This Is Tour?
Summer tour stories from
This Is Napoleon?
As a tenured member of Isla Vista’s bustling live music scene, lo-fi rock band This is Napoleon? have considerably more mileage and quirks than many of their peers. So what of their identity, what crowds do they strive to satisfy? Headed by Robert Sanlis—lead singer, guitarist, and “the Napoleon of the band…in the nicest possible terms” according to bassist Jacob Acosta—the band can be accused of apathy towards these issues. “We just consider ourselves a super dorky band,” guitarist Connor Grady explained, “We have no unifying aesthetic.” While many are submerged in the stickiness of mass appeal and trend-chasing, Napoleon? claims to make “music that everyone heard but no one listened to.”
Notwithstanding, this past summer the band made it a mission to spread their sound as wide as possible. Formerly known as Walter Lewin’s Dotted Lines—until the physics professor received attention outside of his dotted lines—the rock outfit dropped their rookie full-length project in early August. And then they went on tour: Davis, San Francisco, Eugene, Seattle, and all the way to Vancouver and back. With ambitions rivaling their namesake, they clawed their way through hardships befitting a band on the run. Thankfully, they returned to our lovely tar-filled sands with some good stories of the road.
It was never going to be a walk in the park. First step: contacting venues along the Pacific Coast for. “Facebook started marking my account as a spam account because I sent out so many emails.” Grady sighed. “And I got nothing.” Their combined efforts were eventually awarded by a series of concert venues, anarchist libraries, and friends’ houses. That came neatly packaged with forty-plus hours of driving, totaling a staggering three thousand miles of conquered interstate.
In addition, the touring members of Napoleon? —including drummer Andres Montiel and trumpeter Jack Aron—faced serious obstacles off the road. “Bands and venues suck,” Acosta declared, prompting a follow-up by his bandmate. “People flake more than you think,” Grady said. “People give way less shits about everything than you would think.”
Napoleon? dove into their grand undertaking aware of the inevitability of tumultuous tides—although a thriving part of the local scene, they sought live audiences beyond state and national borders. They used cathartic complaining to fill the air in between shows: the venue last night sucked, that band was late and messed up the whole lineup, etc. When with friends, complaints are merely vessels of empathy and mutual understanding.
In terms of specific grievances, they highlighted the indifferent, sometimes hostile, attitude of many venue owners. Sometimes they were treated harshly, but understandably: their Vancouver host made it a point to brandish the band’s lack of ticket sales as explicitly as possible. “You guys didn’t even make fifty dollars, which is the wage we pay the guy at the door,” Grady recounted through Acosta’s fits of laughter in the background.
Other times, the band found themselves exhausted of reasonable excuses. Most other bands, sharing the same stages and motivations, were nice. “One or two bands were kind of dicks.” On this note, Acosta lit up. “The best example is probably Monk Parker.” Over Grady’s half-hearted objections, the bassist adamantly insisted that he “one-hundred percent want on record that I was trashing Monk Parker, because he probably Googles himself every day.”
The story goes like this: as Napoleon? prepared to take the stage during their Seattle stop, they were interrupted by the venue owners bearing the demands of Monk Parker. You and the two other scheduled bands must scram, said the owners, because this guy has both a bigger following and a stamp of approval from Pitchfork. Napoleon?’s set was pushed back nearly an hour—by then, “the tiny crowd we did have” disappeared. “He was terrible,” Acosta remembered.
Despite various setbacks and injuries, This is Napoleon?’s summer tour was marked by kindness and pleasant surprises. Friends, close and not, frequently attended their shows like water stations in a marathon. Support also came from local crowds, to the surprise of the members. “A lot of people were stoked on our music,” Acosta said. “We were selling CDs and stickers afterwards.”
Grady admitted that their tour more closely resembled a “fun road trip” than they previously thought. “We got to play music, see some crazy people at venues, meet some cool bands, and it was all basically paid for,” he revealed. For Napoleon?, the biggest surprise wasn’t just that they broke even—it was that they ended up with extra cash in their pockets. And if all goes according to plan, they’re prepared to do this again next summer.
Check out This Is Napoleon? On Spotify, Bandcamp, or other internet listening places.
https://thisisnapoleonmusic.bandcamp.com
https://open.spotify.com/artist/05nslDWoWqe4hB4uztBXtF
Like their page on Facebook and follow their Instagram for updates on new music and live shows!
https://www.facebook.com/Thisisnapoleon/
