Best Friends: Will & Jesse Forever
Tiger Flowers
Tiger Flowers
Tiger Flowers
Back in June, Tiger Flowers celebrated bassist Will Gomez's birthday by playing a weekend full of shows. This isn't what normal bands do, this is what BEST FUCKING FRIENDS do (emphasis on fucking). It was one of the best Tiger Flowers sets I've ever seen and it was a debaucherous night. So I decided to interview Jesse and Will about being best friends.
How did you meet and start a camaraderie?
Jesse: It all started on MySpace. A casual comment here, a show together there. I was quite coy in my pursuance of Will Gomez. I didn't want him to think me too over eager. Until this day I walk the fine line of best friend and worst enemy. As much as I love him I want to wear him like a pretty Puerto Rican dress.
Will: Jesse and I met around 2003 or 2004. I used to be in a band called Johnny Cage Is A Fake. We had a show in NYC with this band My Bitter End and Jesse was the singer.
Jesse, were you a fan of Johnny cage before u met Will?
Jesse: I'll never forget the first time I saw Johnny Cage is a Fake. I was in My Bitter End and they played right before us. I ran right up to them afterwards and said,"You guys sound like Deadguy mixed with Latin awesome!" Then I met eyes with Will. Something in me wanted to punch him, something else in me wanted to touch him tenderly. Whatever I felt, I said to myself that night, if these dudes ever need a singer, I'm fucking that bass player until I'm in.
What was your first impression of Jesse?
Will: Cocky Mother Fucker! Hahaha I remember him screaming on stage and pulling this move where he would pretend to slash his throat. I was like this guy is rock n roll. Then he did it over and over again and it wasn't as cool anymore haha.
Was Jesse a pube flasher back then?
Will: Back then I would only see Jesse at shows. He didn't really drop his pants at a moments notice like the Jesse we all know today. I do remember this Myspace profile picture of him on the side of a road butt naked taking a piss. That was like the beginning of the nudism.
At what point in your friendship did you know you were best friends?
Will: I was at work and I remember feeling pumped about going out with the band for one of our first weekends together. I get a text from Jesse saying "I'm at the hospital, there's something wrong with my heart". Sometimes you don't realize how close you are to someone until they text you "They're gonna stop my heart and bring me back to life". I remember feeling scared, but he kept reassuring me that he'll be ok and ready to rock & roll the next day haha. His Doctor told him no excitement for a little while so it was kinda scary watching him scream and checking his heart to make sure he was ok. We played all the shows and we had an awesome weekend. I knew then we were best friends.
Jesse: I knew that Will and I were best friends forever when I had to take a shit one day at a show in Jersey and there was no stall door. A man needs a little privacy to perform a proper bowel evacuation. I was complaining about how I couldn't shit without a door and that's when it happened. Will Gomez stepped up to the plate and became the door. He stood in front of me, where the door should have been, and gave me the peace and privacy I needed to do my business. It was at this exact moment I knew, we were best friends forever. Best friends for life.
What's the worst thing you've done to each other that you can't stop apologizing for?
Jesse: I've only heard tales but apparently Will's mother has quite the bush. I'm not apologizing for this. I just want the world to know. I can also tell you that at one time Will Gomez had a dick folder, and hells yes I have him hell for it, but I'm not apologizing for that either. The worst thing I've done to Will Gomez is love him. Me putting my love on anyone is a dangerous thing. When most cases love is a cure, mine is a cancer. But Will deals with it. We get too drunk, we have too much fun, we stay up too late. So for that I'm sorry. NOT!!!!
Will: Oh man. One night Johnny Cage Is A Fake played a show upstate in Poughkeepsie, NY. Jesse offered us a place to stay for the night, so we decided to party with him at a bar and drink some whiskey! The night was over and we all get into his car and immediately start smoking the devils lettuce. After a mile or so on the road a police car starts to pull us over. They asked Jesse to step out of the vehicle and do all these drunk tests and he was killing it. I was in the back seat and I could not stop laughing and I started saying (kind of loudly) "he's not gonna pass, he's fucking wasted". Thankfully, the cops only took his car keys away and we spent the next hour laying in the grass waiting for his Dad to pick us up haha. Sorry dude, I was wasted.
What's your favorite thing about each other?
Jesse: Will is uncircumcised. But, you would never know it because he keeps the hood pulled back, so to speak. At all times. It's quite amazing actually. No anteater, no hooded space worm. If you didn't know you might never. That's my favorite thing about Will Gomez. That and his whiskey collection.
Will: My favorite thing about Jesse is how fearless he can be. I grew up in one of the worst neighborhoods in the South Bronx, but I turn into a little girl if you leave me somewhere alone in the dark hahaha. I found a tick digging into my soul on our last tour out with Hivesmasher. Puerto Ricans from the Bronx rarely experience ticks trying to dig into their skin and it freaked me out. Jesse pulls out a knife and says dude its just a tick, don't move I'll get it out. He saved my life that day haha
Now that you guys have been friends for years what do you talk about?
Jesse: We talk about respect. We talk about how two people from two totally different walks of life can end up sitting next to each other in a van. We talk about cute boys in other bands. Mainly Meek Is Murder and Hivesmasher. We talk about things we could both fit our dicks into at the same time. An example of this would be a case for an old telephoto camera lens. We've found out, the hard way, that we can not take a paper towel tube and use it as a Chinese finger trap for dicks. But most of all, we talk about having fun. There's too much terrible in the world, and though our music touches on it, we try to stay light hearted and dick oriented.
Will: Mötley Crüe.
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Photos from June 22nd as captioned by Jesse.
Hush don't give a fuck?
racks on racks on racks
invisible arm bar
"I bet Jesse could take this all the way down"
back at it again
it's a celebration, bitches!
"I know what you're thinking"
CRUSH
BRICKEATER!!!
Dean's plotting, I'm being rocked
We love these dudes
ROCK
ROLL
LOUD. NOISES.
"What do you think this floor is made of? Pergo?"
"Fuck, it's just concrete!?"
I'm a creep
I've slept in worse places than that bass drum.
"But I don't want to stop rocking Mom!"
Tiger Flowers... and the birthday girl has her quinceanera!!!
party favors for party times!
"Dan, do we look cool?!"
"you do Dean! Fuck you Will!"
The birthday girl!!!
BFFE
Sam is inside me. Not the 1st time either. It's payback for this one time I burgled his cock in West Virginia.
"Oh my god, are they really going to fuck?"
Who wears short shorts?
the beginning of the end
trying to keep it together
sorry Mario, but your princess is in another castle
Get high
Get drunk
oh wait, we're already drunk
I've been listening to a LOT of George Michael lately.
Frank, I popped the party
(not so) secret lovers
Best friends feed best friends whiskey mid song. Thanks Aaron!
fun fun fun
World famous Puerto Rican cowboy Billy Gomez addresses the crowd.
I love frank and meek is murder and metal injection
HEAD BUTT LOVE
whispering sweet nothing's
"yea, you can join in"
Sean is a creep.
just what he needed
You know what they say about Tiger Flower's shows
garbage = love
the happiest Gomez ever
you can tell by the finger
happy crowd, happy times.
this is exactly what it looks like
SING
A
LONG
we know the words!!!
stop the pizza crime!
I think I dropped a dime!!
buddies doing time!!
hugs are always fine!!
This is the last we saw Will Gomez that night. He never made it to the bar. He's been missing ever since. All we have left are these last final shots of bass on bass love between Sam and the birthday boy. If anyone has seen Will Gomez tell him we all had the greatest time of our lives on his birthday. Even after he disappeared.
