Asphalt Valentine recall their biggest gig that never happened in 15 year career

Asphalt Valentine recall their biggest gig that never happened in 15 year career

To promote the upcoming Ballroom Blitz Festival that is being held in Glen Burnie, Maryland, USA on March 20 and 21, 2020, new Brad Lee Entertainment social media manager Mike Badaracco will apparently be “introducing” or providing information on each of the 20 bands that are playing at the festival.

Badaracco did a mini-interview with Atlanta, Georgia, USA rockers Asphalt Valentine via Facebook and asked them how long that they had been together. Asphalt Valentine frontman Joe Flynt replied (with slight edits): “Asphalt Valentine formed in 2005 as a reincarnation of an existing band with now current bass player, Scott Clark, and former drummer, Scozzy. Like most original bands, we started out playing local shows. We quickly gained a pretty decent local following, which allowed us to branch out further in the South East, then North East, Midwest and so on. Things seemed to be going pretty well for us in the earlier years and then, for whatever reason, things just seemed to get stagnant. It just seems it was one event after another that kept us from moving forward with playing shows and new making new music. So we kind of laid low for a few years just playing the occasional show here and there. It wasn’t until Chris Taylor of Kickin Valentina called me up to fill in on some shows since their singer had abruptly quit.

It was doing those shows with Kickin Valentina, that I realized how much I missed playing out and being together. I realized Asphalt Valentine had gotten too complacent. We had a bunch of new material written, so I decided to contact our old label owner, Bill Chavis. I sent him some songs we had and asked if he was interested in working together again. He thought the new songs were great and we signed a new deal with him and we are ready to pick back up and get Asphalt Valentine moving forward again! I could take you through how we got to the current line-up, but I don’t think that’s what your readers would be interested in. For 15 years, Asphalt Valentine years has played 100’s of shows, toured much of the US, gone through many ups and downs with successful shows, records, alcoholism, lineup changes, and even death. Our catalog is not nearly as extensive as it should be with having a full-length released in 2009 (Strip Rock Roll), a single of Pink‘s “Just Like A Pill” and an EP in 2014 (Into The Red), but the comradery between the band and love for playing and making music make it somewhat unique for an original rock band to still be together after so many years and are looking forward to many more years.”

In terms of the group’s most memorable gig, Flynt indicated: “I would have to say that was the gig that never happened. We were to play Rocklahoma in 2008. We obviously weren’t set to play the main stage, but the side stage was nothing to turn your nose up at. It was a large stage and had great crowds. We were supposed to play on Saturday at around 6 PM or so. We got to Rocklahoma the Thursday before our show to hang out. We stayed on the campsite and were next to the band, Banshee. For two days, we partied, hung out in the artist area backstage, played bocce ball and watched the other bands play. Saturday rolled around and the crew came to collect our gear to set up a few hours before we were supposed to play. We were back at the campsite waiting for the crew to come pick us up and take us to the stage.

As we were waiting, the sky got black and the wind started blowing. The crew showed up at our campsite. But instead of taking us to the stage, they said to hunker down in our van as four storm cells were merging. The storm hit and rocked our van from side to side. It lasted for probably about 15-20 minutes of the heavy stuff. As soon as it was over the skies were bright and blue again. We got out of the van to see chaos. There were tents everywhere, trash everywhere and portapotties on their sides and flown feet from where they once stood. We went to the stage to see when we would be playing only to see there was pretty much no stage. The wind had taken the canopy of the stage up and collapsed it on the stage. Luckily, no one was majorly injured and our gear only suffered minor injuries. So we didn’t wind up getting to play that day. The crew did set up makeshift stages in tents for the next day, but our guitar player at the time was already heading back to Atlanta. So the remainder of us just busted out our acoustic guitars and played an acoustic set to about 50 people around the campsite.”

Asphalt Valentine consist of Flynt on vocals and acoustic guitar, Scott Clark on bass, Brett Ciaramella on guitar, Brian Jung on drums and Evan McKee on lead guitar. The band will be releasing its new studio album Twisted Road via HighVolMusic on February 28, 2020.

Asphalt Valentine‘s “Living Dreams” (from Into The Red EP):

Asphalt Valentine – Living Dreams

Video for the single, “Living Dreams” on the upcoming EPX, “Into The Red” by Asphalt Valentine.