Darkest Hour: Our Bus Driver Kicked Us Off Our Bus

It's never a dull moment when Darkest Hour hit the road. In our penultimate update from the band's Legacy Tour, drummer Ryan Parrish -- who was enjoying a day off and had just scarfed down a delicious All Star Special at Waffle House -- told Noisecreep that they engaged in a battle with their issue-prone bus driver. Said driver turned out to be a complete and total "Herbert."

For those of you keeping score at home, a "Herbert" is what the band calls "people who suck." This driver was a "Herbazoid," which is even worse. He was so overbearing that Darkest Hour referred to him as "Adolf Herbert," due to his overbearing ways.

"We got kicked off our bus," Parrish said about what escalated into an uncomfortable and ultimately unpleasant situation. "Our driver, whom we called 'Herbert,' was an insane obsessive-compulsive man. He was not a very nice person and was constantly accusing of us of not cleaning the bus, which we did all the time. He would come in at 2 or 3 AM to drive and we'd be partying and having a good time, and he was be so upset about it. But we would clean up afterwords."

So what exactly was the problem? Well, thanks to the driver's OCD, he made mountains out of molehills and felt the Darkest Hour boys acted like savages.

"Like if there was an empty burger wrapper, he saw that as the bus being 'destroyed,'" Parrish explained. "We were like, 'This is not our first time at the rodeo.' Yes we party and drink beer and there may have been some yelling, but we don't piss on the floor or break TVs. It's just a couple of cans, and he saw that we would eventually throw them away. It got to the point where he was like our dad, coming in and barking, 'What's going on?' It was like, 'This is not your house - we are renting this from your company! Stop being a crazy Herbert.'"

It all came to a head at 8 AM in Dallas last week, when he called the cops so that they would be on site when he booted the band from the bus. "He wanted the police there so we wouldn't kick his ass," Parrish laughed. "He was a total a--hole and piece of s---! We would go so far as to Windex the mirrors and wipe everything down, but it wasn't good enough. He was out to get us from day one, and he thought we were dirty."

Herbert, who was supposedly this particular bus company's "best driver," drove off and left Darkest Hour in a parking lot among a pile of personal affects and equipment. The band quickly reacted, negotiating a deal with another bus company for the same. The new driver, whom Parrish deemed "cool as s---," picked them up the next day at 9 AM.

Parrish insisted that Darkest Hour's bus parties were nothing out of the ordinary for a touring band, either. "We have people, have music blaring and beers, and naked girls dancing in a tutu," he recalled. "Yeah, that happened, but it was not enough to kick us off our bus. Half of us are married men; we are not sketchy!"

Despite the bus mishap, Darkest Hour did not miss a show. "That's what we are good at -- fighting through the obstacles," Parrish said.