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Road warrior: my touring philosophy was to make enough money for gas to get to the next town. If we had to buy a loaf of bread and a pack of bologna, that'd be fine. And some beer.

Article Excerpt
IN 1982, AFTER I'D LEFT A BAND called Rank and File, I called my brother Javier and told him to come to Austin and start the True Believers with me. In those days, the first thing you dial when you formed a band was buy a van and bit the road, so we played a couple skateboarder parties in Austin and Dallas and then got our first real gig in Oklahoma City. We had told the guy who booked us that we had three hours' worth of material when we really had maybe four or five songs. So we had this marathon learning session in the van on the way up there, everything from Bo Diddley to old punk-rock songs and Bob Marley. And we made it. People liked us. [paragraph] When Jon Dee Graham joined the band as a third guitarist, we really hit it hard. We were a three-guitar rock and roll attack, on the...