Bus Call - First Season

I'm ready. Are you ready?

Thumbs up?

Yeah

Ready to go?

You like this?

Going from from 75 degree Florida

to fucking, 20 degree...

Where are we?

What do I think of what?

What do you think already?

I like the place. We've played venues like this

How do we get in there?

Back here

Where, here?

Yeah, the door's right there to the left.

Right here

Cotton sturdy probably? Heavy, normal

You think shower gel that's probably good right? Just a little bit? The only thing I'm worried about is uh,

The actual washing machine is not that clean. That's why you don't bring whites on tour.

What do you recommend for those that need like fabric softener and dryer sheets? You gonna bring that shit?

Don't go touring dude.

Back here if you want the dressing room.

Where?

You want the dressing room? Back here.

Can we get a reality check? What's the chances of getting any festivals next year?

We're not going to get Bonaroo.

Bonaroo passed... Bonaroo passed a while ago though.

Um.. Well..

We book South America, no question about that.

February, March in the studio.

Yeah, January is done. Jesse has the baby, but we prepare studio to be worked.

But we need to find it. We need to find a way to make it make it...

You know, we probably could scrape by with the occasional Garlic Fest offer next year..

..or corporate or Bud Light thing

Um.. And you know having an international presence with Sean

It looks like not like it's not completely falling apart

Ladies and gents, KONGOS

When you picture a rock band on tour, what does it look like?

Is it arenas, private jets and after parties?

Or sleeping on a friend's couch and spending eight hours a day in a van?

Or is it something in between?

What does success look like?

The first time you go on tour and leave behind your home,

your family,

your friends,

your neighborhood,

your bed,

or your office

You lose your anchors of day-to-day existence

Because tour life is not yet the new normal

You haven't been doing it for years on end where not having a home feels like home.

After more than ten years of writing, recording, and playing shows

KONGOS, a band of four brothers, finally had a breakthrough in 2014

with one of the biggest alternative songs of the decade,

Come With Me Now,

from their album, Lunatic.

They spent the next two years on tour all over the world including seven months straight on the exact same bus.

With for the most part, the same core road crew.

After regrouping and recording their follow-up album, Egomaniac,

they're about to head out on the road and begin the cycle once again.

There's a good chance you've heard Come With Me Now, but likely don't know anything about the band behind it.

1987 and the idea is.. The idea is that you do.. just do your left hand only. Just left hand.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Okay now do your right hand

So those two things go against each other, and then you say your chant. Say your chant to me.

"Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō"

Okay, Jesse, no. Jesse, no pedal

Okay so now.. So the fourth element is what?

Head

and now show me how the head goes. It goes up

Just the head. Up to the top.

Okay, just there. Center, down

center, center. Left, center,

right, center, and then top.

It always comes back to the center.

Now, a few minutes ago you were doing that perfectly,

and we're gonna see if you can do it again. Now, Jesse, sit very quietly.

Okay, here we go

Okay, that was almost perfect,

and I am amazed!

I am amazed.

What does that mean?

That means I'm bloody surprised.

September 2016

Is this my best side?

Well, my name is Michael Quinn, and I'm the tour manager with KONGOS.

I've been with them for some time now actually. I started doing monitors

I started front of house with them. Continue to do that again to this day. I'm terrible on camera sorry.

I can try that again.

Oh, that's the best lighting pack I've ever seen in my life.

That's beautiful.

I'm so happy right now.

My name is Geron Rains. I'm the monitor engineer.

and uhhh

Yep, that's who I am.

Alright dude, we're gonna be fine on truck space. That's for damn sure.

Oh

So yeah, my name is Mo Gordon and I'm

KONGOS stage manager and

as well as

Do some backline teching for them. That means I work on their instruments and repairs.

I do some

carpentry and building for them. Build some stuff

No big deal.

We're going over our bus assignments for this tour,

looks like the support act may be bringing a dog along.

My name is Jason. I am the assistant tour manager for KONGOS.

I pretty much handle all the day-to-day fun stuff for the band and crew

and make sure everybody's happy and healthy

You're fine with that?

Oh, okay. Yeah, well they want to bring along a little uh.. It's a wiener dog.

This is day one of production rehearsals.

