Trust, Teamwork, and Touring: Autumn Kings’ Inspiring Conversation with Pipeman

0:04 This is Pipe Man here on the Adventures of Pipe Man W4CY radio, and I'm here with. Joe and Jake. Autumn Kings. Didn't even rehearse that one. That's why I do that. I like it better when the artist says it. You know, they can say it cooler, their way. Was that cooler? I don't know if that was cooler. That was kind of cooler. We're cool. Just take it. I know we've never been told that, though. I just want to be cool.

0:44 It wasn't as cool as your Rock, Lahoma comment. Oh, okay. So tell the listeners your Rock, Lahoma comment before this. What did I say? Are you ready to rock and roll? Oh, I'm ready to Rock, Lahoma. Yeah, there you go. See what we did there, everybody listening? Pretty sick, right? I just say so much stuff. I have no idea what I'm saying. I know, right? That's your greatest asset. Joe, anytime something wrong happens when we're on tour, I'm like, dude, remember when that happened yesterday? He's like, I have no idea what you're talking about. I remember everything. I'm here right now. I don't remember that. That's all that matters. You're here now. Living in the moment. So it is funny that one of the bands you've actually toured with, I know the mother of one of the band members because they live near me.

1:26 It's got to be J-Dawg, Hollywood Undead. Nope, but I know all of Hollywood Undead. I love them. Not only their music, but they're the coolest fucking dudes. Yeah, they're so cool. But go lower down the ladder. They live here? No, Florida. That's an easy one. Fame on fire or set it off? There it is. Fame on fire? Fame on fire. Alex or Brian? Fuck, I can't even remember right now. Yeah, one of them. Fame on fire, boys. Okay. Oh, yeah. Throwback to last year. We went out with them in Vana and set it off. It was a great tour, actually. That was our biggest tour to date at that time. Really? See, that's pretty cool. Wild fans, yeah. What was it like going with Hollywood Undead, though? Because they're some fun fuckers.

2:08 Dude, they know how to put on a show. I think that was one of the first times Jake and I looked at each other and we're like, all right, we need to step up our stage presence a little bit because they know how to put on a show. It's always fun with them. Right? So, two things. They're very entertaining, but we only did three shows with them. So, it wasn't a full tour, although I would love to do a full tour. But what happened... is Charlie Seen, Jordan Terrell, talked to us every night backstage after our set, and he's like, you guys rock, good set. It's one of those nice platitudes that you say to other musicians, but you don't always know if it's genuine. But he kept saying it every night, and on the third night, he's like, first of all, I want shirts for my kids, and second of all, we should write together. I'm like, okay, this is getting serious now. We still had two and a half months of touring out on the road doing other tours. He was home. As we were out in the UK in October last year, 2025, he sends over an idea of this heavy riff, this melody, and this idea called Gone, Gone, Gone. It was just a scat.

3:01 He had no words other than Gone, Gone, Gone. We took it while we were on tour, riding in vans with our acoustic guitars, structured out the rest of the song, put it together. Then we had two days off tour. We flew to Jordan's house in Nashville and knocked out the entire song. And that's how Gone was written, was from Tour of Hollywood Undead. That is cool. Making the connections out on the road. Sometimes magic just happens. Lightning in a bottle. That's the way it is, though, right? Like, you can't plan that shit. You really can't plan it, man. It's so organic how that happened. Just like you can't plan the negative shit that can turn into positive shit. Like, some of the things you've had to go through to get to Rock, Lahoma recently. Yeah, that's right. I feel like I know where you're taking this. Well, you see, we took a van that doesn't look much different than that van right there. GMC Savannah 3500 15-passenger van. And we were doing Kadat Wisconsin Rock Fest right back in July. And we played. It was an early afternoon set. It was on a Friday.

3:56 And we leave the festival because the next day we had to go to Grand Rapids, which is eight, nine hours away from Kadat. Right. It's 4, 4.30 p.m. We're driving on the highway. All of a sudden, we hear. Something's going on in the van I wanted to keep driving The guy's like You gotta stop And then It defaulted to 15 miles an hour You couldn't go past 15 So we get off On the side of the highway Now remember Friday In a small town Nobody's open Nobody's available I called 16 mechanics Nobody could come except one 25-year-old dude. He's like, yeah, I'll come. I'll see what's up. But I'll be like an hour away. Okay, okay. And as we're sitting there twiddling our thumbs on the highway, a tall, big, buff American man named Ernie, 60 years old or so, pulls over and he just comes up to us. We don't know him. He doesn't know us.

