Pitchfork

Photo by Jen Reel

Toss a million bands, two million industry mongrels, three million gallons of free booze, a couple evangelicals, and a few dozen kids handing out complimentary condoms into the SXSW blender, and somebody's bound to get arrested. Turns out one of the unlucky souls to land behind bars this past weekend in Austin was none other than the Walkmen's vertically imposing vocalist with the aristocratically imposing name, Hamilton Leithauser.

Old Ham, it seems, had been hitting the bottle and returned to his hotel quite late (approximately 4 a.m., according to his publicist) on the morning of Friday, March 16. After some kind of verbal altercation with the fellow behind the desk, Leithauser found himself in Austin's Travis County Jail for 12 hours, according to NME.com.

Said Leithauser in a statement to Pitchfork, "Marice, this bastard who works the night desk at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on North IH-35, organizes room numbers like a very, very smart dog."

He was released in time to perform with the Walkmen at the Record Collection/Burnlounge SXSW showcase Friday night at Emo's Annex, and even found a moment to draft a rather humorous "review" of the jail facility where he spent the night. ("As far as underground dungeons go, the Travis County Central Booking Office is pretty convincing.")

Scribe and Walkmen roadie Giles Morris, who's been documenting the band's tour on his Westing website blog, shed a little more light on the incident:

"The story of Hamilton's woe is not really that interesting, but funny enough in its way. He was drunk and got back to the hotel late. Matt [Barrick] had left keys for him and [Walkmen sound engineer] Stretch at the desk. The desk guy screwed up the room number when he wrote it down, [so] when Ham told him the room number he didn't believe him. Ham got frustrated and asked if he could go up to Matt's room and knock on the door. He did that but it wasn't Matt's room. They asked Ham to leave. Ham got mad and the manager called the cops. I guess they gave the door one more try, the wrong door, and then Ham and the cops got crosswise with each other and the next thing you know our hero is cuffed. Meanwhile canny Stretch has slithered into the back of the van and avoided drama.

"The funny part is after a night in jail, and probably a very long morning in jail, Ham had to go back to the same desk that night and get his key. 'You know the only reason I went to jail is you got the room number wrong?' The guy gets squirrelly and says, 'No... not 'til right now.' But no apology or anything. The next day, after fielding phone calls from concerned relatives and getting some actual sleep, Ham had a sense of humor about it. Before he went on stage we talked about how every rapper has a moment, a show, right after they get out of jail and that they have to decide how to approach it. What would ODB do?"

ODB would likely crash an awards show or something, but the Walkmen will have to settle for touring North America with Kaiser Chiefs. Take that, authority!! Ugh!

The Walkmen:

03-20 Athens, GA - 40 Watt Club *
03-21 Asheville, NC - Grey Eagle *
03-22 Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506 *
03-23 Washington, DC - Rock & Roll Hotel *
04-06 Philadelphia, PA - Electric Factory #!
04-07 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club #!
04-09 Boston, MA - Avalon #!
04-12 New York, NY - Roseland #!
04-17 Montreal, Quebec - Metropolis #!
04-18 Toronto, Ontario - Kool Haus #!
04-20 Chicago, IL - Vic #
04-21 Minneapolis, MN - Trocadero #
04-24 Vancouver, British Columbia - Commodore Ballroom #
04-25 Seattle, WA - Showbox #
04-26 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom #
04-27 San Francisco, CA - Warfield Theater #

* with the Broken West, Ferraby Lionheart
# with Kaiser Chiefs
! with Annuals