HOW TO SING YOUR WAY OUT OF A SPEEDING TICKET

A story about Oklahoma, cops who love dope, and the band Say Anything

I don’t remember why we were running late. Probably because we were 19 years old and had no tour manager, no smart phones (it was 2006), and no idea what we were doing. There were 5 of us in the band. No crew. We had a Ford Econoline van, a 5x8 trailer, a Garmin GPS that was akin to the first PC ever built, and an excess of confidence. We had just signed our first record deal, and none of us had ever driven west of Pennsylvania.

The day before, we’d played a one-off show in Joplin, Missouri to about 6 people in a huge, newly built Christian venue that felt like a McMansion. We were now enduring the 6 hour drive to Dallas to start our first real tour with a band called Saosin. I say first real tour because I’m not counting the weekends playing shitty VFW halls along the east coast, and I also don’t count the week’s worth of dates we did with 30 Seconds to Mars the month prior, because touring with a literal movie star is a vastly different experience from pretty much everything we did after that.

Gen 2 ipod and Garmin on the dash.

All that to say, we were really late. We missed our 3pm load-in, our 5pm soundcheck, and we were just hoping not to miss our set at this point.

I was doing about 90mph, trying to shave a few minutes off the ETA on the GPS. It’s hard to explain the mentality — we were on our way to play a show for $100 in front of probably 400 people, hoping to make enough cash hawking CDs in the parking lot after the show to get a Super 8 for the night — and we were thrilled. Of course it was worth risking our lives to get there.

I knew it would be trouble the minute the sirens came on. We had New York plates. There are many places in this country where claiming you’re from NY is truly a badge of honor, but the state of Oklahoma is not one of those places.

I pulled over and braced for the worst.

The cop began with the obvious questions. I gave him the obvious answers.

“No sir, I have no idea why you pulled us over.”

“I’m so sorry, I’m not used to driving a vehicle this big.”

Then he hit me with a not so obvious question.

Ya’ll smoke dope?

At this point, I actually hadn’t ever smoked dope. It honestly took me a minute before answering to recall that dope was weed and not coke or heroine, because who the fuck uses that term anymore. Plus I truly hadn’t done a drug at this point in my life, so I was genuinely that naive.

I laughed and said “absolutely not, officer.” Just so incredibly confident in my clean upbringing.

Ya’ll got any dope in the van?

We really didn’t. We were new to this whole thing. We needed a few more years if we were gonna develop substance abuse problems.

Alright son, I’m gonna need you to step out of the vehicle.

“Ron Burgundy”, our 15 passenger chariot, in all his glory.

The rest of the guys looked horrified when I turned to the backseat to face them, but they weren’t worried for me. They were worried about my historic problem with authority and I was the last person they wanted in this position.

The cop asked me to sit up front in the passenger side of the squad car. He seemed genuinely friendly, with a real twang to his southern drawl. I hammed up all my answers as best as I could. Lied through my teeth.

“Yes sir, we play music. We’re a real classic rock n’ roll band. Just like to get the people on their feet and dancing.”

Well ain’t that something?

“Yes sir. We’re really doing our best out here. We don’t make much money but we love doing it. No sir, I swear there’s no dope in the trailer. You can see for yourself. It’s just our gear and then some t-shirts and CDs.”

Is that right?

At this point, I notice the officer writing something down and I ask what he’s doing.

Well, I’m writing you a ticket.

At this point I know it’s over. My dad taught me there’s no point in arguing with a cop once the pen hits the pad. The tickets are all numbered, and they’ve got to account for them, so there’s no chance your sweet talking is going to result in them having mercy on you. Pen to pad is the point of no return.

Maybe you could write a song about this? I think it’d make a mighty good one.

Fuck off.

Okay I didn’t say that. What I actually said was, “You know man, I don’t think this whole experience is really significant enough to write a song about. I think we’ll probably just drive away and never think about you ever again.”

He laughed at that. A big, hearty Oklahoma state trooper laugh.

Well why don’t you sing me something now then? Sing me a song, yankee.

There it is. Knew the NY plates would do us in.

Before I was pulled over, we were listening to Say Anything’s “Is a Real Boy”. The fourth track on that record begins with barbershop quartet harmonies. The kind that start with one voice and then you keep stacking them one by one until they form a chord. Because almost everyone in our band could sing, it was instinct for everyone to jump in and take a part whenever the song was on. We weren’t theater kids, but definitely nerds of some sort. I mean, we didn’t smoke dope.

So when this cop asked me to sing him a song, I quipped back with, “If you come over to that van with me right now, I’ll get my whole band to sing you a song and if it’s good, you’ve gotta rip up the ticket.”

Without hesitation, he grabs his radio and calls another cop. No answer on the other line, so he pulls out his cell phone.

Jim? You there? Yeah I’m on 75, I’m in a bloody wreck over here, my car flipped over and everything…nah I’m just playing…but I got this kid who wants to sing his way out of a ticket. — It was straight up Reno 911. I am not exaggerating this in the slightest.

Some time went by and then sure enough, another trooper car pulls up. The cop approaches the passenger side and greets us.

You a singer, boy? — I give him a confident “yes, sir.”

Ya’ll smoke dope?

These guys love dope.

They trade a few more jokes with each other as I sit awkwardly between them in the passenger side, then we all make our way to the van.

Bear in mind, I’ve now been in this squad car for about a half hour, so please imagine the terror on my bandmates’ faces when I walk over to the passenger side door with not one, but two cops, and a big stupid grin on my face.

After a few more questions and answers about whether we do or don’t, in fact, smoke dope, I explain to everyone that we’re going to sing our way out of this speeding ticket. They all look at me like I’m completely insane, but I quickly remind them, “The Say Anything song. Just like we did earlier.”

I think the funniest part about the whole thing is that the first line of the song (after the barber shop harmonies) is, “when I watch you, want to do you, right where you’re standing” and I didn’t think about that until we’d already started, so I kind of just slurred that line and sang something like “when I watch you, want ohhhhhhhhh you” fearing that the real lyric wouldn’t go over well with our cop buddies.

I only knew the words to the first verse, so I cued everyone to end on a very random line, doing my best impression of my elementary school band conductor as my bandmates looked at me like “we’re all going to jail.”

There was silence for a moment. The cop who’d pulled me over was leaned against the van, ticket in hand. At first, he said nothing. Silence. He just straightened his posture, looked at all of us — then ripped the ticket in two.

I want you boys to go out there and sing a real good song. You got a real gift. Go share that with the world.

We basically all but hugged these guys before heading out. They were floored. I think we were still screaming when we pulled up to the venue, 4 hours late for the first date of our first real U.S. tour.

Not the first show, but a later date on that same run.

I sometimes wonder if kids are out there touring like that still. It seems unfathomable in today’s world. Gas is impossibly expensive and I imagine kids figured out they could amass more fans in one TikTok than on a 6 week run. That said, I hope kids are finding a way to get out there and do it, because those were some of the best years of my life.