The WORST Thing About Touring With ANIMALS AS LEADERS

[@KeyanHoushmandLive]

Well… THAT almost gave me a heart attack. Thank you so much for watching! Check out the (very nice looking and probably the best quality you'll ever wear) merch from the Animals As Leaders tour: keyanhoushmand.sellfy.store/

[@nathanlockhart3876]

Wait, so what actually was the issue?

[@deadzid]

Yeah, i wanna know too.. what was the problem? Is it the pedalboard? Watch till the end and not getting the answer gives me anxiety 😂

[@beekan8787]

The irony of this happening while opening for animals as leaders - a band without a bass player. 😂

[@AlexRafn]

I experienced second hand stress while watching this video 😂 - Good on you fixing it on the fly!

[@KeyanHoushmandLive]

imagine editing this video after living it HAHAHAHA

[@AlexAlexandrov]

yyyup :D

[@TheMetalFreshTiger]

Me too!

[@paulantoc]

What you feel in that 10 mins is the literal Arrythmia, well done Keyan!

[@KeyanHoushmandLive]

It felt like it! Hahahaha

[@pota7opotato573]

Honestly, didn't notice anything was missing until the bass came in, and that's just because the tone was absolutely massive. Amazing job playing off something so fucked so well for the first time 🤣 Keen to see ya'll again in June.

[@KeyanHoushmandLive]

that bass tone be thicc, see you next month!

[@hjbarber]

the "oh shit" cable coming in CLUTCH. always have an oh shit cable.

[@samlyndon7835]

Dude! I was there (front row) and as an audio nerd I must say I did notice immediately that something was up. But, I was surprised that I did and the way you guys handled it was seriously impressive! You seemed to keep your cool in what I can imagine would be extremely stressful. Nonetheless the show was incredible! Was a pleasure to catch you live and none of the technical difficulties drew away from the performance! See you in June! P.s. caught a tasty vid on my GoPro might DM it to ya

[@belugaprincessofficial]

Honestly, what an incredible bassist, serious respect to him for keeping chill and continuing playing

[@LifeHawkeye]

I love the nightmare experiences of bands while playing live! If anyone has ever been in a gigging band I think they can relate to this experience on some level. My story happened way back in like 1998. Our band was playing maybe it’s 2nd or 3rd show ever in a small but completely packed club. Our bass player saw that his girlfriend got bumped pretty hard once we kicked in with our distortion and the crowd began getting a little moshy. He proceeds to take his bass off, drops it on the stage, jumps off the stage and starts fighting with like 3 guys that were in the front row. In doing so, one of the guys in the audience gets shoved into our singers mic stand and thrusts the mic straight into our singers face almost knocking him out and sends him to the ground in pain. Once that all happened it was time for my solo…so for like the next minute and a half it was our drummer still playing while I played a solo without any other guitar or bass…and our bass player in a fight in the audience. Yeah not the best evening. It was immediately after that gig that we made a new band rule: the band shall never attack the audience. Lol. Keep it metal people. Keep it real.

[@noveauxofficial3754]

Touring will ABSOLUTELY test your ability to adapt & overcome under stressful conditions - be it on or off stage! Well done chaps

[@geordihills]

Broo what that’s crazy, I was in the audience and had no idea haha. I did think the mix sounded a bit trebley but assumed it was the venue

[@KeyanHoushmandLive]

Hahahaha well now you know why!

[@MatteoCrespo97]

As a backliner and guitar tech I did many tours, I know that feeling, how many times I had to run on stage with a spare guitar or having to change broken strings on the fly in the darkness of the backstage 😂 Cheers to you for figuring out the problem and fixing it under lots of pressure, very well done!

[@josuastangl7140]

I was guitar tech on a tour 2 years ago and two nights in a row they broke a string mid song. They didn't have backup guitars in the same tuning, so without pausing we changed guitars to one in a different tuning and I had 1-2min to replace the string until they needed the guitar again for the next song. Brutal stress levels, but there's no better feeling than pulling it off without needing to stop the show and barely anyone noticing!

[@Numynumynumnumz]

Now this is a professional musician, wasnt luck at all that extra lead was there waiting for you to use it just in case... you set it there to be prepared for a situation just like this! During that entire time you kept the show rolling and just like you said the audience were none the wiser. Well done my man, major major props! Keep rockin!

