{"id":84778,"date":"2021-03-26T10:02:05","date_gmt":"2021-03-26T17:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.geocaching.com\/blog\/?p=84778"},"modified":"2021-04-06T08:52:03","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T15:52:03","slug":"music-geocaching-and-unexpected-friendships-interview-with-bugsy-travels-the-ammo-boxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.geocaching.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/music-geocaching-and-unexpected-friendships-interview-with-bugsy-travels-the-ammo-boxes\/","title":{"rendered":"Music, geocaching, and unexpected friendships\u2014Interview with Bugsy Travels & The Ammo Boxes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bugsy Travels & The Ammo Boxes is a cover band that takes well-known pop songs and re-writes the lyrics with a geocaching twist. It all started with playing together just for fun one evening and turned into a band that delights geocachers with fun, relatable lyrics. We spoke with them to find out what it\u2019s like to create and perform music about geocaching<\/a> adventures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What inspired everyone to start playing and making music? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jan:<\/strong> I started playing classical guitar in primary school because you\u2019ve got to have a hobby, right? My parents listened to classical music and it was pretty much all I knew. Then my older sister got a cassette tape of U2\u2019s \u201cRattle And Hum\u201d from her boyfriend, and I listened to it until it wore out. So at the age of 16 I joined my first band playing electric guitar, and I started singing because nobody else would. Even though the gigs were very small and far from glamorous I enjoyed all of them. Most of the time our wages consisted of free beer. Later I became a singer\/guitarist of a cover band and although the pay wasn\u2019t much better, at least we got to perform on a proper stage. At the school where I teach I started a school band and it\u2019s still alive and kicking. I\u2019ve participated in different projects: singing, playing guitar, some music production. I really couldn\u2019t imagine my life without music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nico:<\/strong> I’ve been a music lover since I was a kid. Most of my cousins are older than me, and they had quite a few records. I discovered a lot of great music already at a young age because of this. I loved it. Getting older, some friends started a band and it intrigued me in a similar way I guess. So I got myself a cheap acoustic guitar and tried to find how to play some of the classics. To my surprise I was able to do so. So it’s a combination of loving music and the fun of playing music with other people: When playing together there are moments when everything just fits, that’s a hard to beat feeling. And of course, having fun and getting to know new people is equally important. Because of music I got to know Steve Weeks (the founder of another geocaching band, The Travel Bugs). He’s a really nice, fun person to work and talk with!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter:<\/strong> For me, music has always been there. I grew up in a family with two older brothers that were already playing in bands. Sometimes, they had rehearsals at home. I got to see first-hand how much fun it could be to play music together with other people. On my mother\u2019s side of the family almost everybody has played music, at various levels, for at least four generations. The musical bug was very present. It was only a matter of time until it bit me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hans:<\/strong> I have been a fan of music ever since I started listening to the radio as a child. I loved singing along with all sorts of songs. I was always tapping on things to the beat of the songs on the radio. It drove my mother nuts. Later on I also wanted to play music. Drums were the instrument I dreamed about as a youngster. When I started buying albums, I was especially impressed with the drumming on Simple Minds\u2019 \u201cLive in the City of Lights.\u201d The drums on that live album were so energetic. I wanted to do that too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The first Bugsy Travels & The Ammo Boxes show in 2016<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How did the idea of a geocaching cover band come about?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter:<\/strong> In 2016, there was a game organized for different teams of geocachers, with events spread throughout the year. Peter had the idea to play some music together at the closing event, bringing the different teams together. Jan and Hans were very enthusiastic to join, and the three of us had good chemistry right off the bat. All we needed now were some songs to sing. We searched for some titles that could be related to geocaching, but we didn\u2019t find too much. It was Hans who started with some play-on-words with existing song titles, and before Jan and Peter realized what was going on Hans was already adapting the lyrics of some songs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time the event took place, we already had a full playlist of adapted songs. At the event, there were organizers of another event that invited us. So we decided not to disband after just one show, but do one more. And then came the next invitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was never the intention to form a permanent geocaching cover band. But we had fun together. The geocachers at the events liked it. So we just kept on doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who picks the songs to cover? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hans:<\/strong> We are all music geeks so in each conversation and during each rehearsal, songs pop up where one of us goes \u201cHey, do you know that song? We could link it to this or that, that would be fun!\u201d and off we go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We try to focus on well-known songs: big hits that everyone recognizes instantly and are fun to play or sing along to, combined with lyrics focusing on recognizable and funny geocaching situations. We get great reactions whenever we play them. First we see people think \u201cHey wait, I know that song!\u201d  Then we see them laughing with the jokes and wordplay in the new lyrics, and then we see them thinking \u201cYeah! Been there, done that!\u201d with a big smile on their face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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