Country Living and photographer Jack Thompson, who’s based in Houston, spent all day Sunday photographing Miranda Lambert’s new 45-foot Prevost tour bus at the Junk Gypsy Warehouse in College Station, Texas. The Junk Gypsies (Amie, Jolie, and their mom, Janie) spent the last two weeks adding the final gypsy touches to Miranda’s fabulous new ride. Their daddy, Phillip Sikes, also contributed to the process, helping with the final details and creating one-of-a-kind folk art, including a guitar wall mural made from old license plates from around the South, for the bus.
If you think you know what the inside of a tour bus looks like, Hold onto your boots! Miranda’s new bus has big, comfy captain’s chairs covered in red croc upholstery, black velvet damask curtains with crazy quilt valances, crystal chandeliers, and metal countertops with edgy brass nail-head trim. There are six cozy bunks with their own DVD player, two bathrooms, a kitchenette, and a living room with a giant entertainment center. A master bedroom at the back of the bus is where Miranda will hang her Gibson when she’s on the road touring to promote “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” the new single she co-wrote with friend Travis Howard, a L.A.-based songwriter.
That Evening, we piled into our trucks and drove over to the DIXIE CHICKEN (see front entrance above), a local institution on the fringe of the Texas A & M campus in College Station. Don Ganter started the restaurant in 1974 and teenagers, college students, locals, and alumni have been packing the joint ever since.
“My dad named Dixie Chicken for a song by the band Little Feat,” says Jennifer Ganter (above, far right), who now runs the restaurant with her sis, Katy Jackson. “We serve some of the best cheeseburgers in TEXAS and about 40 different icy, cold beers.”
“You can’t go to College Station without a visit to the Chicken,” says Junk Gypsy Janie Sikes (above, second from left), a longtime patron. You’ll see everybody you know there. You can play pool, start up a dominos game of 42, check out the rattlesnake cage, and order up some chicken fried steak and fried jalapenos and onion rings.”
Above, Monica, the Junk Gypsies, and the Junk Gypsy warehouse crew.
Miranda spends close to 250 days a year on the road, so having a homey retreat between gigs is really important to the 23 year old, who grew up in LINDALE, a small town (population 2,500) in East Texas.
BIRTH OF A BUS “We were at the House of Blues on Sunset Strip in L.A.,” remembers Miranda’s mom, Bev (shown below with Miranda), “and Miranda was really burnt out. She’s only 23-years-old and travels nearly nonstop with the 11 guys in her band. She was traveling in a pretty bus, but it was real sterile, not homey all. Our house in East Texas and the way we live is really important to our family. We’re Down-to-Earth Country people, and it was hard for us to know Miranda was feeling so alone on the road. Her bus just didn’t feel like home to her. It was like a hotel room -nice enough but not her style. I kept wishing there was something we could do and started discussing the possibility of the Junk Gypsies decorating a new tour bus for Miranda. After that night, I sent an email to Miranda’s business manager and her manager. I told them I was asking a favor as a mother. I asked them to help me create a bus for my daughter, where she’d feel at home. Everyone wrote back and said yes. I’d never asked them for anything, so maybe they knew how important it was to me and Miranda.”
“It was a tough process: the business side and the creative side were butting heads, but after we got started, things fell into place. We needed to do the whole bus not just a few decorative touches, which was something new to the bus company. We wanted to start with a vibe,” says Bev. “We loved working with the Junk Gypsies. They’re not just designers, they have real soul. The Gypsies took control of the look of the bus. Amie, Jolie, and Janie knew that everything counts, the floors, the ceilings, the curtains, even the pictures on the wall. They worked their magic and made this BUS a Home”
“Rick and I couldn’t be happier with the new bus,” says Bev. “We wanted our daughter to call from the road and tell us she was happy, not lonely or sad to be away from home.”
We Just pulled into LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS, for a quick lunch at Sticky Fingerz Rock n’ Roll Chicken Shack, a quirky downtown eatery that specializes in chicken fingers in a dozen flavors like Sticky Parmesan, Jalapeno-Ginger, and Margarita. Miranda’s dad, Rick, claims “everything is spicy, even the ice water.” There’s lots of colorful outsider art by local artists on the walls, rock n’ roll karaoke on Tuesday nights (“No Slow Songs, Man”), and plenty of concert with up-and-coming regional acts scheduled every month. Check IT out: stickyfingerz.com.
ROAD RAMBLES In the Capable hands of driver Lee Pharris as he
Heats up I-40 on our way from Little Rock to Memphis…
“You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog”…Elvis Presley Road stop…Country Living & the Junk Gypsies give a shout out to THE King at Graceland in Memphis.
Country Living & the Junk Gypsies at Graceland…We had to pay homage to Elvis. Long live the KING….
