Before There Was Rosalyn

Some people are just really legit people to hang out with. Hilarious, sincere and not afraid to have a chill conversation. The guys in Before There Was Rosalyn fit this description quite well. During our rather long conversation on a freezing cold winter night outside the Ukraine Center in Philadelphia, photographer Chrissy Dumire and I listened as they shared with us why it is they’re sticking it out on the hard road of touring, how they stay accountable to each other and even how much they love their moms. Read on.

Rebecca: Life on the road can be crazy – what makes it worth it?

Carlos: I’ll go first, since I know we all have something to say about this. For me, it’s stuff like tonight. We show up, the place looks sketchy and everything and I see someone singing the lyrics and I meet them after and find out they drove an hour and a half. It’s meeting people who appreciate what we do and it means something to them. That’s what makes it worth it. You drive 800 miles to a place you’ve never been before and someone does that seem thing for you. It really just helps to reinforce what it is that we set out to do. That’s it for me.

Trent: For me, it’s known that we’re out here glorifying God and doing something we love. There’s no adding to that. That’s plain and simple what I t is. We come out here worshiping God and we hope that kids see something they can take home. Something that is real and hopeful. Then they can seek out truth themselves. Being on tour and suffering the hardships that you don when you’re on tour – like promoters not showing up to a venue, tings like that..it makes it worth it when we know that at the end of the day we glorified God in a way that He’s happy with and pleased with.

Rebecca: Great answer. Great testimony.

Trent: Why thanks.

Chrissy: Being a Christian band, how do you keep yourselves going and spiritually fed? Do you keep yourselves accountable or is there someone at home you talk to consistently?

Carlos: It’s a bit of both. Definitely we…even in a joking manner we try to keep each other accountable. We’ll crack jokes about accountability partners and things like that, but I mean, essentially we don’t let anybody get too out of hand. Myself included. When it’s me, when I’m having a bad attitude or something like that – they’ll let me know. They’ll encourage me. But even not just attitudes there’s other stuff as well. Like even today, Bryce had a question about Scripture that he just wanted to know so he asked it out loud and I read to him what he was looking for. So stuff like that we really strive to do while we’re on the road. And then back home, for those of us who are from

Houston, there’s a church called Anchor Church that’s been around pretty much as long as we’ve been a band. Pastor Brian Yarbrough is an amazing guy. He’ll text us scripture and he’ll also tell us what he’s preaching about that week at church. And if we feel we need extra support we will text friends of ours who are pastors and stuff like that. We try to work on keeping each other accountable. We try to pray every day, to go back to even when we’ve had a bad show or something we’re not happy with. We still glorify God. Even with all the hardships and everything we’re doing this for him. As much as we’re broke and homeless pretty much the entire time that we’re on tour, we do understand that it’ something that a lot of people dream about doing and never can.

Seth: I’d just like to go on top of what he was saying. We all in our own way are chasing after God and then together, when we have a group issue, we all sit down together and pull our knowledge of what’s’ actually in the Bible. We try very hard to not go on opinion, but scripture. Because that’s what the truth is. It’s a whole lot of what you find for yourself. Like Trent said, it’s about encouraging kids to go in and find it for themselves. If you look towards a person, you’re eventually going to get dropped on your butt when they don’t have the answer for you. The answer was in front of your face the whole time in the Bible.

Rebecca: Awesome. Here’s a question a fellow IVM’er and great friend [Jess Tack] texted to me earlier tonight. You recently had your van broken into…

Carlos: Well we had our trailer stolen

Chrissy: What!

Trent: Riiightttt off the hitch.

Carlos: Yep, right off the hitch in Houston.

Rebecca: It happened at home?

Carlos: Yeah. Right in my front yard. The van and trailer were there for 5 days when we got home from tour, and on the 5^th day the trailer was gone. That happened on the end of our summer tour after Cornerstone. And then just recently a couple weeks ago our van completely died.

Luke: Our van caught on FIRE.

Carlos: Yeah. We were in Oklahoma, there was snow, we were throwing snow at it and Mountain Dew…cause that was SOMEONE’S bright idea.

Chrissy: How did you know it was on fire? Were you in it?

