Winnemucca, Nevada

Right now I’m out with Fit For A King on a tour with Frozen Soul, Kublai Kahn and Killswitch Engage. In between our Sacramento and Boise shows, we had a day off scheduled in a town I had never heard of prior to this tour called Winnemucca, Nevada. It’s a small town in a valley in northern Nevada, dry and dusty in the town but surrounded by mountains with snow capped peaks, and it was actually really pretty.

A couple of us started the day by walking and scooting across town from our hotel to a coffee shop called “Along The Way Cafe”, as it looked like really the only mildly promising coffee shop in the town. It was pretty decent, surprisingly enough! Wasn’t world class specialty coffee by any means but it was drinkable without needing any milk or sugar, which is all I really ask for. Employees were nice, they had a couple vegan friendly smoothie bowls, cute cozy cafe area, fun little spot. They had an acoustic guitar out in one room, which Tuck and I both played and pretended we were in The Scene Aesthetic like it was 2005.

After hanging out at the coffee shop for a while everyone headed back to the hotel, but I wanted to walk around and try and do a little bit of street photography in the pretty empty and dusty streets. Wind gusts started picking up to over 50mph, and you can see in the photos the brown haze that was in the air in the afternoon. I got pelted in the face with rocks and still had dust in my eyes this morning, but hey I got some photos I like so that’s what matters right?

After I made my way back to the hotel an hour or two later, I had a pretty normal night. Went to the gym, made some food on the bus, finished a recap video, and played quiplash with the boys. I’d actually really love to visit Winnemucca again, there was a surprising amount of photos to take there and plenty I would’ve taken on another day if the light was different etc. I fired off 11 frames in my Fuji GA645zi in addition to these digital photos from my x100vi, but I' probably could blow through quite a few rolls if I had more time and a few days here. Will I ever be here again? I’m not sure, probably not, but that’s why I wanted to go take a few photos while I was there.

Rock Am Ring 2024 w/ Fit For A King

I first crossed paths with Fit For A King in summer 2014. I was doing merch for a band called A Skylit Drive, and FFAK jumped on the second half of warped tour on the same stage as us. We didn’t hang too much on the tour, often didn’t have our tents set up near each other, but I got to know them a little bit. Bob gave me a rain jacket in Florida to wear for when Florida would be Florida, Tuck and I sat by the water and watched dolphins’ swim by, had a few more interactions through the 2 or 3 weeks.

in 2016, my friend Bryan had started working with FFAK, and I was still living in North Carolina at the time. I’d come hang out when they had a show in NC while I was home, usually at Greene Street in Greensboro, occasionally in Charlotte, A tour they did with Beartooth in 2016 that played Charlotte was actually one of the first shows I ever shot photos at, it might’ve actually been the first show I had like a “Photo pass” credential for. I had shot a couple shows, but just hardcore shows and DIY stuff, where “photo passes” aren’t really a thing. I had been working in the industry for a couple years, but doing merch and other gigs, photography was still just a side hobby at home. Here’s a photo from that show, actually.

Ryan Kirby of Fit For A King - The Underground, Charlotte, NC 2016

Fast forward to 2018, their old merch guy Cameron decided he wanted to step away from touring. At this point, not only was the band already familiar with me and knew I had some tour media experience at this point with the band I See Stars (Which will probably get it’s own blog post at some point), but I was also now living in Arizona and Bryan was actually my roommate. So, it felt like a no brainer for me to step in, to do merch and some media for a summer headliner they had that year. I ended up doing every tour the band had from July 2018 to November 2022, including a few rounds in Europe and Australia. We had a couple full Europe and UK tours under our belts before 2024, but none of us had done the European festival circuit yet.

The band and I took a break from working with each other for the year of 2023, but in spring 2024 Kirby shot me a text and asked if I’d be down to hop back in the saddle for a cheeky little European festival circuit run. We’d be back in a van like the old days, which I thought we had all finally graduated from but sometimes that’s how it goes in metalcore. Sometimes you’re in a bus with a kitchen and bathroom and big spacious bunks, sometimes you’re pissing in bottles a foot away from someone else because you’re in a van and have to drive from Bratislava to Nottingham in 48 hours and don’t have time to stop. I’ve always done this touring thing for the experiences and memories anyway, so I’m willing to rough it if it means good times ahead. I said yes, and off back to Europe I would go in a couple months.