[@paulemillevasseur7622]

That's nuts. I saw AAL play with the WSO in Winnipeg and when facing technical difficulties, they just stopped and solved them. It's AMAZING you guys were fixing the 'car' as it was running but man, sometimes it's better to stop, make a joke, reset, and then get on with the set.

[@flynnedwards]

You guys handled it so well. Even though you guys experienced a stupid amount of stress at the start of the show, you still performed incredibly and put on an amazing show. Definitely a show I won't forget, and will be a benchmark for me going into the future

[@KeyanHoushmandLive]

Thank you for the kind words Flynn, I’m glad you enjoyed the show!

[@ZackSeifMusic]

The most stressful moments on tour (outside of travel and being late) are ALWAYS gear related. Glad y'all got it fixed! I have documented wireless failures on stage and I it's always the first thing that comes to mind.

[@Cornerbog]

I was in the front row and could definitely tell something was going on by the way Kynan kept fiddling with things and you both looked a bit stressed, but you all kept your composure and put on one hell of a show! I could kind of hear the difference between when the bass was in the mix and when it wasn’t but honestly it wasn’t very obvious so I bet most of the crowd were none the wiser. I’m glad the problem ended up being fixed because Kynan’s solo was spectacular, as was the drum solo!

[@RoyBeatty]

Animals as leaders fans hearing a band with no bass: “hell yeah this shit slaps”

[@dylanhoward718]

... but they do have bass

[@RoyBeatty]

​@@dylanhoward718 I know, i'm just memeing lol

[@trevv5886]

More tour stories like this please Keyan

[@codes9549]

to be able to play animals as leaders and also troubleshoot and repair your audio setup in front of an audience is absolute God mode

[@joshkuhnmusic]

Dude my mindset is exactly the same way and dudes will be like "man relax why do you have so much shit" yet I'm prepared for anything. Good shit continuing to perform while troubleshooting. It's not easy, especially at this level with this pressure.

[@KeyanHoushmandLive]

MORE IS MORE, you can never be too prepared

[@joshkuhnmusic]

@@KeyanHoushmandLive 100%

[@stuartgoodwin819]

Agreed!!!

[@brockholder902]

I was in the Brisbane crowd up the front, and although you could see it wasn't going entirely to plan technically, you guys were killing it musically which is more important. I was absolutely loving your set !!! Killed it, man

[@NicuMihai]

Keyan, i gotta say you're an amazing and inspiring human being. I was so happy for you when the tour was announced. I would have been in the first row if Australia wasn't 23 hours away by plane from where i live. A fun thing happened to my band when we performed a gig a couple of weeks ago. We play fully Neural DSP through laptop with automations. Right as we go on stage, the intro starts playing, then i realise my guitar isn't plugged in. The cable was wrapped around the strap, but it stayed unplugged so it doesn't drain battery the 9v between the soundcheck and the performance. I run to the laptop, unarm the track, and plug the guitar in (so it doesn't pop at club volume), then i ran back to my place waiting for the intro to finish. Right as I was supposed to hit the first note, no guitar was being heard. Started twisting my volume knob, moved the cable, pressed my killswitch a couple of times (in case it was stuck). My bandmate picked up what i was supposed to play, while my little brain realised i forgot to arm the track again after plugging the guitar. Rookie mistake. Now we know it can happen, hopefully won't happen again.

[@silentshadowdnb]

Ahh yes. The joys of performing live. Anything can go wrong at any time!! Once upon a time i was in a live drum n bass band with my brother (the drummer). We were meant to play in melbs to a few hundred people, except i made it and my brother missed his flight. Long story short, my friend matt bray (k-oscillate, 28 days) convinced me that he would fill in and the show must go on. I made up a heap of hand signals (because he didnt jnow the songs) and conducted him through the set. And somehow.... we smashed it haha. But that was my biggest pants shitter of all time i reckon! You guys were fkn excellent in Brisbane ❤

[@jackbaxon]

I was there on the night, and remember everything you described happening. Had no idea you were experiencing technical difficulties though. You guys handled it like pros and still produced an amazing show.

