Close calls and close quarters with One Pin Short

Local ska and reggae band One Pin Short has finished their tour with Reel Big Fish and can enjoy a little time at home before hitting the road again in March on a spring tour of colleges in the Southeastern U.S. The boys have several local shows lined up in the meantime, including a pre-Inauguration Day performance with other members of the local Macro-Fi collective at the Canvas Café, scheduled for Monday, January 19. Then they’ll be back at the House of Blues January 20 for one of the first Alternative Tuesdays nights on the Courtyard stage.

The band says their House of Blues show on January 6 proved to be a high point of their recent tour. The band got to recharge their batteries for a night at home and enjoy what singer Sean Garnett said was, “some awesome food - salmon, meatloaf, chicken fingers.” Prior to going out on the road, drummer Jordan Rosenthal mentioned one of the things he was most looking forward to was “getting fed every night.” Guitarist Jesse Magaña agreed, “It’s not going to be Cup of Noodles.”

The grub wasn’t the only thrilling thing the band experienced on tour. OPS related stories of wild times on the road during past tours, and Garnett elaborated on one of those tales.

“This one place we stayed they had a pet banana spider, and they said, ‘Yeah, we feed it.’ Looking at this spider that was as big as my hand, I said, ‘What do you feed it? Babies or something?’”

The eight-legged monster wasn’t the only insect issue they encountered at that stop.

“They also mentioned there was a flea infestation in the house,” Garnett continued, “so I slept in the van that night.”

While their tour with Reel Big Fish yielded no bug issues, one eventful evening in Tempe, Ariz. almost ended with a surprise visit to a local jail.

Garnett recounted that one of the band members, who shall remain nameless, “proceeded to get a lot of drunk, a lot of drunk. He peed in the back where the security guards were, and then he just passed out on the ground by where the merch boxes were. All the security guards were yelling. … Usually I am the guy who talks people down – the ‘Sorry we ran over your dog’ speech – but I wasn’t there, so Jordan had to save him.”

Garnett’s usually raspy voice was scratchier than normal when he called to check in after the tour was over. Being stuck in a van with seven guys, several band members passed around a road cold. However, the lead singer’s voice had stayed strong enough over the course of the trip to debut some of OPS’s newest tracks, like “Pick Me Up,” from their forthcoming album to be released in mid to late February.

Another crowd favorite from the tour was the title track from their first CD, Waiting, which they actually sold out of during the tour. They have since gotten a new batch pressed, which can be picked up at one of their upcoming gigs.