October 4, 2007. Approximately 7 AM. Californian punk band, Strung Out, pulled into the parking lot of the Days Inn on 4200 Roosevelt Boulevard. The Days Inn was the only nearby hotel where the band - who were booked to play The Filmore that night - were able to find available rooms. Strung Out checked in, then left their vehicle in a fairly visible parking lot, as they took some of their belongings to their rooms. Drummer, Jordan Burns, had planned to move the band’s van and trailer into a better spot a few minutes later...but his plans were changed by unforseen circumstances. Bassist, Chris Aiken, was the first to see what happened.

“Hey, who’s leaving in the van?” Aiken asked. “Who’s driving the van?” At first, the band assumed it was a member of their crew, moving the vehicle to a safer spot. Then, once everyone was accounted for, Strung Out realized they were witnessing the theft of their wheels - along with all their merchandise and musical equipment.

Jordan Burns later described the hotel as “uncooperative” in the wake of the events, and claims that he has still been unable to get the Days Inn to hand over a surveillance tape, which, according to Burns, shows the assailant breaking into his band’s vehicle. After his requests for the tape were continually denied, Burns called the Philadelphia police department. The drummer told us that, while he was promised an investigation of the footage, a follow-up call to the Days Inn let him know that no police officers had been to the hotel.

The tour “soldiered on,” in spite of the heavy material losses. “We ended up traveling with [tour-mates] I Am Ghost for about five or six shows,” Burns said. “It was 15 guys in a van.”

Strung Out used equipment, borrowed from both I Am Ghost and Evergreen Terrace, for the remainder of their scheduled shows. Traveling with the other bands was fun, but the Strung Out collective knew they needed their own van. And, despite the heartbreak and financial setbacks brought on by the theft, it was this vehicular need which caused them to miss a single tour date.

“We looked on Craigslist for a bunch of stuff, and we found this van in Boston,” Burns continued. “Evergreen Terrace dropped us off there. We had a day off, and they had a show to go to. And we ended up going and buying this van.”

The band went through a few technical and insurance issues but, after some help from their Beantown friends, The Dropkick Murphys, they got it all sorted out. As luck would have it, Strung Out’s old van and trailer were found soon after the purchase.

The Strung Out camp got word of the vehicle’s recovery, after playing a show in Montreal. “The locks were still on the trailer,” said Burns. “And there was no damage to the trailer, so we got super excited.”

Gary, who is a friend of the band, made his way down to Philadelphia to recover the van and trailer. Though the trailer hadn’t been broken into, almost nothing of value was left inside. The band later deduced that the thief must have entered the trailer with a key, found in a crew member’s backpack.

“We were happy to get the trailer back,” said Burns. “Because we just spent $3500 rebuilding the whole thing.

“(But) we, unfortunately, did not have all the equipment in the trailer insured.”

In addition to musical equipment, personal belongings and band merchandise were also pilfered. Though he assumes his band’s gear was sold, Burns still struggles to find justification for the theft of Strung Out paraphernalia.

“We had, like, $6,000 worth of CD’s in there,” he revealed. “We had over 1000 Strung Out sweatbands...boxes of Strung Out shot glasses.

“My opinion is, all that sh*t’s just winding up in the trash.”

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