[@CanonBrahma2]

Hey bro i have an idea. Make a video on how to perform live band sets with plugins and the gears you need. It will be super helpful.😂

[@rezzyblue9948]

You’ve got nerves of steel. Most people would’ve crumbled in a situation like that. Good on you, Keyan 👍🏽 can’t wait for you to come to the states 🇺🇸

[@tfwnoyandere]

6:26 poor kynan basically getting called redundant 😭

[@MarkusKarppinen]

Damn! I felt the stress! Have you located what the issue was?

[@KeyanHoushmandLive]

to this day, we still have no idea what happened hahahaha

[@MarkusKarppinen]

@@KeyanHoushmandLive that sucks. I hate tech in these situations haha. Fingers crossed it won’t happen again!

[@InvictusBananman]

When i saw the video title, i thought to myself: "What could be bad about touring with AAL? Will this guy tell me that Tosin is an ass?" And i am glad that it was just about sound and Tech stuff and nothing acctually about AAL

[@aidenrecupero445]

what a rollercoaster! Killed it in Melbourne, keen as a bean for IBTS

[@Majigitajog]

Cool video! If it helps, I've noticed the sound of the Princess Theatre has a very natural reverberation to it. Seeing some bands at both this venue and alternative Brisbane venues months apart with the same sound engineer present in both venues I had the impression the mix is tweakable, until the cavernous echos at back of room cascade. At the Triffid, missing bass would stand out more lol

[@sheriff7172]

The triffid sounds great my best guess is its the hanger roof

[@TheMirrorify]

I enjoyed this story a lot man, congratulations on supporting them too, huge.

[@H3llb0y19876]

In my touring days, this kind of situation happened quite a few times. I don't think there is ever a gig that goes without any hickup. Worst thing that ever happened to me was a festival gig in which I could not hear myself (lead guitar), not for a single second. Turned out FOH had my signal perfectly fine and nobody noticed, but for me it was flying blind the entire show.

[@zedkent4287]

"a drink... of WATER" yeah right x)

[@DillSkin]

Dude that’s fucking awesome you guys got to open for AAL!

[@Stuu157]

you crushed it in melb dude. complete surprise for me to see you there, booked the tickets ages ago and never checked who was supporting until i was lining up. your show was really enjoyable, a worthy supporting act for AAL, and that is saying something!!

[@LorenzoGollia]

All panic, and no disco! Well done for solving all that so quickly! That's insane

[@HoracioAmiritoDiaz]

"The WORST Thing About Touring With ANIMALS AS LEADERS" implies that you had a problem(s) with AAL during the tour. Maybe change the title of the video.

[@sonofhorror1995]

This reminds me of when I saw Narcotic Wasteland, their Rhythm guitarist blew an entire power strip and the venue didn't have a backup, so he had to run no pedalboard or tuner straight into the Orange head, and it sounded amazing.

[@AustinJSchaeffer]

Never heard your music before but this was a super interesting story! Glad you were able to keep your cool and get things working. I've never played music live but I have done playable demos of VR horror games I've worked on (that were far from finished) with the one other guy i made them with at big conventions so I definitely relate to having to solve technical issues on the fly. One time we brought my personal TV from my house to display the game to bystanders and realized that over time the audio would become out of sync so we'd have to periodically unplug and replug the hdmi cable between peoples' playthroughs. The convention also put all their VR games too close together which caused unplayable levels interference with the tracking devices so we had to get one booth to reposition their trackers and negotiate with another one to turn theirs off completely (they were just selling ram anyways). There were times where we even had to close the booth down for 10 minutes and fix bugs on the spot haha. The sheer number of things that can go wrong with technology when you're having to set something up for a live audience never ceases to amaze me

[@meshugganator08]

Well done for keeping the show going bois!!

[@tonepilot]

It’s like NDSP didn’t think the QC would be ever used live. That damn hold for the tuner is a nightmare.

[@Braxzilla13]

I got anxious just watching this. Sheesh. Bravo on that finesse.

[@sarahallen4550]

Was there that night and you guys were all so damn professional and put on a wonderful show. So glad to have discovered your music ❤

[@espenstoro]

Oh god, I've been in this situation before (different gear, same result). The stress is real, I'm getting PTSD from this story.

