Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?
I currently have a very nice touring vehicle. I am slowing paying off a 2019 Ford Transit 350. Prior to this, I toured mostly in my 1995 Toyota Previa, which was my heart and soul, the love of my life. It took me on my first tours, moved me around the country as I tried to find a home, and eventually brought me back to Winnipeg. In 2022, I rolled it on the highway. I hit a snow drift and then hit a semi. The van was destroyed and I was devastated – never thought the loss of a material thing would crush me like that, but this van was a through-line through my life when everything else was changing.
That said, everything else was changing. I was starting to tour the Boy Golden project, which meant being on the road with 5-6 of my best friends. I was shaken up by my car accident, and was afraid (and still am) of getting into an accident on the road with all my friends. So, I went out on a limb and financed this big nice vehicle that has a ton of airbags that actually work. This life is the only life I know, but it’s not worth dying for, I want to be safe on the road.
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
I eat quite healthy on the road these days, although that was definitely a learning curve. My eating ethos on the road is simply to not snack. In the morning, I make some instant oatmeal with nuts and berries, and then I wait until I can eat something good, like a sandwich, burrito, or salad in the afternoon. Forgoing gas station snacks just makes me feel better. I would rather fast than eat something that will make me feel bad. These days though it’s harder and harder to eat cheap! Especially in Canada, everything is expensive.
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
Like 2-3 strings. I play light. I never change my strings either so I probably spend at most $100 a year on strings!
Where do you rehearse?
I don’t have a rehearsal space so much as a little home studio. I share a house with my roommate Madeleine Roger (great folk singer-songwriter) and the house is her childhood home. Her father is an audio engineer and he built an addition onto the house to be a studio. I now run my studio out of the house. It’s pink, it has like 9 acoustic guitars in it, all different, there is art on the walls and 3 different types of tape machines on the desk. There are typewriters as well. I love it there and I miss it dearly when I’m on the road.
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
Oh lord. Uhm. ‘Cook me up something in the oven. Cook me up some good old fashioned lovin’
That’s all I remember of it haha. I’m not sure what I knew about old fashioned lovin’ at 13 years old.
Describe your first gig.
First gig was at the strip club in my hometown believe it or not. Georgie’s. We were quite young so we weren’t allowed to go into the strip club part only the lounge. We also weren’t really allowed in the lounge. I think my second gig was opening up for a band I would later join at a little cafe in my home town.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
My last day job was snow shoveling in Winnipeg not very long ago. 2021 I guess? This is the first time I haven’t had some type of day job. Although, running this project has become the most all-consuming job I have ever had, by far. I miss the simplicity of having a day job and being an artist when I wasn’t at the day job. I really liked my job bartending, doing the door, doing sound at my local honky tonk, Times Change(d) High & Lonesome Club in Winnipeg. That was a great job.
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?
It has changed dramatically. I’ve always been able to get by. Most of my life I was either playing in a band or being hired to play in a band. This is very different from being a bandleader. I would get paid a set amount and I would live on it. Simple! Like having a job.
Now, I take in a lot more money, but it literally disappears through the fingers like sand. Say you play a festival gig and they pay you a lot of money – like 10 grand. Well, for most artists their agent will take $1000 off the top and their management will take another $1500. Now it is a $7500 gig. Now you have to pay for flights for 6 people, which in Canada is easily another $2500, hotels, maybe $500. You’re down to a $4500 gig now. Then, I pay my band a living wage, so that’s another $2500, plus their per diems and mine, and by the time all is said and done, I maybe come home with $750.
So basically, the income has gone up dramatically, but the net income has stayed pretty much the same. As my fees have increased, so have my expenses. But that’s okay, because so has the quality of the life. We have a safe van. We play nice gigs. I sell more merch. That sort of thing.
In the next 5-10 years I’m hoping that more of the income is from passive streams like royalties and more of it will hopefully be from making records. We’ll see!
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
The best thing you can do is write more. No artist ever wishes they had made less art. Write every day, at least a little bit. Journal, write poetry, fiction, essays, songs, little bits of songs, write letters. The more you write the better your life gets and the better your art gets. Simple!
Your work as an artist is to create art, developing your artistic practice is thus the most important thing you can do!