After a triumphant summer spent on the forward guard the Ozzfest party convoy, hardcore jesters Every Time I Die have returned home to their upstate New York digs to…party some more.
“Dude, where are you?” Every Time I Die drummer Steve Micciche is yelling into the cellphone clamped against his head. “Come be my partner! We’re playing shoes.”The family of Andy Williams, guitarist of Every Time I Die, takes horseshoes very seriously. It’s a pleasant early-September afternoon at Williams’ sister’s house in North Tonawanda, New York, and the five members of Every Time I Die are gathered at one of the family’s regular weekend backyard horseshoe tournaments. The house is a modest two-story affair on a leafy side street, just a short walk from the Falls-fed Niagara River, which, despite having “all kinds of shit” blown into it by the aftereffects of Hurricane Frances, has a huge fan in Williams’ dad, a Buffalo-area native who can’t imagine leaving the city’s natural delights. Toys are scattered everywhere inside—evidence of the guitarist’s apple-cheeked nephew and niece—and if you plan on walking on the tan-colored carpet, you’d be well advised to remove your shoes first. The backyard, where the family is gathered, is divided into a strip of cement leading to a two-car garage and a strip of grass that features two pits of sticky, dark-brown soil, each with a metal pole protruding from its center, and into which the Williamses are hurling heavy-ass horseshoes with as much finesse as possible.
Williams’ dad is offering everyone drinks—“Beer, soda, other stuff, you know?”—while his mom fills plastic containers with potato chips and his sister gives her son dollar bills to compete in a dice game no one can remember the name of. Various friends and extended-family members mill about in loose conversation, but the ETID guys—Williams, Micciche, singer Keith Buckley, guitarist (and Keith’s brother) Jordan Buckley, and drummer Mike Novak—stick together, quietly murmuring to one another, breaking into the occasional burst of laughter. They seem relaxed, but a little out of place, as if they’ve just returned home from two months of living on a bus and playing shows for mud-caked maniacs, and are still remembering how to act like normal humans. As it happens, this is precisely the case; less than a week ago the quintet finished up its first run on Ozzfest’s second stage.
“All of our expectations were pretty much met,” Williams says of the experience later, as we drink from juice boxes at his sister’s dining-room table. “Other than getting naked with Halford and blowing him.”
“That’s the only thing that happened that we didn’t think would,” Jordan adds with an impressive poker face.“Last year, we probably would’ve had some problems [on the tour],” Williams continues, barely suppressing a growing smirk. “You know, me and Dave Draiman had a couple of spats in the past, playing VFW halls together. But this year it was cool. We were playing with our friends—Bleeding Through, Throwdown, Darkest Hour.”