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On this episode of DTB’s “Bus Invaders”, we take you inside the touring vehicle of the alternative rock band, Anberlin, while on the "Never Take Friendship Personal Twentieth Anniversary Tour" with Copeland, The Dangerous Summer, and Spitalfield. Anberlin is currently supporting their newest album, Nevertake.
VIDEO INFO:
Film Date - March 27, 2025
Location - House of Blues in Chicago, IL
KEEP UP WITH ANBERLIN:
Facebook - https://facebook.com/anberlin
Instagram - https://instagram.com/anberlin
Twitter - https://twitter.com/anberlin
FOLLOW US:
Website/Email List - https://www.digitaltourbus.com/#/portal/signup
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/digitaltourbus
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/digitaltourbus/
TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@digitaltourbus
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/digitaltourbus/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/digitaltourbus
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/digitaltourbus/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-tour-bus-llc
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/user/digitaltourbus
VIDEO SUMMARY:
00:00 Introduction
00:32 Front Lounge
10:10 Bathroom
10:32 Bunks
14:42 Back Lounge
ABOUT DIGITAL TOUR BUS:
Digital Tour Bus is your backstage pass to your favorite touring artists! With daily video releases, we cover all genres, and have had the pleasure of featuring the likes of Matchbox Twenty, Twenty One Pilots, Megadeth, Machine Gun Kelly, Papa Roach, and thousands of others, over the past 15 years. "Bus Invaders" takes you inside an artist's home on the road, "Cooking at 65mph" showcases the culinary skills of artists on tour, and "Gear Masters" unveils the equipment musicians use on stage.
Buy official DTB merch at http://digtb.us/merch
On this episode of DTB’s “Bus Invaders”, we take you inside the touring vehicle of the alternative rock band, Anberlin, while on the "Never Take Friendship Personal Twentieth Anniversary Tour" with Copeland, The Dangerous Summer, and Spitalfield. Anberlin is currently supporting their newest album, Nevertake.
VIDEO INFO:
Film Date - March 27, 2025
Location - House of Blues in Chicago, IL
KEEP UP WITH ANBERLIN:
Facebook - https://facebook.com/anberlin
Instagram - https://instagram.com/anberlin
Twitter - https://twitter.com/anberlin
FOLLOW US:
Website/Email List - https://www.digitaltourbus.com/#/portal/signup
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/digitaltourbus
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/digitaltourbus/
TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@digitaltourbus
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/digitaltourbus/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/digitaltourbus
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/digitaltourbus/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-tour-bus-llc
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/user/digitaltourbus
VIDEO SUMMARY:
00:00 Introduction
00:32 Front Lounge
10:10 Bathroom
10:32 Bunks
14:42 Back Lounge
ABOUT DIGITAL TOUR BUS:
Digital Tour Bus is your backstage pass to your favorite touring artists! With daily video releases, we cover all genres, and have had the pleasure of featuring the likes of Matchbox Twenty, Twenty One Pilots, Megadeth, Machine Gun Kelly, Papa Roach, and thousands of others, over the past 15 years. "Bus Invaders" takes you inside an artist's home on the road, "Cooking at 65mph" showcases the culinary skills of artists on tour, and "Gear Masters" unveils the equipment musicians use on stage.
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00What's up? Come on in. How's it going? This is Dion from Anne Bruin, bass player. We're
00:20out here on tour celebrating 20 years of Never Take Friendship Personal. Tonight we are in
00:24Chicago, Illinois, one of our favorite cities in the world to play. And welcome to our bus.
00:31So basically this is where we hang out most of the day. If we're not in the venue, this
00:37is the front lounge with a small kitchen here with not a lot of room, but it's got the essentials.
00:42We have all of our coffee and everything we need, liquid IV, which is important. Okay.
00:49So for those who just want a quick cup, we got our Keurig here, but we have a lot of
00:56serious coffee drinkers on this. So we pretty much have a full pot going at all times. We've
01:01got our Bonavita coffee maker, which has been with us for years. So we pretty much have a
01:08full pot in there. Um, the entire first three quarters of a day. Uh, we have a large bag
01:16of coffee down here and then even more coffee up there. We drink a lot of coffee. Um, it's,
01:24it's one of those things that when you're gone all the time, you just want to feel something
01:28homemade and home and coffee is a very easy way to achieve that. So, uh, we like going from
01:33city to city, going to different coffee groasters and coffee shops and picking up new bags and things
01:37like that. So it's, that's a big part of, uh, this area. So, I mean, this area is also,
01:43we have a vast array of different mugs and everything. Um, here we have our great punk rock
01:50museum tumblers that we picked up just a few stops ago on this tour. It's a great place.
