Albany band Days to Come clears roads after Hurricane Michael

ALBANY — Some Albany residents received a surprise after Hurricane Michael when Albany-based rock band Days to Come joined crews to help clear out the avenues where trees were piled up in and beside the road.

Days to Come vocalist and guitarist Justin Goodson literally answered the call.

“My brother is a police officer, and the day after the storm I was out at my parents’ house cleaning up a lot, and he came by and said, ‘Hey, do you want to come help me down the avenues’ because they were trying to get the ambulances through,” Goodson said. “So we went out there and spent the rest of the day clearing the alleys out there and the avenues so the ambulances could get to Phoebe (Putney Memorial Hospital).”

Armed with chainsaws and axes, Goodson, Days to Come drummer Jalen Hall and band guitarist Brandon Rix put themselves to work in different neighborhoods to clear out roads and driveways to make way for ambulances and other first-responder vehicles.

Hall said, “Really anything we can do to help others.”

Goodson and Hall said that when they do things for the community, it isn’t as a band but as individuals who want to help others because “it’s the right thing to do.”

“We had quite a few friends and fans from Florida send us pictures, and it is crazy the amount of devastation down there,” Goodson said. “It’s going to take a long time, especially for Florida where (the storm) initially hit, to get back on its feet.”

On Albany being taken by surprise by Hurricane Michael even after the January 2017 tornadoes, Hall said, “It’s probably because Albany is not used to natural disasters at this level, but, yeah, this one was a lot worse overall.”

“I will say,” Goodson added, “being thankful that the storms happened in 2017 is that all the trees that fell then didn’t fall now, if that makes sense, so it could have been a lot worse if we didn’t have that storm in 2017.”

“That (2017) storm kind of prepared us,” Hall said. “No one really took the storm in January that seriously because every time we get a storm warning, it just passes over like nothing in a couple of hours.”

Goodson said that with the experience of the January 2017 storms, the people in the Albany area were more prepared with food, gas and water in case they lost power.

Hall said that using a chainsaw for the first time was more difficult than he imagined. He joked that the movies make it look a lot easier, and Goodson said that Hall showed his proficiency with an axe.

“I’m a military brat,” Goodson said. “I’ve lived all over, so I’ve been through many, many storms helping my dad or the other guys when I was kid. You know, watching them use an axe and chainsaw and clear stuff, and actually this time my dad was in Texas for my grandfather’s funeral, and so that was kind of cool to be able to put all of that training that I’ve had over the years and just be like, ‘Yeah, I know how to do that, and I don’t have to ask anybody or for help.’ We can just take care of ourselves.”

It took the band members and other volunteers a few days, but with the help of a few power tools and a truck to pull trees out of the way, Goodson, Hall and Rix were able to aid the community in a big way.

Days to Come are busy preparing for the release of their new single and their first music video release.

For more information about the band, visit https://daystocomemusic.com.

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