Editor's Note: We Are. . . Your Friends

Dec 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Kylee Swenson

I didn't notice it as much when playing shows in San Francisco because my bandmates and I know most of the bands we play with in our hometown, but after getting back from a tour, I realized something.

Sometimes we'd play on a bill with another band, and they'd introduce themselves and act very friendly. And sometimes a band would walk right by us and load in their gear without saying a word. There are probably several possible reasons for this. One, they're shy. Two, they think they are bigger/better than the other bands on the bill and don't want to waste their time talking to them. Or three, they've spent the last seven hours on the road, feel sick from the fast food they ate and need a nap. But none of these are good excuses.

Common decency aside, it hurts your chances of success in the long run to keep up the “too-cool-for-school” act. And there are several reasons for that: One, did your mama teach you to act like a grade-A jackass to strangers? That's just lame. Two, that band you're vibing/ignoring could be the next Killers (see this month's cover story), even if they seem like nobodies at the time. Three, you're missing out on a very good opportunity when you cross paths with other bands on the road.

I have to give props to a couple bands we met while on tour that have the right attitude: Greycoats (from Minneapolis) and The Study Band (from Philadelphia). They're also great bands. We toured from Minneapolis to New York City with Greycoats and met The Study Band in D.C. The guys could not have been more gracious. By the end of the tour, if there were any malfunctions onstage, one of the Greycoats guys would leap onstage to help us.

I never fully grasped the importance of having camaraderie with other bands until recently. I should have learned this a long time ago, but at least I can pass along my latent lesson to you. The VP at my band's label, a very smart businessman, gave me some advice before we left for tour. He said, “It's not a major booking agency that will get you the best tours. It's other bands. You need to meet and befriend as many of them as you can. If you make friends with other, bigger bands, they might bring you on tour with them down the line.” And of course it has to be genuine. You can't just suck up to bands for the sake of bribing them to make you more famous. People can see through that. But playing shows should be about having fun playing music and hopefully making new friends in the process. Bands should help each other, not climb over each other to get to the top. You might make it there on your own, snubbing other people en route, but you won't be very well liked, which is never good in the long run.

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