Hello again. We may only be five days into March, but we have a good feeling this month is going to be something special. Our features thus far have been fairly exciting, and this afternoon we are rolling out the third – and perhaps best- installment of Eric Morgan’s How To Kill Your Band series. We run this column every other week and encourage anyone who enjoys the material found below to visit previous editions of HTKYB they may have missed. If you have any questions regarding the content of this blog, or if you would like to learn more information about the services offered by Haulix, please email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
An Introduction:
I’ve been in the music industry as an artist for nearly 10 years now. In that decade I’ve achieved nearly all of my childhood music dreams, but I’ve also made just as many mistakes that run over my mind before I fall asleep each night. A wonderment of how a few different decisions, rerunning in hindsight, would work out in some alternate universe. This ever creeping determinism is a fallacy I’m quite aware of but one that I will never completely shake, though it’s these experiences I’ve learned the most valuable lessons. These are the things I’d like to share in a series of mini-blogs I call How to kill your band.
#3 – Road Burn
In my last post, I discussed my ‘$200 Hump Theory’ and how breaking through that barrier signals the difference in a band’s financial outlook. However it can take a few, if not many, $100/night tours to get to that point. In that post I mentioned how important it is to tour smart, and now I’m going to give the five most important money saving tips I’ve learned during my time on the road.
1. Stick to water.
Probably the most overlooked facet of tour is it’s effect on your health – fast food, limited sleep, and catering exclusively from Little Caesar’s every damn night wrecks your entire body. Not to mention living and sleeping in a cesspool of germs that take advantage of your weakened immune system. All these things work together to do one thing – make you feel like shit. And when you’re under the weather, it’s a lot easier to justify superfluous purchases on comfort items like junk food and soda which only perpetuate the problem.
This simple rule is by far the hardest for me personally, but it really does make a difference. Not only does sticking to water make you feel better in general, it saves an easy $5 per day. A little trick I learned from Patrick Jeffers during AHAF’s touring days was to fill your water bottles up whenever you stop at gas stations. All the soda fountains carbon filter their water and we’ve never been given trouble from owners, though I reckon spending hundreds of dollars of gas at the same time helps.
2. Free Breakfast
Skipping a meal is an easy way to save money but it’ll just make you hungrier later and that only ends up countering your first move. Plenty of bands do their best to sleep through breakfast but we learned early on that there was a much (well, not that much) tastier trick – continental breakfast. Rather than sleeping in a Walmart parking lot, we always preferred the more serene quarters behind a Hotel Inn Express. In addition to not being tempted all night by Walmart’s endless spoils, there’s the benefit of being just a 30 yard walk from hot free breakfast. Even though the front desk clerk that watched you plow through their parking lot isn’t usually the same one working in the morning, you should still be smart about how you walk in – mainly don’t all half dozen homely looking dudes walk in at the same time. Stagger it.
This might sound sort of like stealing…and well I can’t really argue that. However in four years of touring, I’ve only ever been kicked out of one hotel breakfast. While I’m sure more managers figured out what we were doing, being a courteous and clean definitely keeps you from getting the boot. In fact we’ve befriended some pretty cool people working at these hotels, several of which even ended up coming out to shows.
3. Grill the fuck out.
We first learned the art of tour bbq from Dr. Acula on the RAGE Tour but it took a while for us to start grilling ourselves. A couple years ago my girlfriend gave the band her old portable charcoal grill and that was the spark we needed to finally start cooking on the road. From grilled wieners n’ beans to marinated chicken with roasted vegetables, we never ate better fourth meals than tours with the grill Not only was it delicious, but it ended up being significantly cheaper for all of us to pool our money on bulk items.
For touring bands, that fourth meal is more important than dinner in most cases. On your typical day the band loads in by 3pm, gets “catering” (Little Caesar’s) at 7pm, but doesn’t finish packing and settling with the promoter until after midnight. By the time you’re on the road scoping out the next sleeping lot, it’s been 12 hours since your last bite. Grilling out to finish off the night is not only an effective way to curb the hunger pangs, but it gives you something to do with your bandmates. The boost in morale and camaraderie are pleasant side effects of saving money grilling out and something that helped us all unwind at the end of the night.
Looking back at my tips, I think there’s an obvious theme here: food is expensive. Other than gas, it’s the most costly aspect of life on the road. This also means it’s the area where your personal choices can have the greatest impact on your bottom line. Being smart with your food choices can mean a difference of hundreds to thousands of dollars over the duration of a tour. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but if you’re just starting out touring I hope it helps keep some cash in your wallet.
If you have any tips of your own, please let us know below.
This column was contributed by Eric Morgan. Eric spent a number of years touring the world as part of the Victory Records band A Hero A Fake. He’s currently developing a new project,Bornstellar, which plans to release its first EP later this year. Click here to learn more about Eric’s time in music.
