The term “sick day” has no meaning for a punk band on the road. Britney might be able to cancel an entire tour for a little bump on the knee, but for many mid-level performers, each night’s show provides the money needed to make it to the next city.

So when Ryan Frederiksen, guitarist for proto-punk outfit These Arms Are Snakes, was hospitalized for appendicitis one day before the band’s national tour was scheduled to begin, the tour’s future was up in the air.

“It’s pretty gnarly, because it just fell out of the blue,” says bassist Brian Cook. “I’d always thought that with appendicitis, it was something that kind of built up over several days, but this just happened, like, in the course of a couple of hours.”

Canceling the tour wasn’t an option for the band or for Frederiksen. Both were forced to tough it out for the first few days following surgery.

“He had to skip the first night of the tour, which was in Portland, but since then he’s been going fine,” Cook says. “He was getting by on lots of Vicodin and alcohol — just not at the same time.”

Such commitment to touring has both blessed and cursed the members of These Arms Are Snakes. On one hand, it’s given the Seattle natives the chance to criss-cross the country in support of fellow hardcore and punk acts such as the Blood Brothers, Dance Disaster Movement, Hot Water Music and their current road partners, Paris Texas. But on the other hand, it’s cost them two members of the band.

“Jesse [Robertson], our keyboard player, was always more of a guitar player, but we never really felt like we needed another guitar player,” Cook says. “We did that Blood Brothers tour, and the whole time I think he was feeling pretty uncomfortable onstage doing the keyboard thing. There were so many technical problems that by the end of it, I just think he wasn’t really interested in doing it, and it just wasn’t working out for us either.”

After Robertson’s departure, the band was able to finish its tour as a four-piece, but roster troubles were still waiting after returning home, when drummer Joe Preston also decided to leave.

“He just kind of left for personal reasons. Even now, I don’t completely even understand what happened,” Cook says. “He had some issues with anxiety in the past, and I think being in a touring band, not having a routine and not always having a lot of money was just too much for him.”

Going from a quintet to a trio within a few months would be devastating to a lot of bands, but it wasn’t enough to stop These Arms Are Snakes. With a little help from Erin Tate, the band’s friend and drummer for Minus the Bear, another tour has been launched, and a full-length album is set to drop this fall. But Cook says the band won’t be able to stay with this temporary lineup forever.

[Tate] was like ‘Yeah, I’ll help write and record the record, but I can’t be a full-time member because I’ve got my own band,'” Cook says. “That sort of allowed us to write a record really quickly, and now we’re going to spend a good amount of time on the road.”

Cook says he is still unsure of what direction the band will take when searching for new permanent members.

“I don’t really know what’s gonna happen. Recording the full-length and writing the full-length was a lot more fun than anything we’ve done in terms of writing and composing music, because I think there was this feeling that we could really do whatever we wanted and write whatever we wanted,” Cook says. “The more people you have in the band, the more you’re always going to have going on, and it gets really cluttered.”

Despite lineup changes and emergencies on the road, Cook says he is still excited for the band to broaden its musical horizons on the road and in the studio.