The Metropolis

Meet band tour sleeper bus driver, Pappy

Kaf Blamire | Monday 14 November, 2011 11:51

In a café in Washington DC I sat with a tour bus driver known as Pappy. He was eating a large bowl of chili and launching into a story about touring with a group who had once tried to trash his bus.. “So I drove way out into the Nevada desert and had a pistol in one hand and was throwing their bags out the bus with the other”.. I really need to learn to press the record button on my dictaphone faster. Pappy has lived through the heyday of rock n’ roll excess and driven some of the biggest names across America. While band members are asleep in their bunks, Pappy drives through the night to the next city, hundreds of miles away. Everyday he wears a chunky ring adorned with a giant diamond, personally given to him by Willy Nelson and his stories of years on the road pour out of him.

S: How many miles have you driven in your career so far?

P: Three and a half million miles.

S: Can you mention a few of the names of people you have driven on their tours over the years?

P: Diana Ross, Molly Hatchet, Debbie Reynolds, Gary Lee Connor , Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Kenny Rogers, Judas Priest, Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown, Beach Boys, Neil Young.. I can’t remember.

S: What was your best experience?

P: Probably with Willie.. with Willie it’s family, that was a good tour.. and Tom Petty… Emmylou’s great.

S: What was the worst experience you’ve had?

P: Probably with Survival, main guy in Survival, I could tell you something, but not while you’re eating. Maybe Jethro Tull.. that tour, they had tea pots everywhere, they just set them on the sofas and burnt rings into the sofas. They wouldn’t pay me (laughs). For the most part, everyone’s been good.

S: You drive through the night, have there ever been any moments where you’ve fallen asleep?

P: Oh yeah, any driver that says they haven’t is lying.

S: What’s the scariest experience you’ve had while driving?

P: Oh gosh.. I hit jet black ice one time in Canada. I spun completely around and I could see this telephone pole coming at me in the mirror, I spun clean around that pole and never touched it.

S: ..and the people asleep, did they wake up?

P: Oh yeah (laughing). They woke up. I’ve run into deer, elk, a mountain lion up in Canada, dogs, cats…not on purpose, but it just happens.

S: Has anyone really star struck you?

P: Emmylou probably and Debbie Reynolds, I loved her, she was a sweetheart. Debbie rode up front most every night. She’d listen to me talking to the trucks on the CB. Every truck that passed would say “Hey, who’s on that bus” and I’d tell them something different every time. I had a driver one time, he said, “Hey mister bus driver, tell me the truth, who you got on the bus? I’ve been following you for 200 miles and I’ve heard everything”. So I told him the truth.

S: Do you think things have changed a lot over the years from when you first started until now?

P: Oh yeah, bands used to have a lot of fun. The younger musicians are having to be more business like. They have to take care of business if they’re going to make it.

S: Has rock and roll died?

P: The old time rock and roll has died.

S: Who has been the most rock and roll you have toured with?

P: Probably Judas Priest. They did everything you could think of. With Molly Hatchet we got thrown out of every hotel we ever went to. They’d throw the TV out of the hotel window into the pool and all that. Now people know it comes out of the pay check. People thought it would last forever, but it didn’t.

S: I heard Willie Nelson had a lot of Hells Angels as his body guards..

P: Hells Angels were at a lot of the shows. One guy that works for him is a big time, way up there in the group. They just surround us on the tour to make sure no one bothers Willy.

S: Who would bother you?

P: Usually nobody, just if somebody did try to get through and tried to mess with anyone, they’d never make it.

S: When you’re driving through the night and everybody is asleep, do you feel lonely?

P: Sometimes. I used to smoke, if I drove a thousand miles, I’d smoke four packs of cigarettes. As you get older, you want to stay home. The young drivers, if they’re just starting, they go out on the road for a month or maybe 2 months, and they’re homesick, so they quit. I’ve been gone 5 months before and I was homesick.

S: How do you get through?

P: This is just my job and I do it. I say “let’s get it done!”. Four years ago when my daughter got sick, I had to be out here to pay the bills, and I’d rather have been home with her, but I had to stay out and work. She went back to her doctor the other day and he said “I never want to see you again, you’re cancer free, unless you’ve got a problem we don’t need to see you no more”. It was great. Bus drivers have to have their own insurance, I didn’t have any, had to pay thousands. It was worth every penny.

Contact this writer at kaf.blamire@snipelondon.com

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