[@Nrthrn]

Dude I would have dropped dead on stage haha Last show my in-ears died halfway thru the second to last song. We use a lot of background textures and everything is to the click, so I had to play the end of that song plus the last song looking at my delay tap tempo LED to keep time 😂

[@KeyanHoushmandLive]

That is such a smart save! I’ll be stealing that for sure if anything happens to my click

[@joeylittle2629]

Beautiful story, Beautiful work! Story's like this makes me want to play more shows.

[@govindoburdwan]

Wow! that was stressful but every tunnel has light at the end brother.

[@BS-cr2mv]

Love this story!! I work as an AV guy for conferences and run into issues like this all the time where stress is high and things need to work in a matter of seconds. Must have been on another level since you're performing as well. Great work!!

[@x23rizky]

I'd never heard of you guys before seeing you at THIS SHOW. I saw there was something going on with the bass for the first few songs, but guys... yous killed it. And it didn't impact the show at. All. In fact, I would say it heightened your energy for the rest of the set. The whole crowd was looking at each other every song going, "These guys are pretty alright!" and you set the vibe MASSIVELY for the rest of the night. We had a blast listening to the *support act*. Kudos. That's awesome. I instruct a few student rock bands at a high school and I've been showing the students some clips of your performance that night as an example on how to give an epic visual performance onstage - especially with a bass (he was so expressive, it was awesome). I must say, there were reservations when you all came out in all black with the arm sleeves and trench coat, but wow did you all perform something fierce and make a spectacle to watch. The aesthetic was on point and everything down to the outfits just accentuated everything you did onstage. Such a memorable show - can't wait to see you guys again. Well done. 👏👏

[@Cestariarts]

Baity video title, but ok... What a freaking terrible situation, I bet you had a cold sweat!

[@rjones6801]

I played out on a Roland kit in a cover band (we did some tunes that required an e-kit), and for some reason at one of the shows my kit literally sounded like a Fisher Price toy kit in my monitor. WHILE playing I was trying to communicate with a couple people down in front to see if it sounded alright. They indicated it sounded fine, and was told after the show everything sounded good. I ended up playing the entire show on muscle memory because it absolutely sounded like dog shit in my monitor - EQ'ed, over-compressed, processed, crunchy, dog shit. Just gotta roll with it in the moment...shrug. Thank god we weren't playing to a backtrack and a click, AND in front of a huge packed house venue. That's a whole new level of stress. Good on you keeping it together and persevering through. AND, it's even more reason to be proud of yourself and your accomplishments as a musician and entertainer. Makes for a good story too :)

[@Franxiquito]

What an epic story! I love hearing gig stories like this, because you can always learn a ton from it. Thanks for sharing!

[@itsgmani]

Crazzyzyyyyy story dude!!!! I could feel the tension

[@collenkelton4095]

Saw you with them in Adelaide. Good show you guys did!

[@joaoldmedeiros]

Great job ❤ what on his pedalboard ended up being it?

[@KeyanHoushmandLive]

Thanks bro! I have no idea honestly, I honestly think it might of been a power issue from that side of the stage because I genuinely can’t think of anything that went wrong

[@tfwnoyandere]

woah joão is here

[@eidetecker]

"When you stop to think about it, it really is a miracle how often things work out at all." -- Alan Watts Words I keep close to my mind at all times.

[@jasonnaranjo4622]

Very good job, this is how a situation is handled with a cold mind and looking for solutions, my respects Keyan

[@2ndPortal]

Bypassing the pedal board is like the first thing to try when audio fails

[@iamnot2529]

Thanks for sharing!! What an experience 😅 cool to see the payoff though and it sounded like that transition from stress to relief was memorable and ended up making that particular show such a cool moment for you!

[@darcyhandley3491]

Bro why is my heart rate elevated from watching this - definitely relatable content. did you ever find out why the bass conked out ?

[@noobiblue176]

When it’s a 20 sec fix but it goes two songs. 😂 been there brother glad it worked out

[@TaxEvader420]

I get nerves and all that but bypassing the pedal board seems like a pretty obvious solution honestly

[@MeTuLHeD]

They say: "If anything can go wrong it will." But in today's pro touring world it should be modified to say: "If anything can go wrong it will...and there are so many THINGS that something WILL!"

