Bands on the Run

Life on the road is part of the job when you’re in a band. It can feel monotonous, it’s often chaotic and sometimes it’s even inspiring. As part of an occasional series, we asked several south Louisiana bands to share their insights from recent trips on the road through images and their own words.

Recent gigs: June tour up the West Coast from Los Angeles to Vancouver; then across the pond in August with shows in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the United Kingdom and more.
Online: generationals.com

Too many to name. So many places have been great to us this year. Bowery Ballroom in New York was amazing. So was Lincoln Hall in Chicago.

Not much down time when we are touring. A random game of ping pong here and there maybe.

Sometimes you just see people who get a little too out of hand and they will do something crazy like try to run onto the stage. In San Diego, a girl tried to climb on stage and play my keyboard before being grabbed and thrown out by venue staff. The vast majority of people who come to our shows are really nice and just dance, but there are inevitably some wilder ones who get over-served and then lose their minds. It’s sometimes funny/tragic to watch.

Recent gigs: An April tour in the southeast United States, which included Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas.
Online: promdatemusic.com

What really makes shows stand out are the people you perform with and for. Sharing multiple dates with our friends, [the bands] Chappo and Sphynx, made those shows super-fun. The most impressive place we played at, facilities-wise, was the Bottletree Café in Birmingham, Ala. The sound was great, the management was great, and they fed us, kept us hydrated, and even had some Streamline trailers to offer for lodging. The place drips with character.

You sleep on floors, drink water constantly, have to pee constantly, drink more water, live off peanut butter sandwiches, worship anyone who gives you $5 for merch, count free beer as dinner, listen to other bands, make connections, learn about Steak and Shakes, eat at Steak and Shakes and drive endlessly. You also get paid to play music. It’s honestly a blast. 

We played with this guy on tour who was pretty eccentric—his girlfriend told us that he earned his living by operating a gay phone sex website with a name that’s probably not fit for print. In Shreveport, we got to play on a multi-tier stage, which had Steven playing above the rest of the band and Christine climbing up and down ladders while singing.

Recent gigs: Tampa, Fla.; Mass Ska Raid in Atlanta in August.
Online: facebook.com/SquirtGunWarriors

Most days are spent making long drives to the next city you are playing that night. You spend the entire day waiting to get there and then once you are there, you just re-start the waiting process until it’s your turn to play. You find different ways to pass the time—Frisbee, city exploring, meeting people in bands. On the last tour, our guitarist Aidan brought this tiny gas-powered portable stove, and we would cook meals when we could.

It’s not a life of luxury, and it isn’t for everyone. Most nights on tour, we are sleeping on the floors and couches of people that we have known for under six hours—people we meet at shows who are kind enough to let us crash for the night. Other nights we end up sleeping in the van. But we wouldn’t keep doing it if we didn’t love it.

Absolutely. Every tour is better than the one before. Even in the Internet age, touring remains an incredibly effective way of getting your music out there. It’s a really cool feeling when you are returning to a city and see some of the same people coming out to see you. Definitely keeps us going!

Recent gigs: Jackson, Miss.; Birmingham, Ala.; Pensacola, Fla.; Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Online: facebook.com/humanlikeme

Touring is mostly driving, so we killed all that time by listening to childhood and adolescence jams from Blink-182, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit (strictly for the laughs) and Taking Back Sunday because it’s all we could agree on, even if it sounds a little odd. If we weren’t doing that, we were making sandwiches, writing blog posts about the tour so we look cool, reading and being quiet in the backseat like good children. We did get to kill time on the beach because we spent two days in Pensacola, so that was a smart move.

Yes and no. We garnered memories to be cherished and memories to erase immediately. A perfect example would be spending the whole day at the beach, then spending the night in the emergency room from a concussion brought on by totally un-rock star-like heat exhaustion—and then driving to Athens, Ga., the next day.

All of it came to a head with breaking down in West Memphis, where we basically had to drill holes in the front of the van to hook it up to a U-Haul van and taxi it straight down I-55 through Mississippi to I-12 to get back to Baton Rouge. Had to cancel two shows for that.

Recent gigs: Summer tour in Europe, hitting London, Wales and Sweden.
Online: kristindiable.com

Places where you show up and your heart feels at home. The Standard Deluxe in Waverly, Ala., and Grocery on Home in Atlanta both fit the bill.

Someone once told me, “Every person you meet knows something that you do not. Learn from them.” I’m a big believer in the journey itself being the destination. The opportunity to learn and grow from everyone who crosses your path has been a great joy to me in life and a great gift as a songwriter and storyteller. Being on the road is great, both in giving me space to think and to really connect with and learn from new people I never would have met otherwise.  

Yes, though it builds slowly and without any kind of “tour support” behind us just yet. We haven’t been able to get to some markets as often as I’d like in order to reach that real critical mass. We just signed with Tom Tompson at RubyArts Agency, and the goal for the upcoming year is to be steady on the road—especially more festivals. Live shows are really where the music connects best.