Photo credit Jacq Justice
Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?
Our vehicle is whichever 15-passenger, high-roof Ford Transit that Bandago Van-Rental rents to us. We had a 15-passenger Ford E-350, Paco, from 2010-2017 that we drove until she could no longer carry on. Literally, the engine locked up and we left it on the side of the road outside Thomasville, GA. A fan bought it for parts and picked it up, we didn’t even clean it out.
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
Honestly it’s hard to do both. Whole Foods is always great, not always cheap though. We try to avoid fast food at the very least, and make sure to have plenty of healthy stuff on our rider.
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
I probably average 2.73 strings broken per show. If we play 100 shows in a year (that’s pretty typical for us), that’s about 46 packs worth of strings. The strings I use are $6-$10/per pack, so that’d be ~$276-$460 per year.
That being said, I’m contemplating changing my strings before every show going forward, so that number could potentially balloon to $600-$1000.
Where do you rehearse?
It’s a quaint little space, located in my imagination. We don’t have a proper rehearsal space. We live in 3 different cities now, so it’s not really cost effective for us to keep a space year-round. When we rehearse we typically hole up in an airbnb, rehearsal space, or a studio in Nashville, Athens, Atlanta, or Savannah.
Our last rehearsal space was an old warehouse attached to an auto-mechanics shop on the outskirts of Athens. It was a run-down, dainty little spot with several rehearsal rooms, of which we had 1. The whole place smelled like cigs, and you had to crank the dial every 30 minutes to keep the AC on. I slept there once, yikes.
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
Unfortunately I lost the hard drive that I recorded all of my pre-20yo music on. I’m not super bummed about that, they were not good. One of the first songs I ever wrote was called “Last winter”, the first line of the chorus was “but I remember, last winter”.
Describe your first gig.
My first gig ever was a battle of the bands, at some venue in a strip mall in Gwinnett County, GA. We both played acoustics, we did not win, was pretty humiliating but overall a hurdle that had to be conquered.
My first gig with Futurebirds was opening for Dr. Dog at a sold out Tasty World in Athens, GA. Was an experience I still treasure, the crowd was great, and is a great example of how Athens shows out for new, young bands.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
A buddy of mine hooked me up with a job where I’d bid for TV repair jobs and then drive around the state of Georgia fixing people’s TVs as a 3rd party contractor via the warranty companies. I was not qualified, but it was pretty easy and paid well. That was my last day-job.
My favorite non-music day job was running around with my buddy Robert. We painted murals, built decks, painted houses, built art installations he designed (he’s a great artist), landscaped backyards, and other random things. I learned a lot about so many things, mostly had fun, and got to hang with a buddy while making $20/hour, pretty solid day 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?
We experienced some very tangible growth during the pandemic, we were lucky enough to get our album Teamwork out in January 2020, and were able to market, promote, and tour behind it before everything got swallowed into the Covid vortex. When we came out of the other side of the pandemic we were able to focus exclusively on music, without day jobs. We’re not rolling in it by any means, but things are comfortable in a way they weren’t for the first 12 years of our existence.
Ideally, things grow exponentially, but I’m hoping for continued growth as we really hammer down on the various potential income streams that we haven’t really nurtured to this point, while also experiencing steady growth on the touring side.
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
The destination is a mirage.