The van in question, that 10 grown adult men all had to live in for the month

The first show of the run was Rock Am Ring, in Nurburg, Germany. You know, in the US, we always had warped tour. People from all over tell me how much they would see warped tour on the internet and wish they could come to America to experience it. For Americans, what we saw was some of those European festivals that dwarfed warped tour, Rock Am Ring being one of the big ones. I remember watching videos of Rock Am Ring on YouTube in high school, just imagining how much fun such a massive festival with such massive bands would be to attend. It was really exciting to think that I would be working this festival I had grown up fantasizing about.

Rolling up to the festival, the operations were so streamlined and easy. There was also a roller coaster? but It wasn’t running, lol. The catering was crazier than any catering i’ve ever had at any American festival besides Coachella, the greenroom area was sick, I got to see another old NC friend who came up at the same time as me who is playing drums with Scene Queen now and we had a surreal “Bro! We’re both at fuckin Rock Am Ring!” moment, the vibes were high already before 10am even struck. Most importantly of all, though, I was back in the land of Orange Fanta that is actually good and doesn’t just taste like chemicals.

We were the first band on for the day, on the first stage that started for the day. We weren’t sure how it was going to go, playing so early and first, but wow. Gates opened, people sprinting over to the stage, within minutes an entire sea of people are in front of our stage, ready to throw down at noon on a Thursday. Backstage is pretty chaotic, all the local crew trying to get everything set up in advance for the bands after us and all that, I stayed mostly out of the way and just took a couple photos of some of the guys back stage and then a quick group shot.

The set starts, the crowd goes crazy, I’ve never shot a festival show this big before so I’m running around a bit like a chicken with my head cut off. How to I compose shots with so much room? How do I capture everything when so much is happening? What do I miss in order to not miss the other thing? It was a wild experience, and before I knew it the set was over, and I was left speechless not being able to believe I just shot a set at the iconic Rock Am Ring festival.

The photos from this set aren’t my best work of all time, shaking off some rust and in a setting i’d never shot before, but it’s a show I will remember until the day I die. Big shoutout to Fit For A King for asking me to come document it for them. We finished off the day with watching some of the other bands from the crowd, watching the sunset over the grounds and catching our friends in Beartooth from side stage for the pyro vibes.

You never know how life works out. I would’ve never guessed in 2014 when I first met these guys that ten years later I’d be at Rock Am Ring with them. Every interaction, small or large, can be a pretty insane domino in the domino effect in our lives. Kinda cool to think about, huh? Heading back to Europe with these guys for a fourth or fifth time in just a few days. I’ll be sure to blog some about it.

Video recap from the 30 min set

Crazy crowd interactions

Kirby briefly discussing the set

Adrian & Rodrigo

I’ve known Adrian for a long time now, since shortly after I moved to Arizona when I was 24. We spent a lot of time together in our mid 20s, skateboarding in tempe and playing Pokemon go at Kiwanis park and seeing movies and spending way too much money on ramen at Shady Park. He made me a spicy Korean red chili tofu dish for my birthday one year when nobody else did anything for me. Needless to say, we’ve known each other well for a long time. Like all adults we’ll go some time without speaking to each other as life happens, but we’ve been good friends for years and years now.

I first met his partner, Rodrigo, when the 3 of us went on a hike in Sedona together a couple years ago in 2021 I believe it was. We realized we drive the same exact car with the same year and model and everything, which was pretty funny. It was a fun time, and I was happy to see that Adrian had found someone that not only made him happy but seemed like a great guy who treats him well.

I’ve had some LGBTQ+ friends in the past tell me stories of how they would reach out to photographers and get denied a shoot for being a queer couple, and the discrimination felt creating fear to reach out to any photographers at all. So when Adrian asked me if I would shoot some photos to commemorate his engagement to his wonderful partner, I was so excited to be part of such a sweet memory for the two of them.

We went out to one of my favorite spots to shoot photos, and found ourselves a nice spot to take some cute photos. This is a really popular spot for photos, but for good reason. The light always hits, the location is beautiful, to the point it’s harder to take a bad photo than a good one. I am super happy with the session we had, and I’m happy to have given these newlyweds a really wholesome and cute photo set for them to always look back on.