In celebration of today’s anniversary of the release of  Snakes & Arrows (2007), here is a behind the scenes story from that time:

Before the Snakes & Arrows Tour, Neil asked Patrick at Showtech if he could customize his drumming hats and stage tees for him.  Naturally the answer was, “Yes, sir!”.  The hats were meticulously made by a very talented Toronto-area hatter, who took into account the very precise measurements of Neil’s cranium.  The tees were embellished with a foil printing technique of the ouroboros from the S&A album graphics.  The production of these hats and tees fell inside of one week from the tour start, as the band was otherwise engaged in more important things, such as rehearsing!

Keeping track of these hats and stage tees on tour was not always easy, as after each show they needed to be properly laundered and accounted for.  A fairly small rate of attrition was normal, for reasons of wear, loss, and theft (rare).

We lost a couple tees and hats in Milan, Italy, when the cleaners delivered them in terrible condition.  They had laundered everything on extremely high heat, which crumpled the hats, and left the foil logos on the tees, well, scorched.  We only had one more hat to last the remaining few shows.  To be safe,  it was washed each night in a hotel room sink!