About

Gravel Tears: A Backroad Origin Story

Gravel Tears didn’t start with a plan. It started with a truck that wouldn’t start, a bar that wouldn’t close, and a handful of songs that refused to stay quiet.

The band was founded in 2013 by lead singer and songwriter Boups. After years of playing solo shows across Northern Wisconsin backroads and small towns, Boups pulled together musicians who didn’t mind sleeping on floors and driving through the night for a half-full room.

The First Lineup

  • Boups — vocals, rhythm guitar
  • Caleb “Switchblade” Turner — lead guitar (2013–2016)
  • Wyatt Boone — bass
  • Eli Mercer — drums (2013–2019)

The name Gravel Tears came from a line Aaron wrote after walking home down a caliche road at 2 a.m.—“some nights you cry so hard even the gravel feels it.”

Departures, Disasters, and the Ones We Lost

In 2016, lead guitarist Caleb Turner was kicked out of the band after vanishing during a Northern Michigan run and reappearing days later with the band van, a new band, a dog, and a wife named “Introspect”.

Drummer Eli Mercer left in 2019 after deciding the road life was going to kill him faster than it inspired him. He was replaced by Hank Rowe. Ironically, Eli died a month later choking on a hotdog at the Wisconsin State Fair

The hardest loss came in 2021, when longtime collaborator Jonah Pike was killed in a highway accident outside Tucumcari, New Mexico. Several songs on the debut album quietly carry his name.

The Road Years

  • Lubbock, TX — power outage mid-set, crowd sang anyway
  • Sturgis, SD — biker rally where the stage collapsed after the encore
  • Leadville, CO — snowed in for two nights, played to the same 17 people
  • Marfa, TX — dust storm so thick the band finished facing away from the crowd

Today

The band decided that Boulder, Colorado had the energy and balls to appreciate (and pay the bills) for Gravel Tears. They were wrong, but push on making music that makes you throb and cry at the same time.

  • Boups — vocals, guitar
  • Wyatt Boone — bass
  • Hank Rowe — drums
  • Mason Cole — lead guitar

After 12 years, Gravel Tears is still here—older, louder, and carrying the same songs down different roads.

“We didn’t build this band to get famous. We built it so the songs wouldn’t die.” — Boups