Photo credit: Letitia Smith
Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?
Currently I have a Hyundai Santa Fe. Good family car. Much better than many other cars I’ve toured in. Back a few years, I had gotten a minivan from my in-laws, built a bed in back, storage underneath etc. My wife made curtains. I set out on tour from Austin, had some dates up to the Midwest where I was going to meet up with Slaid Cleaves to play Club Passim in Mass. I was driving through the Poconos and not too far out of Scranton the transmission gave out. It was close to 20 years old. I called my cousin who was living just outside of NYC in New Jersey and she drove down and picked me up. The van is still there as far as I know.
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
In Europe they are pretty nice about feeding ya. There are some great places in the States that will also buy you dinner. Festivals, I take full advantage (Freshgrass festivals are my favorite craft services) but mostly I only eat once a day. I try to make it a point to eat vegetables most of the time because inevitably I’ll end up at some local greasy joint, with the food I want, but can only have in moderation. Lotta coffee and water.
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
I don’t break that many anymore (knock on wood). I think my strings are like $10/pack. I play 3 guitars so I try to change ‘em all monthly… so I guess $360/year but probably less.
Where do you rehearse?
Our rehearsal space is shared with 4 other bands (Evan Charles, Harvest Thieves, and some other band whom I’ve never met). It’s a glorified closet with a not great PA, that could double as a kiln half the year. But it’s what we got and in Austin practice space lock outs have become more sought after when a few places shuttered post COVID.
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
The first song I wrote you is one you will never hear. It was called “Rosarita.” Before the turn of the century, I was living in Los Angeles and would drive down to Rosarito Mexico with my friends quite often. I generally had to cancel my credit cards when I got back to the States. And, I got rolled and woke up on the sidewalk once. The last time I went down there was a few days before I knew I was moving back to the Midwest. On that trip my friend and I both got roofied and I woke up in my hotel room and he woke up in the little jail. I had to make multiple withdrawals from multiple ATMs to buy him out of custody. Anyway, once I got back to Ohio, I was still able to go to the doctor on my parents insurance so I went and got a full diagnostic check up. They told me that I didn’t have any diseases and that I was fairly healthy. So I was driving through Springdale Ohio, listening to CCR, smoking a pinner joint, and I stopped in to a western wear store and bought a straw cowboy hat. I went back to my parents house and wrote a song about those frequent trips down into Baja. In retrospect, it is not a good song. Even the title is not the name of the town that I would go to. But I had written a complete song… I think I’ve done better since but that’s not up to me to decide. “Let’s go to Rosarita, you and I can take that dive, will get drunk on gold tequila, I’ll buy gas if you will drive”. I’m still waiting on my Pulitzer for that one.
Describe your first gig.
I honestly can’t remember what my first gig was. My first audition for music was to be a busker for the city of Cincinnati. I played “Blue Umbrella”, the John Prine song. I would love to answer this question, but it’s a blur of coffee shops and tucked away bar corners and places that would not be considered “venues” by any stretch of the imagination.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
My last day job, which I recently left after eight years, was being the artistic/creative/programming Director for the House Of Songs. Before that, I had so many jobs, mostly being a line cook. And I screen printed for quite a few years when I wasn’t on tour and back home in Austin.
My favorite day job was for The House Of Songs when I was able to curate collaborations and put artists who didn’t know each other in the same room to become friends and create new music. My favorite part of that was when I ran the Songwriter Summits where I’d have 6 to 8 artists from around the world live together for a week and write together, and we’d premiere the new material at different festivals. A lot of great friendships were made in those things, a lot of very cool music was written, a lot of people have ended up working together on other things after the fact because they met… And I got to be the mad scientist.
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?
I know it’s changed quite a bit. I am able to work in a lot of different genres, and I’m always trying to write different kinds of songs. I still really like writing ballads and singer/songwriter type material that I can do on my own, but playing with RESTOS, we are actively all writing together and there are no parameters on genre. It just has to be good and hopefully we can cover the spectrum of rock ‘n’ roll and come up with something that maybe hasn’t been heard before. It’s the best band and unit of musicians I’ve had the pleasure of working with.
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
That people would stop buying CDs and they would make a music free.