01:55I highly suggest you check it out. Um, but other than that, yeah, we just, everybody's got
02:00their coffee mugs, their tumblers, everything. Uh, I've got a few wine glasses back there for
02:05anybody that wants to sip and be fancy. So, um, yeah, we've got pretty much everything we need
02:11in this area for anything we want. Plates, silverware, everything down here, snacks, all that.
02:17So, uh, we're pretty well set and, uh, stocked. And like I said, this is our home. So we want
02:21to make it feel like home. So everybody kind of brings their own little touches and it helps
02:27a lot when you're gone for 30 plus days. So, uh, we have a vast array of sunglasses here and
02:33I don't know who's or who's because I don't keep mine here. Mine are always in my bunk.
02:37So I don't lose them because if I left them out here, I would lose track of them very quickly.
02:41One of my magical talents, um, is misplacing things constantly. So I put all my stuff in
02:46the safe spot every single day, but everybody else hangs their stuff here. So, uh, uh, our
02:51singer, Maddie actually purchased these nice little, uh, sunglass hangers on Amazon at the
02:56beginning of the tour. I didn't even know what it was. I just walked up, saw a plastic thing.
03:00I was like, is that for forks? What is that? And then people started hanging their sunglasses
03:04like, I'm an idiot. So, um, yeah, uh, just, so one of the, one of the big no-nos you can
03:09do on a bus is hang your sunglasses through these little strings because what will eventually
03:13happen is they'll snag this, break it, and then you can't put your shades up and then
03:17it's just dark on the bus all day. So, uh, it's nice to hang your glasses somewhere else
03:21other than there. So you don't want to break your lines and you also don't want your bus driver
03:25to yell at you because he's driving eight to 10 hours a night and you don't want to piss him off.
03:29And then over here, a big essential part for us as a band, um, is our TV and, uh, just,
03:38we've got an Apple TV with Wi-Fi which is great in the days. When we first started touring on a bus,
03:44everybody just had all their DVD books and it was a nightmare to keep track of. You just had, like,
03:50dictionary-sized DVD books everywhere. Um, it's kind of nice now. You can just click on something
03:55and go. Um, uh, we have quite a few just huge movie buffs on the bus. Uh, right now they're on a
04:03horror movie bench. I'm not a big horror genre fan, so I don't really partake. Uh, you know,
04:09at midnight, I don't want to start a movie that's going to keep me up all night and disturb me. So, uh,
04:15I usually walk away, but I think the most recent one that was watched was the movie Talk to Me. I
04:21don't know if you've seen that, but it is very disturbing. I checked out about five minutes into
04:26that movie. Um, but yeah, this is, this is a way when we're, uh, we're day off. We're just kind of
04:31burnt out and everybody wants to relax. We, or we're having, we have a long drive at the end of the
04:36night. We just kind of all congregate up here. A few people congregate up here and put on movie that
04:42everybody kind of agrees on. Or a lot of times it's our drummer Nate and our guitarist Joey are
04:47kind of leading the charge on that. They're like, we should watch this movie. And everybody's like,
04:51yeah. And I'm just like, I'm going to bed. But, uh, yeah, if it's something I'm really into,
04:56I'll watch it though. It's great. But, um, yeah, like I said, in the, in the early days of touring,
05:00it was all DVDs. Now it's kind of awesome. You got Apple TV up there. You got direct TV,
05:04got an X-Box. If you do want to watch any, uh, DVDs, like I am a huge Star Wars fan. I bring
05:11my theatrical versions of Star Wars on every tour. And so, uh, the, the original trilogy gets
05:19watched once or twice or three times or 10 times every tour by me. And if that makes everybody mad,
05:25I don't care because it makes me happy. All right. Um, a big part of a tour bus is storage.
05:33It's hard to come by. Um, you get new stuff every day on your rider, which is, uh, your hospitality
05:41budgets, what the venue brings to you food wise, drink wise, and then you have people buying food.
05:46You have people buying things constantly. So if you'll notice, there's just little cabinets
05:52everywhere on this bus. So up here we have a nice cooler with a ton of different drinks in it. Um,
05:59you, that'll get filled with ice at some point. I'm sure if not, I'm going to fire Rob, our tour manager,
06:04just kidding. I don't care about ice. Um, then up here we, I have a ton of snacks that somebody has
06:11stuffed up here. Um, it's just, you kind of do your best to keep everything clear and clean.
