Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?
We used to travel in this old Chevy Astro we called “Chevy Van Halen”. This one time we were in North Carolina on the way to open for Robert Earl Keen, when the radiator fritzed and we got stranded about 100 miles outside the gig. Luckily, I’d been doing this for a while so I’ve been a AAA gold member since like 2007 when my brakes kicked out near Tyler Texas, so the tow truck shows up, we tell him our story and he loads up the van and takes us 100 miles to the gig. We pull up right behind Robert’s bus and I hop out with just enough time to jump on stage and play the gig.
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
Yeti gave me this really sweet cooler once, it goes w/ me everywhere, I keep it stocked w/ granola, yogurt, those pouches of puree vegetables, peanut butter and jelly.
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
Nylon strings last forever so I change’em about every 3 months.
Where do you rehearse?
Since I’m solo, I rehearse in my house, sometimes it’s a casual rehearsal, sometimes it’s a full on, timed dress rehearsal, sometimes I skip rehearsal and watch “Law and Order”, it’s really a day-by-day sorta thing.
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
“You Can’t Touch the Sun”, wrote it when I was 18. It opens like this: Please don’t humor me, for I know where I stand, rather where I sit, even better where I lie, on this cold bathroom floor, where you kissed me when I cried, you said art is dead and I said baby so am I.
Describe your first gig.
I was pretty heavy into the Open Mic scene in New Jersey, a whole lot of us would play multiple spots every week at various coffee shops, it was a pretty wild and exciting time, I still remember everyone’s songs from those days.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
Doorman at a rock club was the last gig I had. My favorite day gig was antique furniture delivery, you didn’t need a gym membership you were out all day in the elements listening to college radio in the truck with my buddy Andrew, back in Charlottesville, pulling over at pretty spots on the road to sneak smoke breaks. Good times.
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?
Lol, apparently the saying ought to be if an artist is broke-don’t fix it. Live gig to gig, blood to string, like my buddy Cory Branan says. Expectations are like assumptions – you’ll end up making an ass of yourself.
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
You only know what ya know when you know it. No point in looking back, most folks are doing the best with what they got in any given sitch, trying to make sense of it is like trying paint a portrait in a hall of mirrors.