When EMA and her band buried Bonnaroo's Other Tent audience in an
avalanche of feedback and gut-wrenching poetry, they weren't too
worried about comfort—in fact, the guitar-toting noise-folk queen has
the bloody fingers to prove it. So naturally, when it came to finding
a place to crash, Erika M. Anderson wasn't looking for a four-star
hotel. Raised in South Dakota, now based in Portland, EMA has no
problem pitching a tent in the Manchester woods. "To be real honest,"
she says, "it's the end of the tour and I think we were all really
sick of coordinating stuff." But do they like camping? "Oh fuck yeah!
Look at this shit. We party." Thankfully, SPIN was invited. CHRIS MARTINS

When EMA and her band buried Bonnaroo's Other Tent audience in an
avalanche of feedback and gut-wrenching poetry, they weren't too
worried about comfort—in fact, the guitar-toting noise-folk queen has
the bloody fingers to prove it. So naturally, when it came to finding
a place to crash, Erika M. Anderson wasn't looking for a four-star
hotel. Raised in South Dakota, now based in Portland, EMA has no
problem pitching a tent in the Manchester woods. "To be real honest,"
she says, "it's the end of the tour and I think we were all really
sick of coordinating stuff." But do they like camping? "Oh fuck yeah!
Look at this shit. We party." Thankfully, SPIN was invited. CHRIS MARTINS

"The last time we went camping with this tent?" Anderson remembers (walking away from said tent).
"It was in the Bay Area, on the cliff side at Ocean Cove. We were
singing and playing guitar, and there was this couple behind us we
didn't know. They were making out and they're like, 'Hey, do you know
any Poison?' So we played 'Every Rose Has its Thorn' for them. They
were into it."

"We have a surprise for you guys," says Anderson, visibly excited.
"SPIN magazines from 1991! The guy we're camping with had them.
There's some good shit in here—a great Axl Rose interview, and some
amazing Cross Colours ads. I also read a story about trepanation."

"This beer is still ice cold," says Anderson after violinist/keyboardist Leif Shackleford
distributes brews all around. "My mom would be disappointed. She only
drinks Miller Light. She says you can drink it all day and never get a
hangover." You'll also never get drunk, we counter. "Oh, I've seen her
drunk. You've just got to guzzle it."

"This van belongs to our friend from Louisville, Jacob Heustis from
Wax Fang," says Anderson. "He and I made an art piece together for a
gallery down there. So yeah, it's not our van." Shackleford grins as
he cues up Dr. Dre on the boombox: "It's ours now." Violators
guitarist Jesse Turbo looks up from the old copy of SPIN he's reading.
"You guys got any snacks in there?"

"Do we just look like filthy people?" she asks. We assure her that
getting dirty is what camping is all about.

"I will say one thing," Anderson declares. "You think there'd be more
weed in guest camping. Everyone's walking around like, 'Heyyyy, do you
guys...' And I'm like, 'No, but get back to us if you find it.' So I
sent out a tweet: 'We need some 420 in guest camping.'"

"I love these sheets," says Anderson. "They belong to my best friend
from high school who moved out to the Bay Area. She's from Sioux Falls
as well. The flower pillow cases come from Ikea."

"Does it look dumb? It must look dumb. Sarah, how's my hair?" Guitarist Sarah Register
laughs, "Well, it's covered with a light right now. And you look like
a coal miner." Anderson: "Am I making a fool of myself right now?"

"Look at this bounty!" Anderson gushes. "Ritz Bits. Nabisco snacks.
Chips. Cookies. Bloody Mary mix ... I don't know what else we need,
really." Shackleford explains, "It's the food from our backstage
rider. When we were leaving, I threw it all in a blanket and carried
it off like Santa Claus."

"Sarah!" Anderson suddenly shouts at her guitarist. "It's totally
badminton time!"

"This is my one tattoo," says Anderson. "SD for South Dakota, where I
grew up. It's totally prison style, done on a porch by this awesome
noiser named Jeff Witcher [who records as Rene Hell]. He lived in this
hole outside somebody's house in L.A. I went to a party there and at
the end of the night, he takes all the cans and bottles and is like,
'This is gonna get me breakfast tomorrow.' I like that guy."

"The honey is for hot toddies. Water, whiskey, lemon, honey. I try to
do that for my voice," Anderson explains. "And the duct tape. That's
currently holding together my guitar case." Register pipes in, "Our
guitars are being held together by duct tape. It's the end of the
tour, we're tired. Just tape it."

"We don't actually have enough room for the entire band in
here—it's me and Leif and Sarah," says Anderson about their tiny tent.
"For our drummer Billy [Sandness], I was like, 'Dude, you need to meet
a girl because there's no fucking room for you tonight.' I guess he
did."

"This is the Hamburglar," Anderson says, flashing her bling. "I got
him on Canal Street. We've been trying to figure out how he got all
his stacks. We decided burgers-4-cash was his deal."