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" Our first tour van, RV Danger, was a 1977 Dodge Sportsman -- originally, a vehicle that two of my bandmate&amp;#039;s uncles bought as a project to work on. They&amp;#039;d stripped the whole vehicle down to its chassis, and rebuilt the RV part of it around it over normal lumber material -- 2x4s, 2x6s, and plywood, with some fiberglass on the sides. But then they kinda stopped and didn&amp;#039;t want to work on it anymore, so they stored it in a warehouse, half-finished.  We were getting ready to go on our very first tour, the uncles offered it to us, claiming it ran fine, it just needed some work on the inside. We went to pick it up from Danny&amp;#039;s uncle&amp;#039;s warehouse, and it wouldn&amp;#039;t start. His uncles finally got it started, but it kept stalling. It should have been a sign. By the time we got it into Portland&amp;#039;s downtown area, the van had just died, with no explanation. We ended up towing it to my mom&amp;#039;s house; I ended up working on it for the next month before we headed on tour.  The thing was half-wood and half metal -- and because of all the wood, it was extremely heavy, and it wasn&amp;#039;t supposed to carry that much weight: all that wood, all that gear, and so the back was continually sagging. Every time we&amp;#039;d go around a curve or bump it&amp;#039;d bottom out, and the wheels would rub up against the wheel well.  That&amp;#039;s what we think caused the aging, balding tires to fail. And whip around. And knock the tailpipe up. And ruin the exhaust. And blow up the headgasket. But I&amp;#039;m getting ahead of myself -- for some reason, we thought it was a good idea to make it kind of nice inside; I&amp;#039;d worked in carpentry, so it made sense to put some time in. It never completely got finished, but it had the stuff that it needed. It was comfortable, it had a bed in the back, my bandmate Danny (whose uncles were responsible for this monstrosity) could stand up in it, and he&amp;#039;s 6&amp;#039;9, so there was plenty of room. But because of all the stuff inside, it kept bottoming out. His uncles had told us the tires were good on it -- which was a mistake, because it turns out they weren&amp;#039;t good. So on our maiden voyage -- from Portland to San Francisco -- we got as far as northern California when the tires lost their tread, which made the worst hammering noise we&amp;#039;d ever heard on the wheel well. We called AAA but AAA couldn&amp;#039;t do anything for us, because we broke down in California, not Oregon. We needed new tires. We were already late for the show, with a long drive still left, when all of a sudden, a tire truck rolled up -- they told us there was a Les Schwab tire store at the next exit! We got our tires fixed, but nobody at the tire center, and none of us, had realized the tailpipe had been knocked out of position. We took off, relieved, hoping the worst was behind us when we began to smell exhaust. We looked underneath, and saw that the wheelwell had been ripped off from the tire. I had some caulking, so I used that to patch the holes. So we&amp;#039;re driving down the freeway, and I&amp;#039;m asleep -- very sound asleep, probably thanks to the carbon monoxide from the exhaust fumes. I just remember Danny vigorously waking me up, saying &amp;quot;The RV&amp;#039;s on fire!&amp;quot; The police had been following us for a long time, and saw embers dropping out of the back, thought &amp;quot;that&amp;#039;s not right,&amp;quot; and pulled us over. They didn&amp;#039;t ask for our trip permit, didn&amp;#039;t ask for insurance, which was good because we had neither -- they were more concerned for our safety. The fire department came out with their hoses and doused that whole side of the vehicle. The exhaust pipe was right under the gas tank, and the filler tube for the gas got so hot that it started to ignite the wood -- and melted the insulation too, which was Styrofoam insulation. The fire department blew out all the insulation that was under there -- and we were on our way.  We got to the show about four or five hours late, and had to switch slots with the opening band -- but that was our first-ever show on tour, and our first brush with death at the hands of RV Danger. --As told to Jeff Miller "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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