On his first national tour in early 2005, the car Dan Deacon was riding in broke down.

Deacon, an electronica/rock performer and composer, was determined to keep going. He packed up his equipment and spent the next 30 days riding Greyhound buses between shows.

In Seattle, bus officials wouldn't let Deacon board because they thought his instruments were explosives.

From Deacon:

After pleading with them and telling them they were musical devices I got on the bus. It was a pretty empty bus.

Then some guy came and sat right next to me and he was like 'Don't ever let anyone tell you what you can't bring on the bus.' He opened up his jacket and he had like 15 knives on one side and 15 knives on the other and a bunch on his belt. And he opened up his carry-on and it was full of knives and he told me he had two suitcases under the bus that were full of knives. It was really insane.

Every time we stopped at a rest stop he would buy another insane decorative knife where the blade was encased within a shark or something like that.

Then there was the heart attack story:

The craziest thing was probably when the guy had the heart attack in the Cheyenne bus station.

We were in transfer and it was quiet, and this guy stood up and screamed 'HEART ATTACK' and then fell on the ground. While the EMTs were still there, over the loudspeaker they just broadcasted 'The heart attack will not delay the buses.' So we got on the bus and left.

(Photo by Frank Hamilton)