Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?
We don’t own. We fly around a lot and often rent vehicles where needed. The worst van experience was with another band I was playing in. We had just embarked on a 13 hour drive from Winnipeg to Calgary to begin a 3 week or so tour. About 5 hours into the drive the transmission started shaking like crazy. We had no choice but to finish the drive and by the time we got to Calgary the van was fucked and the band had to buy a new van the next day.
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
Everything when it comes to tour is about moderation and balance. For eating cheaply, it’s tough these days as everything is expensive. For eating healthy, it’s a matter of making the choices that aren’t the simple and accessible ones. We try our best!
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
I don’t want to jinx it, but I don’t usually break a ton of strings. I broke one string last year on the last song of the last show of the tour. Packs of strings are fairly inexpensive, but I prefer dead/worn in strings anyways.
Where do you rehearse?
We have a couple of studios we frequent a lot when it’s time to rehearse. We’re on the road so much that we really get the reps by playing so many shows. Lately we’ve been doing full production rehearsals at venues as it feels a lot more like it should when we do it for real.
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
The first song was called ‘Why’ and a sample lyric was as bland as you probably expect. ‘Why do I feel like this?’. I sincerely can’t remember anything else of it. Maybe I’ve blocked it out of my memory.
Describe your first gig.
My first ‘gig’ was at 14 years old playing guitar in a pit band. I sucked at reading music and my feel was bad too but I learnt a lot.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
Telemarketer. I despised all of my jobs that didn’t involve playing music so I think I made the right choice.
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
Don’t wait by the phone or your computer for things to happen, go out there and make it happen for yourself!