Cornerstone Festival

And the protagonist, his name is Anderson Humphrey, earns the nickname the Christian Humper.

because he was fornicating as a young christian um and so the the tape project is called the christian humper and each episode um varies in what it's covering but but it's sort of a first part is a little bit of like um discovery of of the underground culture it the wider underground culture and also the the christian underground culture where the character is sort of stuck And then at Cornerstone Festival, Andy meets Jonathan Ford from Roadside Monument and starts touring with the band, essentially.

And so the novel, the second part of the novel is kind of a road novel where they're on the road.

And there's a lot of nuts and bolts about touring in there.

In their first eight months, they said they played 60 shows, opening for bands like MXPX, the Mighty Mighty Boss Tones, and Less Than Jake.

They even jumped in a van and road tripped to a cornfield in Illinois for the Cornerstone Festival, even though they hadn't booked a gig there.

With all this positive attention as a ska band, it was time to find a permanent saxophonist.

That's where Leonore comes in.

And I was in that same camp.

I was like, yeah, let's do this.

With their eight-member lineup set, but still not signed to a label, Five Iron went back to the Cornerstone Festival, and Leonore's mind was blown.

All I knew is we're going to a festival.

yeah.

And then we all, we all went to Cornerstone Festival and, And, uh, that's where they got, um, they got seen by Brandon and, uh, and got signed after that.

But, um, for me, I was still, yeah, just playing in local bands and still playing with sidewalk slam whenever, cause they went on tour with Cody hook and they went out on the road for about, I don't know, a year and a half or so before I actually joined the band two years, maybe.

Yeah.

The video is iconic.

It's the band performing sweater at the Cornerstone Festival in Illinois.

There's someone dressed up like a bird or a swan dancing on stage.

Other people just dancing in a circle of love and hippie joy.