Some people are born with wanderlust. Thatcher May is one of those people.
Now, we’re not talking the cliché phrase printed on $40 Urban Outfitters t-shirts or splashed across some blog roll—you know, the kind of term playing hashtag to photos of the aurora borealis or the Redwood Forest’s behemoth sequoias. We’re not talking the movie adaptation of some John Green novel or JetBlue’s latest marketing campaign. We’re talking about something far different.
Wanderlust isn’t something Thatcher May advertises as part of his person, or in this case, as part of the near cosmic space he takes up as Sports Coach, moniker of his partially raucous, partially atmospheric, and fully unique solo act. The need to hit the road, join nature and breathe fresh air is just something Thatcher feels—and has felt for, well, forever. He’s always had one foot in the woods. And a somewhat reluctant foot in the city.
So when he hit the road back in April to tour with New York-based avant-pop solo act, Kidaudra, he didn’t go the typical route, but instead a greener one. After playing a variety of New England cities, Thatcher played three shows in North Florida before continuing on to the Gulf of Mexico, Texas and some other states Thatcher joked he “forgot existed.” Show after show, the pair finally hit Ohio before heading back east to end tour in Allston—a DIY welcome home show, at someone’s home, in Allston. But it wasn’t all houses they played. There were warehouse shows, venue shows, bar shows, all sorts of shows—and stuff—in between.
We caught up with Thatcher after he caught his breath from a whirlwind month of music, and he filled us in on what we really want to know. We asked Thatcher to round out his tour experience in three classic themes: The Good, The Bad, and The Weird.
The Good:
A lot of really good and cool things happened on this tour, I don’t think I could narrow it down to one. We spent a lot of time in the woods. It seems that a lot of bands get to cities early and check out the city. I feel like a city is usually just a city though, a lot of buildings and people, a few cool streets a few bad streets. Not super captivating to me. If we had time to kill we went to parks or a state park outside the city. Most cities, especially in the south, have some kind of nature reserve not too far outside. We went to this rad park in Gainesville and the woods down there were like a jungle. We got stuck walking around in some torrential rain and wind. That was cool as hell. We drove this gnarly road in Virginia called “Skyline Drive.” For miles all you could see were these super beautiful hills. We also went to some beautiful beaches in Florida, especially Pensacola Beach in Pensacola. The sand is literally white as snow there and the water is hella warm. We also saw dolphins—just cruising around, real dolphin-like. We went to this really cool road called Rookery Road in Louisiana and it went through the backwoods of some swamps. There were alligators just hanging out and hundreds of big cranes nesting in the trees. The swamps were something else. We went to a really pretty park in Denton, TX. There were a lot of people playing soccer and it was just really pretty. The sun was also setting, good moment for the soul.
More Good:
When I was in Denton, Texas, I found a super quiet park and was leaning against this fence playing guitar and this dude walks out of the woods. He comes up to me and is just staring at me for awhile, which is weird because we’re the only two people in sight. He then starts speaking spanish to me, which I do not speak. I made out a few words though, he definitely said “guitar” “romantic” and “ballad.” After staring at me he takes my guitar and starts playing this gnarly latin song. Really shredding it up, he’s also singing in spanish and it’s all very beautiful. So he plays this rad song and when he’s done, he just gives me the shred-stick back and walked off into the sunset and that was all. It was all really cool, everything about the moment was very perfect.
The Bad:
We had a few rough moments. It’s tough touring when you’re a nobody, but a lot of artists who make it seem like they have the whole “now kids, I used to play shows in front of 2.5 people” stories so its all part of the game, right?
My most frustrating moment of the whole shebang was probably in Houston. The show got booked by some random dude out there, his name was Matt and he was the only mofo I’ve ever seen that still has a flip phone in 2015. It was Kidaudra and I and some bullshit country band on the bill, I forget their name. During my set there were like 3.75 people there watching but this whole band and their friends were sitting at the bar and not once did they acknowledge the music at all. Its one thing if you play to only a few people, its life man, it happens from time to time. Even established artists will hit cities where there’s a lackluster crowd. But it’s a whole different story when there’s people there and they’re just blatantly not giving a fuck what you’re doing—that’s tough. Its a rough feeling up on that stage there.
After my set this country band was supposed to play their shitty American Idol style jams so I grabbed my guitar and went to go sit in the back of my car and just play a bit, get out some feeling, you feel? I took some stuff out of the car and put it under the car to make room. So then I’m in the car playing and I hear this rustling sound and I turn around and this homeless dude is trying to steal all the shit I just put under the car. So I get out and I’m like “dude, what the fuck are you doing?” and hes like “ohh…. uhmmm yeah man, sorry, I thought uhmm…” and then he just stumbles away. After that I go back to the venue and Audra is finishing her set and the whole country band is just wasted and screaming about shit. One of the dudes kept waving this hockey jersey around too, and screaming. But it was april, do they even play hockey in april? Another chick is clearly pregnant and just chain smoking and getting hella drunk. After that, Audra and I were both done with the Houston vibe so we tried to go get some food. Turns out nothing is open in Houston past like 12am and I literally mean nothing. It was a strait ghost town, which is weird because it’s a huge city. We eventually drove like 15 minutes to get to one single greek place that was still open.
After that, the venue let us crash in an empty apartment above the bar that was sketch as hell. The chick who let us in kept referring to us as “the couch-surfers,” don’t think she had any idea we were in Houston to play a show at the bar she co-owned. She said she was just gonna call us by the names “Boston” (for me) and “New York” (for Audra). Clearly they get a lot of “couch-surfers” who all stay in that sketchy windowless room above the bar. Turns out, nobody we met on tour likes Houston, Houston just sucks. If you’ve never been, don’t go. Ok?
The Weird:
Anyone who knows me well knows one of my biggest fears is ghosts. I’m terrified of them. I totally believe in them, not as conscious beings, but more just leftover energy from people’s souls. I can’t see them—and that scares me so much. When we were in Pensacola we stayed with our friend Cleopatra and her dog Bandit in this big house from the 1800s. It was beautiful, had palm trees and a beautiful back yard and amazing art. A really incredible house. She even had chickens and roosters. We ended up spending two days there because our New Orleans date ended up being cancelled the day before the show. I didn’t mind though, Pensacola is hella pretty. When we got there we crashed pretty early and I stayed in this one room downstairs. The next day Cleopatra asked me if I “felt anything.” I later learned that room was haunted and apparently people have stayed in there and run out screaming because they woke up in the middle of the night feeling like they were being suffocated or strangled or something. That was pretty terrifying, and though I didn’t have any ghostly encounters personally, the stories of the house were enough to make me break down and cry tears of fear. I survived though, and as far as I know, I’m not possessed.
Keep your ears peeled for Sports Coach’s next release, No Let Go, out June 23rd. Download it for free via his bandcamp. And stay tuned for his upcoming LP, It’ll All Be Ok for You Soon, out mid July on cassette from Virginia-based Citrus City Records.