[@Jremi95]

Whats with the clickbaity title, implying that Animals As Leaders has anything to do with your equipment malfunction

[@gergoretvari6373]

This video made me feel anxious as i was imagining myself to you situation, maybe because my last show had technical problems too. You're truly mvp for handling this, i sure would have got a panic attack lol.

[@remmile]

2:20 when you watched keyan's channel for tutorials so long and you hear "stop making noise and DAWs open"

[@elguaripolo686]

4:50 No need to be smooth, that caught my attention 100% loool edit: what a beautiful shirt

[@leroy92TX]

The title makes it seem like AAL was the problem lol

[@KingSilk33]

Yep, could definitely notice something was up for the first couple songs, and then the slight celebration of relief once you guys could hear properly.

[@cosmyth_art]

clicked on this video because of the title, became a fan right after I decided to check out a few of your songs!

[@ZRisyad]

I can the relief when he raised his hand at 11:48

[@oleksiistri8429]

so what, Animals As Leaders do not have Bass too :)

[@ForTheRecordwithScottyD]

Around 5 years ago my band were incredibly fortunate to be main support for a Rise Against area run. They were actually my first proper shows with them and for half the tour the other guitarist couldn’t make it, and we weren’t running tracks or anything like that at the time. In the last couple of shows I noticed my wireless starting to cut out, but I did some DIY fixes and it always held out. On the final show of the tour, in front of 7000 people at Riverstage, it finally happened. Wireless cuts out dead, right before a prominent lead part. It felt like an hour onstage, but somehow in 40 seconds or so I managed to disconnect the pack, disconnect the receiver (which was also the tuner), and run straight into the noise gate, and plug in a spare 20ft lead I always have nearby. Which is woefully redundant on a stage that big haha

[@kevinjb7]

Nice work. The onstage energy after something like that is definitely its own special thing

[@MrIWILLEATYOU]

I know how that feels haha. My band's first gig after doing soundcheck only 5 minutes before our set, our lead guitarist's Multi FX completely died. Two songs went by and I did my best to play leads having never practiced them and not having a clue what was going on. Plugged directly into the house amp head and bypassed the Multi FX, so he had no tones but at least he could play. Fast forward to a 30 second gap where I intro the next track he realises his master volume was down the whole time.. problem solved 😅

[@gergoretvari6373]

volume is an evil thing for sure, especially on guitar when you forgot that the knob is all the way down

[@ddevil4980]

Gotta love playing live. Sometimes it goes great, sometimes it can go to shit quickly. All that maters is how you recover, I've learned not to panic because if you do, everyone, including the crowd, knows there is something wrong. You guys did it right, obviously.

[@papaidolatrine2499]

It’s funny to know you don’t think the crowd was able to notice if the bass was there or not. It’s like when Togo food spots serve nasty food and say well no one’s complained so that must be good. I as a person who likes this style of music and is familiar with the structure of it I would have noticed something was off as soon as every started playing harder when there was supposed to be a drop of some sort and everyone come in full force

[@bhosterman]

OMG. This basically is what happened last friday night on our first tour date. Soundcheck fine. 10 min to showtime, in-ears missing, Receiver pack missing. Go on stage to turn on amp and make sure it's working, no sound! F! The opening band knocked my in-ear pack and buds off my amp and pulled a cable loose in the process. And then both the bass player's wireless and mine took a shit which sent us scrambling for cables. no one was wiser for it but it sure made it stressful!

[@jasperdunn]

Ahhh damn, I thought something was up with you both walking across the stage 😅 Dude, you guys played such an monster set that night! Keen to see you again soon 🤘🏻

[@pablogonnet11]

3 seconds for a tuner??!! My god, is that button next to a nuclear weapon launch button by any chance? Great story!! Can't imagine living that moment myself...

[@chrissgardiner]

I've had something really similar to happen (in my case my bass' battery died mid set) and it really does suck. Trouble shooting on the spot, especially when you're the talent, techs, etc. Great job on remedying the situation in such a short time span!

[@jordanj9069]

We don’t get much in-depth content connected to this scene, so this is incredibly exciting

[@runxzze123]

Bro this is a nightmare, the fact you could troubleshoot that shit whilst playing is madddd. What actually happen on the board how, was it a bad wire frame a pedal, did a pedal fail or have you not quite figured out the pedal board issue yet?

