Von Bohlen: We were implementing change, and this was one of the ways in which we were doing it. We wanted to play in front of a different band’s audience. We were playing all new songs from [what would become Wood/Water], so we wanted to play in front of an audience that would have really no prior knowledge of who we are. When that Bad Religion thing came up—“Well if we don’t sink on this tour, we will win any crowd that isn’t already against us.” It was a bad theory because we didn’t realize how much fun we weren’t going to have.

Gnewikow: We were totally on crack for doing that. It was ridiculous thing. It’s like, why didn’t everyone tell me that was such a stupid idea? Where were my friends? [Laughs.] Do me a solid: Tell me I’m an idiot.

Schoenbeck: It was miserable. It was really cool because every time everyone freaked out and was throwing stuff at us, we’d play that “Stop Playing Guitar” song, like super slow, and they would just get so mad. It was pretty funny.

Von Bohlen: The five or six things that stick out in my mind are the things that were thrown at us that you really shouldn’t give away. Somebody threw their keys at us, and the keychain had pictures of their baby on it. [Laughs.] It’s like he’s with Santa and everything. Is it really worth that? [Laughs.] You can’t hate us that bad—you just can’t, or you shouldn’t. So there was that one really sticks out in my mind. Somebody flicked a cigarette at me from really close range; it was at one of the smaller shows in a smaller town. It bounced off me or whatever, and then Jason flicked it back and hit the person. There was just a lot of that. People were just really fighting tooth and nail to get on the stage. They never got there, but had they ever, I wonder what were they going to do? Punch me? I just didn’t really understand. I was egging them on, I’ll admit that, but only because it seemed so ludicrous. Go get a drink! Go check out the cool T-shirts!

Gnewikow: After a few of the shows, we were like, “These people don’t give a fuck. We can totally go out there and suck and it doesn’t even matter.” [Laughs.] We were rolling dice for like Maker’s Mark shots before we went on stage, and the bottle would be empty. It was really messy and ridiculous, but also really fun.