By Robyn Smith
The Walking Guys, a group of four men all in their early- to mid-20s, began their journey in Portland, Maine, on July 8. Since then, they’ve walked almost 400 miles and played 30 gigs, and that’s just from the official tour list, which doesn’t include impromptu performances. The Walking Guys’ mantra is “Live Simple, Spread Music.” The group will make its way to Northern Virginia from Sept. 1-3, playing at Jammin Java in Vienna on Sept. 1. We spoke with Chris Kessenich as the group was just beginning their 15-mile daily walk to learn a little more about their journey so far.
What’s one thing you thought you could never leave behind?
That one might be tough. I feel like I’m pretty free and open to living without things. I guess the one thing that’s been most difficult or most stressful has been not really knowing where we sleep every night. So I guess my home as a whole or my apartment as a whole. And just knowing the location where you’ll rest your head every night is a big-time luxury that I totally had taken for granted throughout my life. The stress of trying to figure that out every night has been very interesting and very eye opening.
Before you began, how did people respond when you told them about the tour?
Most people were very confused. We’d go, ‘Yeah, we’re walking the whole tour,’ and they’d go, ‘What?!’ Then [we’d say] ‘Yeah, we’re planning on just walking,’ and they’d go, ‘What do you mean? How?’ and we’d explain: ‘Well, you take your right foot, then your left foot. You go one by one and you end up in a different place by the end of the day.’
On your website you discuss depending on the kindness of others for survival. What have been some of your kindest experiences so far?
There’s just an absolute laundry list of people. … Oh, Mama Gene. In Newport, Rhode Island, we were walking into town, and this lady stopped and started talking to us for a little bit and then after that conversation invited us to stay at her house for the remainder of the weekend. So while we were in Newport for like three days, she basically provided for us and helped us out. She gave us a place to stay, allowed us to go out and explore the city, go to the folk festival and play music there, and we actually found another gig as well.
Where are some of the places you’ve stayed?
So we have all of our camping gear. Every day we start out and very rarely know where we’re sleeping, and we just hope to try to find a place by meeting people. If not, we default to camping either in a park or on the side of the road or in the woods—basically anywhere we think we can set up without getting in trouble—and then head on out the next morning. At Somerville, we stayed down in a park in a pretty sketchy area and were woken up at like 6 o’clock by a park ranger who basically explained to us that that park is generally drawn with heroin and crack addicts and that we were very lucky. So that was an interesting night. There actually were a couple people that ran into us that night that weren’t too out of the norm. [But other than that, it’s] largely people’s homes; a lot of the time we couch surf.
What do you appreciate more now that you’ve walked such a long way?
Definitely the speed at which we travel. The first day we walked, we walked for like 10 hours. It was grueling. It was really hot and it was our first day of walking, so we weren’t used to it at all. It was a long, long, exhausting day. At the end of the day, we walked into this coffee shop, sat down to get some water and started talking to one of the guys that was sitting at the bar. I asked him, ‘How far is it to Portland?’ and he was kind of laughing, turns around and goes, ‘Oh, 10, 15 minutes, tops.’
What has been the biggest reward so far?
Definitely meeting people and experiencing other people’s hospitality and just establishing these relationships that are meaningful. There are so many generous people in the world. What we’re doing, in a lot of ways, helps bring people out of their shell in some senses. I’m not saying that people have really closed-off minds, but the people that come out and help us often thank us, which is really weird. They’re helping us. But I think it brings them joy to help other people out, and I think what we’re doing really resonates with what they would like to do or would have liked to have done at some point.
The Walking Guys
Jammin Java
Sept. 1, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door