Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?
I’ve had so many hilarious ‘tour vehicles’…they become a part of the family. Names and all. Whenever any of them won’t start, I feel sad and worried about the car itself as if it has actual feelings and its counting on us to heal it.
Once, I was trying to get back to Nashville with a band from a show in Marion, OH in order to get to my car to get to a show in Memphis to play with Michael (McDermott)…our driver took a wrong turn and we ended up in Lexington instead of Louisville…back on the highway after the discovery, we got behind a major crash so we were stranded with thousands on the highway for 3 hours. Apparently one for each fatality. It smacks things into perspective. Meanwhile I missed the show in Memphis…Michael blamed my driver for a Preacher stealing $1000 dollars from ‘drunk him’ after his show- he says he is certain if I were there that I would have deterred that. Silver-ish lining…2 of our treasured songs came out of that whole deal.
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
(Warning- this is not sexy…)
Not only are we ‘nuts’, we LOVE NUTS!!! We stock up on organic almonds, peanuts and bag them up into sandwich bags.
I am the QUEEN of travel snack packing and stashing. I pack fruit, nuts, drink pouches, as fill as many reusable water bottles as we have. Also Pita chips and pretzels are a staple.
We traded in our Sub shops and a lot of our bad habits after we had our kid to save money and stay healthy…but everrrrrry now and then…we just might hold ourselves up in a Subway Sub shop.
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
I only break violin strings if I forget to loosen them before it goes on a plane…my very first show at 30A in Florida, I opened my case at soundcheck and the sweet D string was snapped-the first time I did NOT have an extra D for emergencies! Typically, violin players are not so warm and fuzzy about ‘other’ violin players (I’ll never understand this) BUT the opening act had a fiddle player who humbly handed over his spare…violin strings are at very most 10 bucks a string but I beat the heck out of my bow when I play and to re-hair is up to $100 on my ‘good’ bow, once a year. My bandmates refer to me as Charlie Daniels when they see my bow hair fraying on stage 🙂
(I was told he used to sever his horse hair deliberately to make him look like he’s really rocking out…but this is folklore, of course)
Where do you rehearse?
My rehearsal space in literally, my kitchen counter. Anything and everything I play or learn, I’m sitting at the kitchen counter.
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
Carpe Diem. “…and I watch the busy cars and pin-striped suits as they go by before my eyes..and I’ve jumped aboard band-wagons just like they do but I’m not them-I am music…I will seize this one and only chance-experience each second…til the beating of my metronome stops cold, just like my father’s.”
Describe your first gig.
I took my last final exam in Madison and drove straight to Minneapolis in a borrowed van taking only violin, roller blades and some clothes in a small suitcase. I landed this dream Night Club house band gig where the who’s who of Minneapolis star musicians were collected…but I was the last one brought on after they already had all of their spots – apparently they fired someone to hire me and the girls backstage would trip me and find clever ways to haze me.
When I left the band to move to Chicago to pursue my actual solo career, they all threw a party for me and made speeches and apologies for putting me through hell. It was the beginning of many, many more vindication-through-horror stories to come.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
I was asked to fill in for a friend at an outdoor Chicago shopping mall where she gave concerts to little kids at a children’s clothing boutique…yeah. It was to be for one hour one day…I ended up doing it for a year because I fell so in love with the adorables…
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
I am glad I didn’t know, or care to know a damn thing…because in actuality, I still don’t really understand any of it-just that I couldn’t live to do anything else and I couldn’t live without it.