06:18Again, more snacks up here. Nice, uh, storm trooper, uh, decanter that my friend Nicole gave me,
06:25which I'm stoked about. Um, yeah. And then like you said, drawers, this is probably a mess,
06:31but I'm going to open it anyways. Got paper plates, bread, peanut butter, cups, coffee,
06:38flatware, everything, everything I need. If you want to go on a spelunking expedition,
06:42you dive into that cabinet and you find what you need. So yeah, it's a, like I said,
06:47it's a big thing. And then this is one of the most important drawers here, water. We drink
06:54so many gallons of this a day because we, uh, we learned very early on that if you're not hydrated
07:00every night on stage, then you feel like absolute crap and that you can't do a good show. And then
07:05you get sick and that ruins everything. So, um, if you ask anybody on this tour, what's the most
07:11important thing in this bus is, they're going to say water. It's a commodity. If there were three
07:16bottles in there, there would be a brawl over those three bottles. Um, over here is kind of, uh,
07:21uh, just, it's kind of the most coveted seat in house. It's one seat. It's kind of the one place
07:29where you don't have to sit near anybody. Um, it's kind of a zen spot. It's also where our tour
07:33manager does a lot of his business during the day with his laptop and everything. But, um,
07:37our drummer Nate picked up a, uh, a nice plant to brighten up the place, uh, a few weeks ago. And,
07:44um, to our credit, we have not killed it yet, which is awesome. Um, and then we have this nice
07:52candle, which was, uh, the case and candles, which was started by our merch guide, Brent Case. And then,
07:57uh, we brought a case of these on the bus at the beginning of the tour, which we're so stoked about
08:01because it keeps the bus going really nice, really clean. Um, I got some fake flowers here to brighten
08:06the moon more. This was the first plant we picked up on the tour for fun. I picked it up in an Aldi
08:11and it's called, uh, succulent. Um, I named it succubus just for fun because that was the dumbest,
08:18quickest thing I could think of. All right. This is probably going to be an absolute mess, but, uh,
08:23we'll start with the outside. So we have collected, actually, I'm going to fix this. We have collected a few
08:28notes from some of our fans. So we are lucky enough that we've been doing this long enough
08:34where our fans now have kids. Um, so these are a couple of handwritten notes and signs that, uh,
08:41our friends and our fans' kids have made for us, which obviously, um, if this isn't proof that when
08:49we take something to say we're going to keep it, this is proof. We're not just kidding. We're not going
08:53to throw it away the moment we walk off stage. But, um, so just like at home, we have our, we have notes on
08:58the fridge. Um, we'll start with the freezer because it's probably not as much of a shitshow,
09:03but, uh, we have, uh, just a bunch of frozen food up here that kind of keeps going. Snake River Farms
09:10at the beginning of the store sent us a lot of meat to cook because we are big fans of cooking on days
09:15off. I usually break out our Traeger and smoke something like a pork loin or a bunch of chicken
09:21thighs or a big hunk of beef and make like street tacos or something like that. So that's what this bag is.
09:27I pull it out, but that would just be annoying. Um, so this is our freezer. Uh, we have a bunch
09:32of hot dogs, which, uh, we will probably cook on our next day off in a few days. Other than that,
09:38we eat like children and we have microwave sandwiches and encrustables, which by the way,
09:42for anybody out there, a toasted encrustable is the way to go. Throw in the toaster. Thank me later.
09:48Um, this is our, our mess of a fridge. We get a lot, like I said, we got a lot of people buying food and
09:55everything every day. So, um, this is a constant rotation of drinks and food, lunch meats, everything.
10:03People put their leftovers in there. I'm going to close it because it stresses me out. I'm a little OCD,
10:10so I don't use it that often. And then moving forward, the most sanitary thing to do
10:16by a refrigerator is have your bathroom. Um, it's very small, but it's very functional.
10:21It is what it is. You do your business in there. Never number two. That's a huge rule. Huge no, no.
10:29Um, and then moving on, this is the, this is bunk alley where everybody sleeps. It's the, uh,
10:35the catacombs of the tour bus. Um, since I'm the one doing this tour, I want to show you my bunk only,
10:42but ta-da, we sleep in coffins because we are vampires. Um, one thing I've had from day one,
10:49even when we started touring in vans is I've always prepped my pillow from home with me. Um,
10:55it makes me feel good. It makes me feel like a little, like I said, a little bit of home when
10:59you're gone for a while is an important thing. So this is, uh, something that I've carried on
11:06since then. So, um, everybody tries to keep their stuff in their bunks, keep everything clean. You know,
11:12we've got 10 people on here at the moment, so you don't want to be tripping over other people's
11:16shoes. You don't want people tripping over your shoes or you don't want people stepping on your
11:20jacket or whatever. So we try to keep everything clean. Um, at the end of the night, we just do this
11:25and we're locked inside nice and neat, cozy, and you sleep like a champion and it's fantastic.
11:32So our first tour that we did on a tour bus was in, uh, 2005. We did a tour with our good friends
11:42and story of the year and, um, our record label was really wanting us to do the tour, but we
11:50were afraid that we would essentially not make money. So they helped us get a tour bus,
11:53which was very fantastic at tooth and nail records at the time. Um, I was a van driver for our band
12:00for a long time. I would take the after show shift for three to five hours, switch with our tour manager
12:08or a merge guy or whoever else. And then, you know, if we had to drive overnight, so be it.