The seven-person crew arrives in Los Angeles to begin preparing for the upcoming six-week headline tour

of North America in support of their new album, Egomaniac.

My name's Tyler and

I'm doing LD position on this tour. Standing in for AJ Pen. AJ's the production designer

Yeah, this is my first time with with this camp with this family and so far everyone's perfect, nice, fun.

No assholes?

No, no assholes. No, I don't. I don't detect any yet.

Most of this crew has been with KONGOS for years.

So when adding new members, attitude is as important as skill.

They will be spending the next six weeks together living in close quarters,

Working alongside each other every day, and facing the inevitable challenges on the road.

Mic, he pretty much tells us all what to do. He's like my boss. I mean, he's the crew boss essentially.

He is an unbelievable person. Not just a jack-of-all-trades.

He's like the knowledge of all trades. He knows so many things about everything.

Just learning so much from that guy. He knows fucking everything apparently.

Who is Mo? There's a great question.

Film stars are always much smaller in real life, and Mo is already tiny

And he's a total rock star

I'm Chris...

Gerber

Im a backline tech. I just take care of drums, guitar amps, guitars.

I'm gonna check and see if it works. Please don't film this

It worked! Holy shit! I think we're done.

Okay, I'm Colton Bouterie, I'll be in charge of merch as well as the VIP check-in.

And is this your first time doing this kind of thing?

Yeah, this is my first time ever doing anything like this.

Did you know about KONGOS before you came to work for them?

You know, I'd heard the name before and as soon as I looked them up, I was like, oh Come With Me Now,

I know these guys.

Come With Me Now did not see success until four years after it was released

But when it finally did strike in 2014,

it rocketed to the top of the alternative charts in record time, sold millions of copies,

and garnered more TV and film placements than any song that year

I'm Johnny Kongos. I play keyboards and accordion.

My name is Jesse Kongos, and I play drums and sing in the band in the band KONGOS

I'm Dylan Kongos and I play bass and sing.

My name is Daniel Kongos, and I play guitar and sing.

Just the tail of it, you catch the melody.

John and Shelley Kongos had four sons. The older three: Johnny, Jesse, and Dylan

were born in London, while the youngest, Danny, was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.

shortly after the family moved there in 1988

Our dad was a musician and he was a recording artist and songwriter.

He started as a kind of teen star in South Africa.

He had a bunch of hit records and then moved to London,

pursued his career there, eventually had some hits there as an artist and a songwriter. He built a recording studio,

so we grew up in that environment. Session musicians coming in and out of the studio. From a very young age

that was kind of a natural thing to us.

Say I am King Kong

I am King Kong

The early days he had us learning music: piano, guitar, and everything.

He wanted us to learn music for the fulfillment and the joy,

what it does to your brain, and your attention, and your emotional center.

1996 was when we moved to Arizona, which is our mom's hometown, and

that's where we started rehearsing and writing songs

and trying to get some gigs out you know in the real world.

The very first gig even before KONGOS was Jesse and I with a bass player friend of ours and

A trumpet player. We played at some total dive where there were like three people

who were upset who we were interrupting the baseball game.

And we just do experimental stuff and

Improvisational stuff. It was very kind of freeing musically.

I think we did our first gig in

When I was in ninth grade.

The first flyer you'll be able to find for a gig with KONGOS was at Undici Undici in Mesa.

Which was like a weird Boy Meets World

University cafeteria where they'd have a band.

That show

sucked even though it was our first gig and all that.

Our opinions outstripped our abilities.

We put the first album out completely by ourselves.

We did shop it around as best we could

we got a lot of like I liked it, but I don't know what to do with it.

We didn't have any major decision maker jump on board for a good 10, 11 years.

I definitely had multiple moments of are we those people on American Idol who are fucking delusional.

Probably a lot of good that came out of it.

We kept going back to the drawing board.

So we started recording I'm Only Joking,

It's A Good Life, Come With Me Now, and one or two others.

We put a new song out every month, give it away for free.

Let's hit every single person. It doesn't matter if they're in radio,

if they're a manager, if they're a publisher..

Like let's just email the shit out of these people and see if we can get a bite.

Now I got a approached from a band yesterday.

Mm-hmm