[@KeyanHoushmandLive]

Thanks man! We still have no idea what happened hahahahaha

[@mohitrahaman]

I went through a rollercoaster of stress before moving to the stage on a timed event. We were given less time to perform and then when on stage, the monitor sucked ahh, and had to play by muscle memory and looking at everyone else in the band! I don't know how it sounded in the audience, because clearly I cant say. After the set someone from the audience said the clean intro would've required less gain so thats it.

[@Kristusblod]

Click bait title making out that something was wrong with Animals as Leaders. And a whole video about an issue that every band has had to deal with at some point...

[@raymondforbes4295]

I hate the hold press for the tuner. I actually put a WIDI jack on my QC and use my iPad to turn the tuner on and off.

[@michaelneal8982]

Yea we were there the first 2 songs didn’t have any bass in audience. Sounded horrible. Glad you figured out the issue.

[@MatthiasBuesing]

I can feel you very good, Keyan! Very interesting story, thanks for sharing it! And congratulations for supporting AAL, Chapeau! 👏🏻

[@KentBreathe]

thank you for sharing this rollercoaster experience hahaha massive respect

[@metalheads-golf]

What a happening. Cool you worked it out. I've been in a number of situations that it was required to use the backline of the venue. The stress levels are high when things are not working. 🤘🏻😎🤘🏻

[@BuntySaha]

what an incredible story. Thanks for sharing.

[@funshorestudios]

Thanks for sharing man. Still enjoyed the first couple of songs and you guys were pro all the way.

[@bufflegend]

Bro this made me anxious lol

[@TomsGreenMind]

This is why playing with backing tracks and midi would stress me out way too much 😂 the less moving parts the better!

[@JRCGuitarist]

Honestly, based on the story, the backing tracks didn’t seem to be the issue. Although, the midi was maybe a part of the issue here, I don’t know since I’m not sure what the cortex thing is. If that’s midi, then yea, midi was likely the issue, if it isn’t midi, then midi wasn’t the problem. Then again, he said the cortex wasn’t the issue. You could hear the tracks just fine, you couldn’t hear the bass. Minus the problem of the need to hold down something to engage a tuner. I’ve used wireless technology at church functions, and those things can be frustrating. Good one moment, nothing the next sometimes. So, I think something went out of sync between the bassists pedalboard and the front of house soundboard. Whatever he has on that board, or if someone touched something in the front of house, through things off. As a musician who doesn’t use tracks or midi, I’ve been in situations where for whatever reason, the instruments were not coming through properly when the show started, but were fine during soundcheck. I do use a pedalboard, and a few times, that’s where the issue came from. Someone touched the board prior to our going up, and I had to jiggle a few cables to get the board working again. Frankly, that’s technology in general, whether you use tracks or midi or not, you will have these problems and will need to learn how to troubleshoot on the spot.

[@TomsGreenMind]

@@JRCGuitarist I know the MIDI stuff wasn't the issue, but when you have everything queued up and synced up, you have a time pressure because the next track is ready to go. You can't stop and wait until you fixed the issue. That's what I was getting at.

[@danizha212]

Wow! As a touring guitarrist, that was amazingly relatable! Man if were to tell every single miracle that has saved us in a gig haha I've enjoyed a lot listening to you man and I WISH I could support AAL! Javier, Tosin and Matt are mind blowers for sure! Javier is my favorite btw

[@trevormccabe585]

Had a similar thing happen to a guitar player in a band I was in. His guitar was making no noise what so ever. We just played as usual and tried different cables and amps after a couple songs in the break. Can't remember what happened but I think it just started working again. Then I got scolded for trying to fix it instead of just playing and having him and the venue figure it out. Glad you guys got through it, stressful but you got back and kicked ass!

[@ghostprophetmusic]

Had our bass player step on some leads going to my amp at a large festival. Killed my signal as the lead guitar player. Had to pull out the cable from my board and go straight in to the front of the amp to finish the show. It was a great show haha

[@cropcircle5693]

I've been playing and recording music professionally for about 30 years and I've never heard of anybody plugging directly into a tuna. I'm not sure why it was such a big deal or caused so many problems but I'm glad you got it figured out. Kids are into some weird shit these days I guess.