Master of Disaster

Frank151: So you did the 2009 rally?
Duane Peters: Yeah.
F151: Who’d you ride with?
DP: Trigger Gumm.
F151: How do you know him?
DP: He’s one of my best friends.
F151: You guys go back?
DP: No. Shit, we go back probably...six months before that he showed up at one of my shows. I’d seen his jump in Australia, and I’m an Evel Knievel fan, and Christian Fletcher’s a good friend of mine, and Trigger’s a fan of mine from when he was a kid. He skates and surfs. He does everything—listens to punk rock. So he came out to one of my shows and he introduced himself, and I was kinda floored. I looked up to him already, and was like, “Wow, Trigger Gumm’s at my show.” And then we just started hanging out. Then they asked him to do the rally. He needed a partner, so he called me up and goes, “Hey, you wanna do this thing with me?” I go, “Fuck yeah. Sounds like a blast.”

F151: What’d you guys drive?
DP: Ford F150. It’s a Draven truck with a fifty-caliber machine gun in the back, and all loaded up and shit. It was the only American truck on the fuckin’ rally.

F151: The rally lasted a week?
DP: Something like that. Five days. Five really long days. It would be like a month in anybody else’s normal life.

F151: What was it like rubbing elbows with all the Fortune 500 CEOs and
the Sheikhs?
DP: We didn’t think much of it other than they were funner than shit and we loved how the debauchery was open game. Because everybody’s in their own world, there was only daredevil types or extreme-sport types. Then you got celebrities, and you got completely off-the-map rich people that own islands, and Sheikhs and princes and all that shit. They liked hanging out with us ’cause we’re dirty and we don’t give a shit about nothing, and we like hanging out with them because they’re not all full of “We can’t do that because of the Law.” It was a good fucking mix. We just dug it. It’s kind of like where you drop the fucking name-dropping shit, and all the “who’s who” crap. Everyone’s just the core of their own being, and the little kid is out in everyone.

F151: I heard you and [Frank151 Co-Founder] Mike Malbon and Trigger had a little run in with the Law.
DP: Yeah, we got arrested. Mike, fuckin’.... His car got fuckin’ stolen, or something like that. He was without a car. He ended up being the guy that was like, “Fuck, I’ll jump in with these guys.” So we were like, “Alright. Fuckin’ cool, man.” That morning, shit, I think I started out with two really huge Bloody Marys. And then the guys from the drifters were our enemies—you gotta have competition—so we were constantly poking at each other. We were having truckers block them all the time, and they would go off in the fields and end up in a ditch or get around the truckers and blow their minds, ’cause those drifters are gnarly drivers. But we would get the American truckers to blockade ’em. We had a CB radio so we could get on with truckers. They’d open up for us and we’d come up beside ’em. “Alright, block these fuckin’ drifters!” And that’d get them all riled up. They’d be blocking ’em. Because our truck wasn’t fast enough, we had to come up with dirty tricks. I’d be jumping out of the moon roof with my Evel Knievel cape on, no shirt, my helmet, hammered, and just fuckin’ walkin’ the rails and shit.

We got caught in some gnarly traffic in New Orleans on one of those fuckin’ bridges and got bored. We had nothin’ but fireworks, and just started lightin’ ’em off. Fuck, I found these fireworks that kind of made me feel like a sniper, and I started aiming at these bridge workers across the bridge. I started comin’ really close to nailin’ ’em, and all these people just started freaking out. And then I ended up aiming at the other cars. I didn’t aim at the Sheikhs—thank God, ’cause those guys could’ve shot me—but I did aim at Julie’s car. I didn’t know she was in that car. It was just the most expensive car. I was aiming for the million-dollar McLaren, and nailed it. Right on target. It went right in through the top, ’cause there was no roof. It went right onto [Julie’s] foot, burned the seat and all that shit. The Sheikhs all got out of the cars, ’cause she’s Maximillion’s wife—not the right fuckin’ person to hit, man. And I’m all hammered. I’m like, “Fuck this!” and, “Fuck that!” Everyone’s looking at me that’s in the rally like, “You’re gonna die.” I walked over to the bridge going, “Trigger, should I jump?” Thank God I didn’t. He was all, “I wouldn’t jump if I were you.” I don’t know how much of that was my own drama, ’cause I was pretty fucked up. I didn’t jump, thank God. We found out later it was only three feet deep, way the fuck down there. I would’ve had a broken neck...or been dead. It wouldn’t have been cool. Cops come, and we’re being taken away. Luckily the cops were really fucking cool. They just wrapped our car up and went, “We don’t even want to look in there.” They didn’t run the dogs through or nothin’. But they put us all in three different cars, sent us in to county and did the whole deal.