4:40 He's like, you guys look like you need help. You need some help? We're like, well, we got a mechanic on the way, but maybe we can take your number just in case. Okay, we exchange numbers. He gets on his merry way. Mechanic comes an hour later. Guys, I can't do anything with this. I got to bring it to the shop to really see what's up. Okay. We limp our way to the shop. It's 10 minutes away. End up taking an hour because we're only going 15 miles an hour. Terrible, right? Takes two hours, diagnoses it. Yo, we're going to need this for like at least a few days. Your van's not going to work. Typical small town. Typical small town. What do we do now? We're in the middle of nowhere. There's no airport around. There's no U-Haul around. How are we going to get to the festival tomorrow? I call up Ernie. Hey, Ernie. I think we do need your help. He pauses for three seconds. He goes... guys don't want to just take my car. We're like, dude, you don't know us. We don't know you. Do you want a security deposit so that you know we're not going to trash it? No, no, no.

5:31 My wife's actually heard your music. She's a big fan. Just get her a 2XL shirt and we'll call it even, okay? I'm like... Dude, you are a legend. So we end up going through all the logistics. He brings the van to us. Three guys fit in there. Then we had to rent a U-Haul to put all our equipment in. Other three guys go there. We drive overnight. Everyone's pounding back caffeine. I thought I was high as a kite on cocaine because I hadn't had coffee in a while. We get to upheaval the next day in Michigan. And when you don't sleep, your voice gets really hoarse and sore. So we thought we were going to suck, right? Dude, we put on like the best show of our entire career without exaggeration. Fans moshing, everyone crowd surfing. And all thanks to the kindness of a stranger where in this day and age, right? When everyone's negative, the news is provoking you with fear and anger. You got a great stranger who put his trust in this fellow man. It was, by the way, a brand new Red Ford Explorer. He bought it three days ago. And we took it. We ran with it. It ended up turning into a national news story. CBS covered it. A ton of radio stations picked it up. So definitely restored our faith in humanity.

6:31 And that's why we're here. I was going to say, you just restored my faith in humanity. I'm glad. Because fucking human beings are assholes. So now you've restored my faith that there's some that aren't. Nowadays and it's great to have that social trust and fabric so that when all the external things happen in the world that you truly can't control that you're outraged at when you can trust strangers like i think that's what creates a cohesive functioning society right and no doubt ernie reminded us of that be like ernie everybody. Be like ernie for sure we need him To run for president or something. Yes. Please. I'd vote for him. At least council. At least city council. Something. You know? Something.

7:11 For sure. We actually have Be Like Ernie shirts getting printed next week. We made a deal with our team. We're like, if Gone hits top five on the charts, which it just did on Billboard yesterday. We're making Be Like Ernie shirts and putting them out. So we're putting out hashtag Be Like Ernie with the Midwest logo, and we're selling them on our store. Oh, I love that. Shout out, Ernie. So they have to buy that shirt or they can't listen to my show anymore. Yeah. That's true. That's the law. Non-negotiable. Exactly. Exactly. Oh, my God. And then I think I heard something that even here at Rock, La Jolla, now your air is not working or something. Somebody said that. Who told you that? Yeah, the air in the back, the blower's kind of dying on us, so we've got to get a mechanic to come meet us later tonight after we go, because we're about to be on the road for about, like, 70 plus days.

7:56 And you're in 100 degree weather right now. And the weather is just insane. So it's like, all right, we can't let the boys melt in the back of the van. So, yeah. There's that. And what's also funny is our laptops that we use to run our shows, they were heating up so much on stage. We had to get the crew here to get ice bags covered with a towel and put the laptop on it so that it could cool down. And it really worked well. But yeah, this band is just riddled with challenges and problems, and that's part of life. I almost forgot about that until you mentioned it, because so much BS happens. I know, right? You kind of forget to keep track. Listen, CDC said it. It's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll. No doubt. Facts. No doubt. And what I really love about all this, too, is I know a lot of what you write about, a lot of what you're all about is positive things. motivational stuff I'm also a motivational speaker not just a radio personality so that part I really loved about you so like your attitude towards these things because you can't control what happens you can only control your attitude towards it I was just having this discussion with my daughter the other day because she had something going on and I'm like as long as you're in that mind space things are not going to change you know you have to put the energy and attract the energy out there and Look, look at what happened with you guys. You could have been like, oh my God, fuck it. We're not going up people. You know, like people do that. Like Tony Robbins says, they should have all over themselves, you know? And you guys like, this

