On My Honor has been a band since 2007. In that time we've played around 600 shows in 16 countries, slept on a lot of floors, written a lot of songs, and spent pretty much every dime we've ever made on our dream to have the chance to play music full time.
Over the past couple of years we've had quite a bit of bad luck, the grand finale of which occurred last weekend when the rear end gave out on our van driving back from a weekend of shows. What we thought was going to be a routine brake repair, turns out is going to cost us thousands of dollars which we don't have. There has been a number of things that have led to our current situation and we want to be as upfront as possible explaining why we're asking for help and what we'll do with that support.
In 2012 we had probably our busiest year to date. It started out with an opportunity to tour overseas for the first time. Considering the size and reach of our band at the time, we felt like it was something we had to make happen. The tour was about 5 weeks long and we had to pay for pretty much everything up front. Coming up with $5,000 for flights, a couple thousand to get our merch printed overseas, and money to cover our bills at home while we were gone was no easy accomplishment while working our crappy day jobs between tours, but we ended up pulling it all together in time to go. The first few weeks of the tour went great, however things got progressively worse as the tour went on in terms of getting stiffed by promoters, shows being cancelled, etc.. By the time it was all said and done, we had to give every dime of our merch money to our driver just to cover his time/van etc. All in all, we lost about $10,000 on that trip. We did play some amazing shows, get to see the world, and still have no regrets about any of that. However, it left us in a deep hole.
We came back from the EU/UK tour to catch up on bills, had to part ways with our drummer and ended 2012 with a 60 day self-booked full U.S. tour. We had a blast and made a lot of great friends, but was not financially sound for us. We came back from the tour with about $16.
We started off 2013 with our new drummer Tobias, who moved from Idaho to join us. Unfortunately, his car broke down on the way out here and finding decent work has been pretty impossible for him. He spent most of the year mastering the public transportation system making minimum wage, and generally barely making enough to pay rent between tours. When bills could not be met, we all stepped up as friends to carry the load. This became even more difficult when our singer Drew's vehicle went down for a few thousand dollars in repairs and had to start driving the band vehicle to get to work.
After all of our financial problems we decided to reduce our touring schedule for 2013 to focus on working, saving money, and writing a new record. Our goal was to save up an emergency fund to do maintenance on the van and to pay for other unexpected variables so we could stay out on the road once the new record came out. Right before we left for tour, we had a routine checkup reveal we had to basically rebuild our motor, and the emergency fund we'd saved was gone before our Fall touring even started. We've always gotten the oil changed on time and taken care of the van, but putting 170,000 touring miles on a van pulling 6-8 people and a trailer is rough on any vehicle, so we didn't feel too bad about having to do the repairs. Fall 2013 was our first time doing support dates, something we'd been working towards for for a very long time, but once again we returned home in debt to our label and behind on most of our bills.
**Our label, Little Heart Records, is absolutely fantastic and we have nothing but the greatest things to say about it and the owner, Bryan. He has been highly instrumental to the successes of this band.**
We spent most of the beginning of the current year paying off debts and getting ready for our best touring opportunities yet. We were pretty close to being caught up until last weekend when we found out about the problems with the rear-end/brake system/etc. We're already committed to our dates with Hawthorne Heights at the end of the month (where we'll either be borrowing a van or going in an SUV) and we've got a full U.S. tour in the books for July.
We've always funded everything on our own, but at this point, with everything that's happened, we need your help. The money we're asking for here will go to the following things and the following things only:
1. To fix our van completely.
2. To pay off all band-related debt.
3. To fund new recordings for a future release.
4. To help fund all touring expenses for the rest of the year (merch, equipment, etc..)
We've tried to think of the best perks we possibly could, and every bit of our effort will go into each and everything we promise you. We hope you'll consider helping us do what we love to do most: write music and play it for you.
love,
Lucas, Drew, Jordan, Jake, and Tobias
OMH
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