12:13Um, so the first time I got on a bus, I almost cried. It was the fact that I didn't have to drive
12:17after a show was amazing. Um, I don't know why, but I just picked this bunk and I've been in this
12:25bunk for 20 years. Um, it wasn't until about a year ago that I found this is apparently the tour manager
12:31bunk, uh, in a lot of buses because a lot of the older buses always had a phone in the bunk. So you
12:36could call the driver from your bunk if you needed to ask some questions rather than get up out of
12:40your bunk, which also made me ask the question, why did I have a phone in my bunk all those years?
12:45Now I know the answer. It took almost 20 years to learn that, but I learned it. So, um,
12:51I think, uh, a lot of it is dibs, shotgun, whatever you want to call it. Um, those of us in the band
12:57that have been here the longest pretty much occupy all the middle bunks because that's usually the most
13:03coveted bunk by most people. And then, um, everybody else kind of picks and chooses, uh,
13:09their, their bunks in succession. Uh, we've had a pretty solid crew for a couple of years now,
13:16so everybody kind of just knows where they're going, which is great. There's no questions
13:21about whose bunk is whose. Everybody just kind of gets on the bus. They throw their bag in there.
13:25If there's a bag in there, you just throw it out. I'm just kidding. We would not be that mean to
13:29throw it outside the bus. Moving on shoe rack again, space is very, a very big thing. So
13:36finding what, finding what to do with 10 people's shoes. If everybody only had one pair of shoes,
13:43it'd be different, but everybody has at least two, if not three pairs of shoes. If you're Maddie Mullins,
13:48you have 20 pairs of shoes. So this is a very kind of like space saving thing that my wife actually
13:56found randomly right before this tour for our own bedroom. So the day that we showed up and there
14:02was not enough shoe storage, I ordered this from a store and went and picked it up. It's about fall
14:09part. There's a screw coming out. Um, I picked this up at a store on our first day off and we hung this
14:14on the door and it's been a lifesaver because there are not a lot of drawers and space for shoes on here.
14:21So, um, like I said, we have 10 people, so it's a lot of shoes you got. Everybody has two feet,
14:27which means you have double the amount of shoes. So, uh, this is a shoe storage. It's boring,
14:33but it is functional and I love it. Moving forward or backwards, the final stop is the back lounge,
14:40which is kind of the, uh, for a lot of bands, this is a big hangout spot for us. This is probably
14:47the most functional spot on the bus. Um, our singer Maddie, uh, pretty much alters all of
14:54his clothes himself. So he has a sewing machine back here. So he has his own little shop where
15:00he just comes back and he'll, he'll fix his own jeans, his shirts, whatever. It's kind of awesome
15:07because there's clothes that I've bought that I'm like, yeah, this fits a little fun. He's like,
15:09I'll fix that for you. And it's awesome. It's like having your own personal tailor in the band.
15:13And I love it. Um, normally on the other side of this, there is a laptop set up with a microphone.
15:20Uh, Maddie tracks a lot of vocals back here. He does a lot of stuff. Um, we will listen to demos,
15:27things like that. Um, this is, so this back lounge for us is kind of a closet slash office. Um, as you
15:34can see, there's clothes hanging up and things like that. Again, we still try to keep everything neat.
15:38We've got organizers everywhere. Um, it's, uh, it's not really a hangout spot. It's if someone
15:45needs to do work during the day or if they need to get away, bring on a conference call or something
15:50like that. That's kind of what our space is back here because otherwise, um, it's kind of small.
15:56So if more people try to hang out back here, I would be claustrophobic if I was back here with
16:00more than two people. So, um, yeah, this is kind of, uh, our workshop and our, uh,
16:08put everything away area because we have a better row of closets back here with a ton of clothes
16:12hanging up in them, shoes, all need more shoe storage. I'm not going to show you because that's,
16:17I don't know what it looks like right now, but, um, yeah, that's, so that's the whole bus. That's 45
16:23feet of tubing that we live in on tour. And, um, if you aren't with a good group of guys that you
16:31get along with and that you enjoy, it can be a very small space. But if you are with a good group
16:38of friends on tour, it is home. And that's, that's our house. It's our tour bus. All right,
16:45this has been Dion from Amberlynn. If you want to see where we're coming to your town, go to
16:50at Amberlynn at Instagram, Facebook, go to Amberlynn.com. That's probably the best place to go
16:54because we're constantly updating our tour dates there. Um, we have a show to do tonight,
16:59so I'm going to kindly ask you to leave now. It's been great. It's been fun. Gotta rock.