9:27 is what happens. This is the magic that happens when you have. The positive attitude. Yeah, absolutely. And positivity doesn't have to mean you're delusional or fantasizing. It's just grounded optimism. And when the van broke down, I swear, like, hand of God in my dead grandfather's grave, nobody's heartbeat, like, went up one pace, you know? I really think we started laughing at just the situation. And, you know, and that kind of goes back to even just finding other like-minded people and building a community of, like, positivity. So that's what we're always trying to do with our music and and our. Messaging i i love that because we need that in the world more than ever now like i can't believe everybody's getting pumped with all this negative shit yeah like. It's a drug man our bass player sky says this he thinks that in 30 to 40 years the social media scrolling the outrage at every new headline is going to prove to be as bad for the brain as smoking cigarettes is when people didn't know how bad cigarettes were We think scrolling is going to be that. So you've got to live.

10:21 In the real world. They already say it's an addiction, and it really is. And it's done on purpose. So we are addicted to it. All an algorithm. Oh, 100%. Oh, yeah. And so when you're out with the boys in a van, you're making memories. It's a great story to tell your grandkids one day. Exactly. This is way better than being on a phone. Like I'll always, in interviews, which I don't even have to do this time, is I'll ask, One story, good or bad, in your whole musical career, what would you talk about when you're like 80? Those stories are what really you look back on and say, wow. Those are the things you really remember more than anything.

11:01 It's so true. You always remember kind of the hard or the quote-unquote bad times. But we look back on them fondly, to be honest. Like that situation, I mean, we talk about it all the time, even in the van amongst ourselves, like how crazy of a situation that was. But just kind of keep moving forward. I draw a lot of analogy to military and vets who I have deep respect and appreciation for. And so when people ask, how did you survive on stage today? I always say, I'm like, men and women went to Iraq and fought with 10 times the layers on them with a backpack. And we're sitting here worried about a stage. So I put it in perspective and there's, there is something about it. I love that. Right. You know, what's funny about that is we are all bitching how high it is. I do ask cars. Man, how do you even do that? And I know the answer, but it's like, you know, I want listeners to know how hard it is to get up there and perform in this heat. My son's been in the army for 20 years.

11:52 Nice. He is psyops. He jumps out of an airplane into Somalia. They say, we'll see you in six months. You get caught, we don't know you. And there, he said, it's like 130 degrees every day. Oh my gosh. And you got the uniform on, the ruck pack, and all that shit. So to your point, I always say, somebody always has it worse. Oh, yeah. And, you know, they say you're not supposed to say that because it invalidates what someone's going through. But for us, don't be a word that rhymes with wussy. Like, to me, that is a controversial take here. But that's a form of love in the van when things really do suck. And if you can train your brain like we do to take this ironic pleasure in things sucking, it becomes a lot happier and more fun. So we just say that way.

12:42 Listen, to me, it's a positive to say that because... you know, get rid of the victim mentality. There's some kids out there in some country eating dirt cookies and that's all they have to eat. That's what I focus on. And we're complaining about being jet lagged on a plane coming back from Singapore. Right. Exactly. No, we're good. We're choosing to be here. It's fine. Exactly. Exactly. And, and that's the thing too, like even this kind of life, like I do media coverage at festivals all over the US, UK, Europe, uh, Canada. And, uh, Some people are like, how do you even do that? And my answer is, how do I not? Exactly. Like, even with all the brutality of doing this, like, we all know what this life is like. It's what we get out of it. Like, I can't even live without it. You know, it's like that's why we go home after a tour or something, and you're like, you get in that come down mode, like you just came down off a high, and you get in that little bit of like, oh my god, I need to get back out there again.

13:45 Totally. It's like even in the example of your son. Yeah, he's going out there. I'm sure he's patriotic out there to keep everybody safe. But I'm sure there's a part of his psyche that thinks this is an adventure. Like this is something I'm going to go out and actually back on and have a blast doing, right? And every show, like we're going out 39 shows. This is our first of 39. Nice. You get to see the whole country. Like who gets to do that? I know, right? It's like a vacation. Exactly. Best job in the world, I always say. You can always find a positive in every situation no matter what it is. And like in your situation, what happened, one of my biggest things I teach is that people spend so much energy and so much time worrying about things that may or may not ever happen. And I was just telling my daughter the other day, instead of worrying about this and this, let's just come up with a solution. That's my thing. Come up with, and I said, when you're in that mode, you can't come up with a solution. You need to be like, you guys acted like, you know, like It's not a big deal. We'll figure it out. Things will work out. And they usually do.

