Three days ago I was at Emirates Stadium in London watching Arsenal dismantle FC Twente. Last night I was playing in LA and today I'm on board a 25-year-old 45-seater school bus that runs on vegateble oil and will take us, two other bands and a revolving crew of drivers, loaders and friends up the California coast and into Canada on the most interesting tour Fucked Up have ever been a part of.
At the show last night there was a queue around the block to see bands like No Age, Negative Approach, Matt and Kim and Glass Candy - and us - at a mini-festival. The main difference to our shows in the UK is the threat of violence. Before we played we watched security guards ripping people off the stage by the throat and disposing of them through the front doors of the club for stage diving. We couldn't play until our friend/promoter agreed to do stage security himself, lest the entire audience be thrown out.
I slept on the floor of a friend's garage. When I woke up I felt like someone had spent the night crushing my bones into the cement.
The drive to San Francisco took almost 12 hours. The bus doesn't travel faster than 50mph, which is a mixed blessing, since it also doesn't have any seatbelts. Our primary delay is for fuelling the bus. There aren't any vegetable oil filling stations, even in California. We finally hit the jackpot at a Carl's Jr, where the grease flows like wine. It took about an hour to fill the tank a quarter full with fresh hamburger-grade grease. In the meantime, the party, including our singer Pink Eyes, left, kicked around a football and ate deep fried macaroni and cheese, to ensure that the next bus along would have enough grease to get to where they were going.
We got back on the road and then the accelerator pedal fell off. We've been in the US for two days now, but it already feels like a month.
• Fucked Up are on tour in the UK now