Miles and Miles and Miles
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, Kylee Swenson Remix Editor
For a musician, there's nothing like getting in a van with four of your friends and hitting the road. If you don't get the opportunity to tour nine months of the year — what with all the bills, full-time job, ties at home and, well, lack of tour support — to finally have a couple weeks to get out there is pretty awesome.
You can play shows in your hometown month after month, but when you're superfamiliar with the clubs you're playing at and the people you're playing to, it's a little safe and limiting after a while. If you really want to make your mark, you need to take a risk and perform in front of people who have never seen you live.
If you don't have a tour booker, the part that isn't so fun is lining up shows in cities where the club bookers don't know you. But if you've got some buzz in your hometown and have released an album or two, you can start to make relationships with out-of-town bands, bookers and fans.
Of course, as a relatively unknown band touring to a new city for the first time, there's a very real possibility of playing to four people in some dingy club with a crappy P.A., but you still need to play your best show to those four people. Sometime in the early '90s, a couple people I know saw a No Doubt show, and even though there were less than 20 people in the room, the band put all of its energy into performing and made themselves 20 new fans, who in turn spread the word.
There are ups and downs to touring, for sure. On my band's last trip to SXSW in Austin, Texas, we had to stay at some pretty awful motels, including one we lovingly called “The Crime Scene Inn.” I'm not just talking about a hotel room so sketchy that you can't sleep under the covers; I'm suggesting that the dried blood on the sheets made me question my safety. We also had some interesting things happen in Deming, New Mexico and Olympia, Washington, which I won't go into so as to avoid offending the tourist boards in those cities. But even the bad experiences became fodder for funny stories when people asked, “How was the tour?”
It's the best feeling when you drive out of the rehearsal space parking lot with a ton of gear, a cooler full of food and some excited bandmates ready for the road. As you'll read in this month's “Band Aid” column, touring is an important part of building your “brand” as a band, but it doesn't have to be a chore.
If you're like me, you'll save up all your vacation days like a fat, greedy squirrel gathers nuts and play in any city that'll have you. After all, touring is how the artists featured in this issue got to where they are now. By the time you read this, I'll be gone…to Texas or bust. There are more crappy motels and In-N-Out Burger joints ahead of me, but I'll love every minute of it.
| Want to use this article? Click here for options! |  |