14:51 You could have taken another round like, oh, my God, we will never make it to upheaval. We won't get invited to a festival ever again because we didn't show up. You could go down so many rabbit holes. That's a contagious attitude, too, that spreads through the team quickly. if you got a negative Nelly like that. No doubt. We're very careful. We've curated an awesome team because we watch for that, especially when you're spending this much time together because everyone, you become brothers and everyone's your roommates. Exactly. So you've got to be on. The same wavelength of thinking. And then when you're creating music, music's the best therapy there is, in my opinion. Absolutely. Well, then, if it's the best therapy there is, there should be some positivity in that message of that song.

15:34 Even for bad things. Yeah, absolutely. You know, like. Yeah, and that's what's great about music is it unifies people and people find purpose for their pain and through their pain they come together and it really is cheaper and maybe more effective, arguably, than going to therapy. I think so. Like, I have this idea to cure all the world problems. You know what it is? We just have a massive music festival that the whole world is required to attend. Except the political leaders. They're banned. Security is told not to let them in at all. Put the big X through. If they have a badge, put an X through it. They wear a suit. Don't come in. Exactly. And, you know, just put everybody in a mosh pit. We'll all work it out and hug in the end. the world's problems will be solved.

16:22 I think you're onto something, brother. I know, right? Let's make it happen. Listen, we're all being brainwashed by all these fucking idiots in the world. It's not just one. It's a lot of them. Oldest trick in the book, divide and conquer. Oh, yeah. Demagoguery. You never see that at a place like Rock, Oklahoma. Nope. It doesn't matter where you're from, what walk of life or whatever. Listen, I'm originally from New York and New Jersey. Your concept being from there originally is, the fuck am I doing in Oklahoma? But I've been doing Rock, Rock, Oklahoma for a lot of years. And some of the nicest people that are the greatest friends of mine I've met here. In fact, same thing. You guys have probably heard stuff like this. I have a brother who says to me, You're never going to find a woman traveling all over the world going to festivals. I'm like, obviously, you've never done it.

17:13 Oh, yeah. Very true. I'm sure as a single guy, you're going to have no problem. I know, right? And the viewpoint is, by a lot of people, is, well, you have to stay in this one place. I had somebody say it to me recently. I'm like, or I meet somebody that lives a life the same way I do. and then you're on the same page. Yeah, that's exactly it. It's funny you say that. I go through the same thing. I met my wife four and a half years ago, and we were on the same wavelength about travel, sacrificing to pursue something bigger. She was a D1 athlete at University of Wyoming, soccer player. Nice. Yeah. And so she understood fundamentally what it meant to be in a band and be gone. And I'm never hearing things from her like, are you okay? I haven't heard from you in two hours. There's none of that. It's get out there and crush it. You got one life to live.

17:59 See, I love that. She's on the same page. She goes and travels as a content creator, does marketing for hotels and different brands. And she was just in Thailand last week. And so. You've got to find... It's hard to... I mean, I speak for myself. I don't know about you, Joe. But for me, it's very hard to find the right woman who gets this. It is. And when you do, you cherish that. I've even dated band members that they didn't get it. Like, I thought it was weird. Like, okay... You see I'm a radio personality. Don't freak out because I'm talking to some girl because that's my job. That's right. And you would think somebody in a band wouldn't think that way. And I've had that experience too. So it is very difficult. But I think it's worth it because otherwise what happens is you meet somebody, you fall in love.

18:46 Next thing you know, you're not doing this stuff anymore because they don't want to go. They don't want you to go. And you make that ultimate sacrifice yourself. And eventually, you're really unhappy that you did. We've had past band members that that's happened to them. You know what? It's unfortunate, but yeah, that is a path that some people take. Oh man, it's a real thing. The power of the woman that you're with can fundamentally change the arc of your life. Like Joe said, we've seen that. Choose wisely, single men out there. Yeah, and I talk about it a lot because it's like, Most of the biggest successes in life had the right kind of woman behind them.

19:29 Absolutely right. Because that gives you the motivation and the feeling. Whereas if you have the wrong person, it makes you want to do nothing. Dude, I used to think when we started the band, I was 18, you were 20. I thought that any woman would be a distraction to the mission. This idea that I have to give some time away from the band to somebody else, that's gonna to hijack the focus. Turns out, how wrong I was, when you find the right person, she can serve as jet fuel and actually give you an extra 20 to 30% that you didn't even know you had in you to propel you to new heights. So like, I got chills. I loved what you said before about your wife. It's like, instead of being nudgy, it's like, Your biggest supporter.

