Big white vans are suspicious-looking vehicles. Everyone from drug runners to child molesters to illegal immigrant transporters utilizes the spacious interior of these stash-boxes-on-wheels for their own specific unlawful activities. Unfortunately, these big white vans are also the vehicle of choice for most touring musicians. Now, anyone who's toured for any period of time will have developed a healthy paranoia about officers of the law—especially the highway patrol. Nothing can put a damper on your day quite like getting pulled over on the side of the road in west Texas or somewhere and having to answer a bunch of questions like, "If you're in a band, how come I ain't ever heard of ya?", or worse, getting carted off to county lockup wearing drippy makeup and tight red pants.

Well, being in a band called "Evangelicals" offers a unique opportunity to avoid the suspicions of bored cops who'd like nothing better than to find a three-week-old roach abandoned underneath a discarded Cool Ranch Doritos bag. You see, another, slightly less dubious group also takes advantage of the spacious interior of the big white van: churches. From carting the elderly to Sunday morning worship to hauling high school horn-dogs to spring break ski trips, the church van, outfitted with the congregation’s name and city in vinyl lettering, can be seen holy rolling along straight and narrow paths from Nevada to New Jersey.

We've taken advantage of our band name's religious connotations by slapping "EVANGELICALS, Norman, OK" in big black letters on the side of our van in an attempt to pass ourselves off as a church band or something similar. For added authenticity, we've included hanging crucifixes from our rearview mirror and a "Teen Bible" on our dash. How long will traveling under the guise of a teen youth group keep our driving record untainted? We've gone 60,000 miles so far in the E-VAN without getting pulled over (except for a roadside flagging down in Georgia by the thematically appropriate chanteuse St. Vincent, but that's another story), and, Lord willing, we'll make it to your town one step ahead of the law, as well.

Yours,

Josh Jones
Evangelicals