The definitive book covering the first two decades of the Vans Warped Tour, the quintessential rite-of-passage for American teens, is now in book form. “Misfit Summer Camp: 20 Years on the Road with the Vans Warped Tour,” by Kevin Lyman and Howie Abrams and photos by legendary music photography Lisa Johnson contains 200 explosive pages chronicling the first 2 decades of the traveling circus that is the Vans Warped Tour.
Designed by tour founder Kevin Lyman and longtime friend of Warped, Howie Abrams – this book is loaded with exclusive interviews with bands the likes of Bad Religion, Blink 182, No Doubt, Coheed and Cambria, Echosmith, Paramore, Bowling for Soup, Reel Big Fish, 3OH!3, Hawthorne Heights, Killswitch Engage, The Wonder Years, Falling in Reverse and many, many more. Plus dozens of never-before-seen photographs from Warped Tour’s rich history.
As the only Tour that continually attracts more than 600,000 young people each summer, it’s the ultimate platform for launching bands and brands. Eminem, Katy Perry, My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Henry Rollins, Billy Idol, Joan Jett, Ice-T have all played on Warped. The Tour has also helped launch numerous brands who have been sponsors including Vans, Hurley, and Volcom, and a number of non-profits.
A quote from Kevin Lyman from the book: “The original title of the tour was going to be ‘The Bomb.’ Remember that term, ‘the bomb?’ Everything was ‘the bomb.’ I couldn’t afford a name search back then; they were like $400. You couldn’t just Google something and figure out if there was something already called that. The day that we were going to announce the tour was the day of the Oklahoma City bombings. I saw that on the news and I realized it wasn’t the time to call something ‘The Bomb.’ Plus, after the first year, it WAS technically a bomb. We didn’t make any money. Could you imagine everyone calling it ‘The Bomb?’ The way I got the name ‘Warped Tour’ was I had done a lot of work for the Transworld Publications, which had Skateboarding and Snowboarding magazines. They also had a magazine called Warp Magazine. I called Fran Richards and asked, ‘can I borrow the name of your magazine?’ The response was: ‘Don’t put out a magazine called Warp, and I won’t put out a tour, and you can use the name.’”
Pre-sales are available now, with book sales starting June 19. Here’s more.