Carlos: Well I think the flames were a dead giveaway..Usually when your drive shaft shatters, you feel that. And then we got out to see it was a fire. The really funny thing with that was that told us later that when he got out of the van, he really didn’t know where that day was going. But the police showed up, the fire department showed up and we had almost no money at all because our last three dates had cancelled because of snow. And then a few days before that happened we had to spend quite a bit of money to do some van repairs anyway. So we have almost no money besides the money to get us to the next city, we didn’t know how we were going to get the van towed. But this amazing man named Russell Davis..

Trent: Russell Matthews!

Carlos: Yes, Russell Matthews, of the TOWN of Davis, Oklahoma, ended up charging us almost nothing for the tow.

Luke: And bought us dinner.

Seth: Yes! He bought us barbeque – I’m from Texas – and he bought us the BEST barbeque I have ever had in my entire life.

Carlos: He gave us a trailer tire that I ended up needing a few days later when the tire blew out. He gave us a ride to the hotel that he recommended and then came back the next day to take us to the grocery store to make sure he had food to eat.

Luke: He also let us take a sledgehammer to stuff in the back of his yard. So we just busted up glass and..

Carlos: He figured we had a bad day

Trent: He runs a wrecker service and had an RV that had been flipped so it was destroyed already. So he was like – hey, here’s a sledgehammer.

Luke: We actually broke the sledgehammer on one of my personal he-man swings.

Carlos: When we were on the side of the road we called Brice here and invited him out to come rescue us and to save us but also to play on this tour with us. So he drove 14 hours from GA to Oklahoma…

Luke: In the sketchiest roads ever, by himself

Carlos: …to come rescue us.

Rebecca: That’s such an awesome story to hear, guys.

Carlos: Yeah! Cause God is good. It ended up being a great day too because we got to watch the Super Bowl..got to watch the Packers win the Super Bowl in a nice hotel.

Trent: We got to see Fergie sing awfully to a Guns ‘n Roses song.

Rebecca: So you didn’t know that guy?

All: NO!

Trent: He’s just the guy the cop called to come tow us.

Seth: This is what the cop told us and what I know to be true. They charge $100 just to come out and put their

hands on your vehicle and then they start charging you from there. And the two, because he had to go to his place and back twice would have been about 40 miles. So we would have spent a lot of money. But when I got in the cab with him and was like – “are you guys going to stay in a hotel? “ I said it depended on how much the tow cost. And he was like [in southern accent] “Oh I’m not really going to charge you for the tow like I charge most folks. You’re not like those crazy kids out there running around burning at both ends…”

Carlos: Little does he know we ARE! [lots of laughter]

Trent: Like Luke said, we really weren’t sure how it was going to pan out.

Seth: What was encouraging for me was that, because I just joined the band, people always say how it’s easy to have faith when it’s convenient, blah, blah, blah. And then when bad things happen its non-existent because it’s not really there. But when everyone here got out of the van they were like “You know what it’s going to be alright. Because God’s Word says there will be provision and He will hold us hope.” It made no sense. I was telling people for three days. I need you to punch me, pinch me or something because I do not believe this is happening. And here we are.

Rebecca: Yeah! Here you are and you made it to Philly.

Luke: Made it to the cheese steaks!

Trent: I didn’t get to see the Rocky statue, I didn’t get to see the Liberty Bell, I didn’t get to see anything!

Rebecca: Haha, that’s unfortunate. You should have driven around a little before loading in! Everything’s pretty close to here. Alright so to finish up, what else do you want fans to know?

Seth: Just basically that people who come to shows, we’re really really thankful for you.

Trent: Yeah. Like Carlos said if there is one kid who is stoked on it, that’s good enough for all of us. So if you are that one kid, you will get five really big hugs and possibly a slushie.

Carlos: But we don’t guarantee them a slushy.

Trent; I’m going to buy them a slushie if I have the money.

Luke: Also Natalie, at the Ukraine American Citizens Association rules!

Carlos: In Philadelphia. On North Franklin Street. Also, I just want to say thank you to my mom for everything. And everyone who’s ever let us stay at their house or bought us food or bought our record or just came out to a show.

Trent: I love my mama too.

Brice: I think we can all say that we love our mothers.

Luke: Thanks to Noelle [Carlos’ girlfriend] for selling merch.