SPIRITBOX's MIKE STRINGER Thinks It's Funny People Accuse The Band Of Being Industry Plants • Strah

It seems like any time a band strikes it even semi-big, loads of people come running out of the woodwork crying about how that band is totally an industry plant. I’d imagine those people are miserable bastards sad about their own lives, but whatever – it happens constantly.

So now that Spiritbox is pretty big, they’re an industry plant, right? Someone put a boatload of money behind them and now they’re huge? Not according to Spiritbox guitarist Mike Stringer in an interview with Guitar World: “It’s so funny that a lot of people think we came out of nowhere and were manufactured by the music industry to make them loads of money.”

“That would probably be one of the worst investments from any company, ever. If you think of how long it has taken to get this band off the ground, it has been such a slow-moving process, and after 12 years playing in bands, we’ve finally gotten to the point where we can pay rent.”

I think people forget two things about Spiritbox. One, they put out their first EP in 2017 so they’ve been a band for eight years at this point. Two, vocalist Courtney LaPlante and Stringer were both in Iwrestledabearonce prior to Spiritbox. Plus they’re married. So these two have been working together for quite some time. Spiritbox didn’t just drop Tsunami Sea out of nowhere and explode.

Stringer also adds that Spiritbox dan near had to go on hiatus in 2020 after having to cancel their European tour with After the Burial and Make Them Suffer thanks to the pandemic. “We had a song out that people really liked, and everyone was excited we were going to play shows.

“Then the pandemic shut everything down and we had to pay 30 grand to come home overnight because there was a travel ban. We had no money and I went into major debt. When we got home I said to Courtney, ‘Well, it looks like we’re done here because we can’t tour and now we’re going to have to figure out how to pay this money off.'”

Spiritbox will hit the road for a 24-date tour across the U.S. and Canada with Loathe, Dying Wish, and someone other than Gel because they just broke up. The tour kicks off on April 3 at South Side Ballroom in Dallas, TX, and wraps up May 10 at Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, CA. Tickets are available here.

4/3 Dallas, TX South Side Ballroom
4/4 San Antonio, TX Boeing Center at Tech Port
4/5 Houston, TX Bayou Music Center
4/7 Atlanta, GA Coca-Cola Roxy
4/8 Orlando, FL Hard Rock Live
4/11 Washington, DC MGM National Harbor
4/12 Pittsburgh, PA UPMC Events Center
4/14 Philadelphia, PA The Fillmore
4/15 Montclair, NJ The Wellmont Theater
4/18 New York, NY Hammerstein Ballroom
4/19 Boston, MA MGM Music Hall at Fenway
4/21 Montreal, QC M TELUS
4/23 Toronto, ON Great Canadian Casino
4/25 Chicago, IL Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom
4/26 Madison, WI The Sylvee
4/27 Grand Rapids, MI GLC Live at 20 Monroe
4/29 St. Louis, MO The Pageant
4/30 Des Moines, IA Vibrant Music Hall
5/2 Denver, CO Fillmore Auditorium
5/3 Salt Lake City, UT The Complex
5/6 Vancouver, BC PNE Forum
5/7 Tacoma, WA Temple Theatre
5/9 San Francisco, CA The Masonic
5/10 Los Angeles, CA Hollywood Palladium