Monday, February 7, 2011

Good Times, Bad Times

Being in a working band with two singles on the Rock Charts is a balance.  We were a "baby" band which meant people were beginning to hear our stuff and we were getting some name recognition, but we also had to have our regular lives too.  Bills still came in and we really weren't making any money with the band.  I was lucky enough to have a day job that let me take off whenever I needed, a couple of the other members had similar situations, but the other members just mooched off of us all the time.  While we were signed with Galaxy, we didn't have a steady tour schedule, we would work our usual jobs monday through thursday, then head out of town to play thursday, friday and saturday nights and occasionally sundays.  It got pretty tiresome.   It wasn't until we signed with Export that we hit the road full time.  We got to play a lot of festival type shows which are great fun, but I learned that very few musicians from the popular bands at the time were likeable people.  I remember once when we were playing a festival in Beaumont Texas,  I can't say the name of the band, but I was introduced to the singer and he gave me the impression that he thought that I was nothing more than gum on the pavement.  I took it upon myself to go into his dressing room and "help myself" to all the little extras that were put in his room that most higher up bands get when they play festivals.  Then we broke into their trailer and were watching their dvd's when they came in and promptly threw us out.

You get a lot of illusions shattered when you go out on the road as a "Rockstar."  First off, there were 6 of us riding in the van, but only two of us that had valid driver's licences.  Guess who one of those were.  For the first month it was me and one of the guitar players switching off driving duties.  In that situation, I pretty much only had about 12 hours of sleep that entire month.  I would usually be the one to drive after the show because the other driver would be passing out drunk.  Our road manager/soundman always needed his beauty sleep, so he never drove.  It wasn't until after the first month that we had an employee of Export Records join us on the road to split the managing and driving duties.  This is how a schedule would go:

-show ends, pack up, get on road to next show.
-arrive in town about 7 in the morning after driving for 5 hours and check into hotel.
-sleep til about 11 and then have to make an "in-store" appearance (i'll get to that in a minute)
-around 2 or 3, go back to hotel to take shower and get ready.
-around 5 head to the venue to unload and get promised a sound check, but the headlining band decides to show up an hour late and then spend 4 hours soundchecking.  So by the time you load your gear on the stage you have 15 minutes til doors open.
-hopefully you get a sandwich tray to ravage.
-about 8, set up merchandise table and be the only responsible band member to sit at it and don't get to party.
-show starts around 11.  play show
-after your set, you wait around for headlining band to finish their show so you can load up your equipment and head into the next town.  If you're lucky you get to enjoy the hotel room if the next show is within a 2 hour drive, if not then you get to check out by phone the next morning.
-repeat entire list.

Ah, the beauty of "In-Store Appearances."  When you are on the road all you want to do is sleep, but you have to do many things you don't want to do.  In-Stores are at the top of that list.  I'm sure if you are Aerosmith, or Metallica, in-stores are great.  But when you are a struggling baby band...they suck.  No one goes to them, you may get 5 people if you are lucky.  It is embarrassing.  You go to a store, they have your cd blaring, a table set up with all your merchandise, silver sharpies, you see your own face staring at you from posters plastered on the wall.  Yet there are no lines of adoring fans killing each other to see you.  I dreaded doing in-stores.  I used to pretend that I was just a regular customer and spend the entire two to three hours combing the same sad section of used cd's hoping I would find some hidden gem trying to blend in like I was.

To be continued...

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