Can't Ignore the Train (Documentary - Part 3)

So Human Conflict came out in August of, uh, '82.

John ha- John had an old girlfriend, April, who lived in Atlanta, and she worked for a really big promoter down there.

Well, April was from here in Lewiston, and we met at University of Buffalo.

We were both in grad school, and we started going out.

By the time we started, I started working with the 10,000 Maniacs, we were on the outs.

She decided she was gonna move away, and so she moved to Atlanta.

And, and she told John that, "Hey, Atlanta is where it's happening.

The Southeast is fantastic."

"You guys should move to Atlanta." She goes, "It's, everything is happening down here." I thought, "Well, this is interesting.

How, you know, how are we gonna do this? And, you know, is this realistic?" Everyone agreed to do it.

[upbeat music]

As summer turned to the fall of 1982, 10,000 Maniacs looked to the Atlanta, Georgia music scene, fueled by opportunity, with one slight roadblock.

We had to get there.

And we needed a van.

Didn't have much money, so it wasn't gonna be a very good van.

But we also needed room to haul what little gear we had around.

Well, we weren't gonna be able to borrow Ray's truck anymore.

We used to borrow Rob's stepdad's pickup truck and put our equipment in the back and drive around and do gigs.

So we couldn't do that.

So my dad said there's...

My dad was a truck salesman, so he knew all about school buses and stuff.

So he said, "They're getting rid of one of their, one of their small school buses up in, uh, at Southwestern School." Daddy Drews, who was in truck sales and heard about this Dodge Tradesman van that Southwestern Central School had, they converted to a bus.

He told us what to bid, because it was a sealed bid, $1,201.

And I, and we probably got the bid by a dollar.

He had a sealed bid.