So this week I am here to give you an idea of life on the road during Fear Zero’s tour in ‘07.
There is an old mantra practiced by many musicians that goes something like this, “What goes on the road, stays on the road.” No need to cover your kid’s eyes, this one is clean.
The tour we did in ‘07 was a nasty one. 35 shows in 42 days from Vancouver to Halifax and back. Many people I talk to assume the life of a musician is easy breezy, up at noon, party all afternoon, rock all night, groupies, sleep till noon repeat 7 days a week. Hate to break it to all you aspiring musicians out there but that is not the life of an independent musician in Canada (unless your name is Jeremy Harrison lol.) Sorry Jer, couldn’t resist!
For one thing, the driving is outrageous. The shortest trip we ever make on a cross Canada tour is 4 hours and many stretch into double digits such as Montreal to Halifax etc. The band travels in a van that is not designed for comfort but for cargo space so your back gets pretty damn sore sitting there all day.
This is a typical day:
8:00am - Get up after getting to bed at 3am.
8:30am - Pack gear back into van from hotel room or storage area in hotel. We did this because we heard so many horror stories about bands waking up to find their van and gear that they were too lazy/tired to hump into safe storage the night before, gone the next morning.
9:00am - Find local Tim Horton’s get “cafee ‘n bits” as our roadie liked to do, maybe hit grocery store if close, and check itinerary for next show including directions to venue or wherever we are scheduled to be that day.
10:00am - Drive between 4 and 8 hours (possibly longer,) to next town sometimes doing interviews by cell phone on local radio stations in advance of show. Also, call club owner to double check that the gig is not double booked and then find out if they remembered to get us accommodations.
3:00pm - Go to sound check and set up gear, then go to radio station to do interview/live on air performance if scheduled or vice-versa.
5:00pm - Locate hotel, motel or band room. I prefer hotels as band rooms always suck.
6:00pm - Get dinner if there is time then have a shower. If not time, eat some greasy concoction the “pub chef” has made up for us at the venue.
7:30pm - Head back to the venue and set up banners, set up merch table, tune instruments, wait for time slot, put in guest list at front, get change for merch table.
8:30pm - Do warm-ups to get ready for show, help other bands sell merch if needed.
10:00pm - Get onstage, play anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours worth of music.
11:30pm - Get offstage, meet and greet audience, help sell merch while the rest of the band loads the gear off the stage.
12:30am - Add up earnings from nights CD and t-shirt sales.
1:00am - Search for club manager to get paid. Usually they tell you to wait till “cash out” so you are stuck there till 2am at the earliest.
1:15am - Pack gear into van.
2:15am - Get paid (if any money was made that is) and head to hotel.
2:30am - Load gear into hotel rooms or storage area.
3:00am - Sleep and repeat for as many days as scheduled in a row which was usually 5 or 6 on that tour.
As you can see, this job is not for the faint of heart.
Don’t get me wrong, the hour and a half onstage makes the rest of the bull worth it but just barely lol!
Next week I will let you know what happened to me after working too hard on that tour.
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