We had fun inside. We got a paralyzed guy out of his wheelchair, I started doing 360s on it, and then we all lost our blankets because of that. Luckily, the warden guy was a tattoo freak and he called me in where there’s no cameras, and all these deputies surrounded me. I thought they were gonna beat the shit out of me, and the guy just sits up on the thing and goes, “Alright, what the fuck happened?” ’Cause he was reading the report just going, “What’s this all about?” So I started tap dancing, man. He started asking me about my ink, I started name dropping. “Trigger Gumm’s in there—Evel Knievel’s fuckin’ torch taker.” But he was just cool. He goes, “I’m gonna get you guys out of here.” We had a few thousand bucks on us, and they didn’t take any money. There was media out front—cameras waiting for about five hours—and they’re like, “We’re not gonna let these guys out till you people are gone.” They didn’t want us back in the rally, so they waited a whole day.

Then we were in processing to get released and we started talking to all the deputies. ’Cause everyone’s so broke out there, we were like, “We’ll get you some shoes, any of you guys need some new clothes....” Trigger’s like, “I got gnarly clothes connections. All we want is the prison uniforms.” And they’re all like, “Well we can’t do that…We can’t do that.” We talked them into it. One of the guys ended up putting all three of our prison outfits in a bag and leaving it out front—“Just don’t say nothin’.” So we grabbed the bag and got to the truck, and all our shit was still in there. There was still my Captain and Coke that one of the drifters bought me. I was even blamin’ them. “Those fuckers tried to sabotage me!” So I slugged that. We knew we weren’t gonna be able to get back in the race, so we just drove to the airport and put our prison suits on.


F151: So you guys showed up in your jail jumpsuits?
DP: Everyone’s so rich, they thought we went to a designer place—“Hey we wanna get these prison-looking outfits.” They’re real fuckin’ 1800s prison stripes, from the day! They thought we bought them—“Who’s your designer?” And we’re like, “Dude, these are the real deal. We were really in prison over there.” And they were like, “Really?!” “Yeah, dude. Really!” And then I apologized. That was my whole mission—“I need to redeem myself. That was fucked up.” ’Cause Julie’s foot was on fire, man, and the Sheikhs put it out with ice water and shit. It wasn’t a good-looking scene, at all. We got there and I was like, “I’m not gonna drink anymore!” And she’s totally being cool. We got our Gumball tags. We were like little kids. They put us up for another day, to party with ’em. We just had a fuckin’ blast the whole fuckin’ way. Everyone’s attitude was rad. We were just stoked that we had to finish, one way or another, to make it to the last party.

When we got back we had to get a lawyer. We were about to get a warrant. I took all the fuckin’ hits for that fuckin’ incident. It wasn’t cheap. Those guys got off. You have to just clean up all your shit. I travel abroad a lot to tour, so I couldn’t let nothin’ slide. That was just it. Pay back crimes of your past, all done, onto the next one.

F151: Do you have plans to do the rally again?
DP: Yeah, they’re gonna try and work on it, man. You gotta get sponsors to sponsor you. We got people to cover us on the last one, but now with the economy and all that shit, we don’t know. We want to, our hearts are there, so we’ll see if someone steps up to sponsor us and get us in, or if they can help us with the entry fee.

F151: Anything else you want to say about Gumball?
DP: Just thanks to the Gumball crew for keeping us informed on all the stuff. We love all the shirts and merch, and all the newsletters, and we love our watches and our Gumball tags. They’re the best. They go up with everything that you value. You just hold on to that fuckin’ tag. A lot of it comes back. It’s never gonna all come back! It was a blackout five days!

F151: So besides the rally, what have you been up to lately?
DP: Doing this kinda Tom Waits-y thing with two other guys, called The Great Unwashed, skating a lot, paying back another court deal I got goin’ on—a DUI thing from when I broke my pelvic bone about three or four months ago. I was on the pills and drivin’ down the freeway about five miles per hour on the side, up against the fence, to a stop. Then a cop fuckin’ pulled over and opened up the door and I fell out. No booze, I was just on those pills. I gotta figure out how to stay outta jail with that. Got lawyers goin’ on. Got totally sober about three months ago. Just skating a lot, you know? A roller-coaster ride, but it’s all good. I had a lot of tragedies and a lot of depression and now I’m fuckin’ over it. I’m just getting stronger every day.