Jonny Campos from Brass Bed

Every place has something different to offer. For instance, in Austin, we have favorite tacos or food trucks. Plus we got to play the Parish on Sixth Street, which is a great-sounding venue. In Davis, Calif., home of our label Crossbill Records, we ate delicious Thai food at Sophia’s Thai Kitchen. We also played a bunch of in-stores in L.A., Sacramento and Davis, which feeds my vinyl habit. Portland and Seattle are always great to play because we have a bunch of friends and L.A. transplants out there, so we always get to see those smiling faces when we get out there. But when it comes down to it, Iowa has some of our favorite cities to play. Des Moines, Ames and Iowa City all have rabid rock fans that you can’t find in most places.

Down time is generally spent driving many, many hours in the van, where we keep ourselves from going insane by taking blind taste tests of different chips and trying to guess the flavor. We also listen to hours and hours of music and books on tape. Honestly, a lot of our friends make fun of us for being a terrible rock band in the sense that we’re not up all night doing drugs and throwing stripper parties every night. We generally look forward to showering, watching TV and doing our laundry if we get any down time outside of the van and we’re in a city for a while.

I think we definitely made a mark in several different places, but it’s difficult to capitalize on because touring is so expensive. That said, thanks to the Internet, we have been able to stay connected to fans that we’ve made in each city.

Most recent gigs in: Austin, San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Boise, Omaha, Des Moines, Chicago.

Online: facebook.com/BrassBed