay to tell us what the five weirdest things about touring the US for the first time are. Here is his dispatch:
1. Walmart.
This joint is fucking massive and may be the source of all creation. Apparently rocks and trees come from Walmart. In one session I purchased a 70cm Darth Vadar action figure for $29 which I actually saw in Germany last month for $89 Euros (which is about $98,000 dollars converted)….I got the Dark Knight DVD for $5 and a BB handgun for $14. Bananas are fucking 70 cents! You need to take out a mortgage to buy bananas in Australia. Probably because all banana trees in Australia are actually horse eating snakes.
2. Cheese.
We've bought "cheese" a few times now and I'm pretty sure it's not fucking cheese. Unless the cows wear silicone implants from Fanta Mountain.
3. Ice Hockey.
A bunch of blokes hammering around on ice with big sticks and blades on their shoes bashing the shit out of each other into Perspex walls. Helmets and gloves come off and it's okay to punch on for a bit! They have to have "5 minutes alone" (you read that in Phil Anselmo's voice didn't you?). Amazing sport. I'm getting more into ice hockey.
4. Drinks.
In the US, "lemonade" is like lemon cordial and what we call lemonade in Australia is called Sprite. My fucking mind bending question is: what do you call "Sprite" when it's made by another company? "Iced coffee" in the US is just cold coffee with ice in it. In Australia, it's more like a milk shake with coffee.
5. Confectionary.
There are so many types of lollies over here Jesus!!! Walmart has a lollie section similar in size to an entire supermarket in Australia! Just putting this out there…but maybe there's a correlation to diabetes and the abundance of sugary tastiness. I'm not here to judge. I fucking love Merica. I love this country and I love lollies.
Check out the remaining few dates of the band's US tour here. The band's new album, Silent Machine is out now.