20:11 Yeah. My favorite movie scene ever in history has to do with that. And it's from Rocky II. It was from Rocky II? From Rocky II. Adrian. Yep. And when he's like, you don't want me messing with Creed no more. I won't do it. And she goes, I want you to do one thing for me. Come here. Win. Win. And then the music comes on. I'm getting chills now just thinking about it. I got chills because you sang it. I know. It's like, that's the word. Anybody that knows me, you ask my ex-wives. They'll tell you I've always said I'm looking for my Adrian.

20:51 You're looking for your Adrian. Aren't we all? Right? It's the concept of it, you know? And it just... It just makes things so much easier when you have somebody on your side that's your biggest cheerleader. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Absolutely. And then you, in turn, reciprocate. And some of these guys out there, I mean, they're not loyal to their girl. It's a problem. There has to be mutual trust when somebody's out on the road. For us, it actually makes world life a lot easier that I think we're pretty much all in relationships except maybe Sky right now. Sky is single, ladies. Great guy, too. Very good looking. And you need to hook up with them because then they can all be in relationships. Yeah, yeah, that's right. We need to get him a girl.

21:32 We need to get him a girl. There you go. Cuff him up. I'm glad to hear that because that is true, too. You know, you're on the road. You're doing these things. It does also take a special woman that... is confident enough in themselves and how you feel about them that they're not going to be jealous. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I could go on and rant and rave about my lovely wife Delaney, but she's very self-confident, and that's huge. Self-confident and also humble. 100%. She texts me almost before every show, one show closer to arenas, one show closer to arenas. And I'm like, don't make me cry. I'm supposed to be tough. See, I love hearing that shit. And you are one show closer. Like, look at this.

22:16 Yeah. Rock fest, upheaval. Rock, Oklahoma. What other festivals have you done recently or doing? Rock Rally in Wisconsin. Upheaval in Grand Rapids. Next year we're, fingers crossed, shortlist for a bunch of the Danny Wimmer festivals. I was going to say, I do all the Danny Wimmers. We need you at the Danny Wimmers. Oh, please, yes. Spread the word, man. We need you at some of the ones overseas, too. That would be cool. Yes, working on that also in Europe. Yep. Like, I just got back from Bloodstock and Wacken. Oh, my God. Wacken was insane. I couldn't even imagine it until I got there. Yeah. So I think your positivity, your music, and everything you got going for you That is all going to happen.

23:02 Thank you, brother. I thank you so much. I appreciate the kind words. Oh, my pleasure. That's awesome. Is there anything else you want to tell the listeners that we haven't covered already that you have coming up? Also, tell them how to reach on socials to your website and all that and buy your fucking merch. Buy our merch, autumnkings.com. Tell your kids, friends, mom, and dad. And we'll be out for the next two and a half months with Archers, Black Veil Brides, Skillet for a month and a half, and Escape the Fate. Childhood Us is just oozing with excitement. What a fucking tour. Oh, yeah. To even say it out loud, Skillet, Escape the Fate, Autumn Kings. Like what? Right? I used to stay in on Friday nights at 15 and watch their music videos.

23:44 Now we're first of three. And John's the nicest dude, the nicest human. Yeah. Strong, tough, great songwriter, hard worker. So cool. And he found a great woman too, who happens to be in the band. Exactly. That's great. Even better, right? Yeah. Anything else you want to share with the listeners? And then we have our first album, record release album, coming out September 18th. We've got vinyl coming out. We're super excited. That one's called Epiphanies. Yeah. I love the name of that, by the way. Oh, thanks. When I saw that, I was like, that's the coolest fucking name. Yeah, it's those realizations in life when you feel like you got hit with a certain moment of wisdom. We try to take those nuggets and make that the tagline of each song on the album. So it's got a deeper meaning than just a cool sounding word.

24:30 That's cool. Everybody will have to check it out. Well, you guys are badass. I'm glad you were here at Rock, Oklahoma and fared the heat wave. Yes, that's right. We're surviving. And lots of great things happen. I hope to see you next year at the Danny Wimmer Festival. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it. Thanks so much, dude. Hear that, Danny? Thanks for being on the Adventures of Pipe Man. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Man on W4CY radio.