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DFW's own Titanmoon just arrived home from its first international tour--a whirlwind trip that took the band through Japan, Pakistan and Dubai and found the band being treated like heroes. And though a couple of bombings canceled a couple of shows, the indie rock outfit has nothing but great stories to share from its trip across the world.
Earlier this week, we caught up with lead vocalist and guitarist Tyler Casey, who kindly took a few minutes to tell us a few of those tour stories and share some insight into the band's future plans. After the jump, check our Q&A with Casey, plus a free download of "Just a Shame" from the band's late 2008 release, Film Black.
Bonus mp3:
What was it like compared with the others?
It went really a lot better than the state-wide tours. I think just, overall, everyone agreed that this was a lot more, for sure, more exciting. A weird thing that we weren't expecting was that the bands in Japan are really good. They were phenomenal. That was a surprise to me, actually.
Was there a favorite country or city you guys visited?
Half of us enjoyed Japan the most; we were in Tokyo a majority of the time. Then we went up to the north part of Japan where we met with the mayor of one of the cities and he ended up dancing on a table--he's like 65 years old. We were just treated amazing the entire time. As soon as we walked in the door, there were posters of us all over the place. In Pakistan, we had armed guards the whole time and rode around in a bullet-proof truck the whole time.
What was the best thing that happened on tour?
Probably the fact that two of the music channels have offered us a completely paid tour back to Pakistan, United Air of Emirates, India and Thailand.
We also heard you guys are opening an orphanage in Karachi, Pakistan, what brought that about? Will you be spending more time in Pakistan?
We had been planning on it before we got there; we already had that in mind before we went. I wasn't expecting it to get as far as it did, which was great. I met with three individuals and all three want to work over the next few months and fund the first five years of the orphanage. We've met families who will be directors and teachers, and we'll have 10 girls and 10 boys.
Was there ever a time you guys thought about canceling the tour, being that part of it was located in a war-stricken area?
That was one hard part because the people who set up our tour had to cancel one of our shows because of a bombing. After we left, we found out there were four bombings while we were there. We never really felt scared because we were taken care of so well and the bombings were pretty far from where we were. It was scary after the fact, when I found out there was four of them.
You guys also are planning a special music program? What can you tell us about that?
We were thinking about doing a music program that Titanmoon can oversee. That's our goal. But once we get it started, the orphans will be extremely young. The first step is getting them housed, clean and fed, and from there move onto the teachings.
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