Photo credit: Jimmy Bruchs
Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?
I’ve got a Mercedez Sprinter. I bought it new maybe 6 or 7 years ago. It’s got a couple hundred thousand miles on it. It’s got 6 captains chairs and four bunks. It beats the hell out of a 16 passenger van, which is what I used for the 15-25 years before that.
In the early 2000’s, when I had the support of a record company, we’d lease tour busses, but they cost way too much to rent for the level of touring that I do. That’s the best way to travel though. The sprinter is great for short hauls (under 4 hours or so) but after that it gets a little tougher.
Once my tour manager put regular gas in the diesel only engine and the engine completely conked out on the way to the gig a few minutes later. That sucked hard, and the tour manager was fired.
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
HUH? haha? cheaply, there’s always food on the rider, so you could just eat that I guess. We also usually stay at Holiday Inn Expresses, and they have an ok morning breakfast. Between that and the food that’s in the dressing room, you really don’t need to spend a cent, but I’m not sure how healthy that is.
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
I think I have a string deal with Addario, so I don’t spend anything on strings. I usually break about one string a show. sometimes I’ll make it through as many as three shows without breaking a string, but that’s rare.
Where do you rehearse?
We don’t rehearse. We’ll sometimes go over material at sound checks, but mostly we learn the songs in front of an audience every Monday night at the Saxon Pub in Austin. we’ve been doing that for twenty years. You get a pretty good idea of what needs work when you’re playing the song in front of people and the guys I play with are the best at interpreting what I write.
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
The first song I remember writing was called ‘love shoes’, and the lyrics went, ‘I’ve got a pair of shoes I like to wear everyday…. but everytime I wear them, I always get the blues, because I’ve always got holes in my love shoes’
Describe your first gig.
I have a picture at my parent’s house, where I’m about 4 years old onstage holding a guitar dressed up like raggedy andy. It’s something I’ve always done. My dad taught me how to play guitar around that age and he’d routinely wake me and my sister up at night and we’d come downstairs and play a few songs for their friends they were partying with. My dad is an opera singer, but he also moonlighted in a cover band, and I imagine that’s where I found myself onstage for the first time.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
The last job I had was my favorite job for sure. I was working as the head artist at a t-shirt shop in Austin, Texas that was owned by a couple of really nice women, who let me show up late for work or not at all most of the time, so it didn’t interfere too much with my gigging and late-night shenanigans. That was back in ’91 and that was the last time I had a job that wasn’t playing music.
How has your music-related income changed over the past 5-10 years? What do you expect it to look like 5-10 years from now?
My income has always been playing live. Except for the early 2000’s, I’ve never made money getting syncs (playing my music in film, television or ads) and I’ve never made a cent selling my records, except for the money I made at the merch booth selling them. I imagine that’s not going to change anytime soon.
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
If I could go back in time and change one thing it would be my name. I do feel like a good name can really do wonders for your career. If I had a name as cool as ‘father john misty’, I’m sure I’d be way more successful than I am today.