Fan Funded; Arcy Drive Brought Their Converted School Bus to Pleaser HQ (Nashville)
Photos by Lucy Jones
On a cold and rainy November day in Nashville, right after Arcy Drive made their Paradise ( a hometown music festival curated by Pleaser favorite Briston Maroney) debut, Brooke Tuozzo, Austin Jones, Pat Helrigel and Nick Mateyunas made their way to Pleaser HQ (Nashville edition) driving the infamous school bus that they converted themselves into our backyard. They built a fire, played some music, and posed for pictures in and out of the bus while they told us about how their fans helped them get here.
Hailing from Long Island, Arcy Drive have toured all across the country since their very first DIY tour where they made and sold T-shirts to their fans to raise money to convert a secondhand 30ft school bus into the legendary vessel it is now.
“Austin came up with the idea,” Nick (vocals and guitar) remarked when asked how this whole idea came to be. Austin (guitar) followed up saying, “I thought - no one tours in a school bus!” and Pat (bass) chimed in with, “And we realized on the tour why none tours in a school bus…because it broke down.” Brooke (drums) brought it home saying, “There really was no logic, it was just like, ‘That would be so cool’.”
The childhood friends climbed up the ladder they installed on the back of the bus that leads to a deck on the top of the bus - only looking slightly unstable remarking how cool it would be to actually be able to play on the roof.
Fandom and being a fan is such a generous state of being - you see something in an artist that makes you want to support their dreams in any way you can. Through this experience, Arcy Drive has fostered such a special bond with all the people who believed in them even before their first single, “Roll My Stone” — which has garnered over 5 million streams — dropped on Spotify.
The band kept their fans in the loop with the whole process, showing them the ins and outs of making their music, renovating their bus, making their t-shirts, and all the highs and lows of tour life on their TikTok & YouTube.
Even now, as Beach Plum — their debut EP— has been out in the world for almost 6 months, and they are embarking on The Journey of The Debut Album, they are still gifting fans an intimate glimpse into who they are as a band through their album vlogs.
Keep your eyes on Arcy Drive!
<3, Pleaser
