Photo credit: Josh David Jordan
Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?
For the most part, it’s been my personal Jeep Wrangler. It’s logged over 144k miles at this point – not all tours, of course, but plenty of trips out west and up and down city streets, too. A family friend has a fantastic 2006 Chevy Express that he’s been offering us for years that we finally took out to Nevada, and lemme tell you, that thing was as good as a tour bus as far as we were concerned. Looking forward to taking it out more soon. Thankfully, I’ve been lucky to never have broken down on the road – yet. I’m sure it’ll happen at some point. A good reason to have AAA.
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
That’s a good question! As I’ve gotten older I’ve tried to better understand my nutrition and health overall, and generally ascribe to the idea that you should have some sort of protein and a vegetable at most meals. Thankfully a good burger can handle that pretty well, haha, and there’s no short supply of those across the country. But seriously, it’s not such an easy thing when you’re on the road and pressed for time – I try and find balance as best I can. A free hotel breakfast goes a long way if they’ve got halfway decent eggs and maybe an apple or banana to take on the road.
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
Unfortunately, I’m notorious for breaking strings, especially with my band Ottoman Turks. When we were first coming up, I didn’t have a backup guitar to quickly swap out in the event, which led to some improvisation as far as chords and songs go. I’ve learned since then! On average I can count on it happening onstage at least three times a year – and we don’t play that many shows! What can I say, when I’m up there, I go for it. It’s not the most expensive part of being a musician, but if I added it up I’m sure I’d be shocked.
Where do you rehearse?
For the past year or so, I’ve been lucky to have access to the State Fair Records warehouse space, owned by their founder Scott Davis. As far as practice spaces go, it’s pretty swanky – lots of gear, a drum kit always set up, and best of all, a really great A/C! They process orders and have meetings there sometimes. Before that, we were using the Zounds Sounds space, which is a rock n roll music school run by fellow musicians Marc and Amy Solomon. Sometimes we’d get there early and hear the end of kids’ rehearsals, which was fun. The youth are the future, and they rock.
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
Oh, man. It’s hard to track in my memory what the FIRST song was, specifically. The first song I think I wrote music AND lyrics AND it got performed was a song called “Spinning Circles” for my first band The Hot Tickets. It was a sort of gypsy-punk tune about the protagonist’s girlfriend turning into an eldritch horror right in front of him.
The bridge:
“I know it seems like science fiction, but I have every conviction,
The hunger in her eyes is clear, she tells me she can smell my fear
My darlin’, what have you become
My darlin’, what have you become
My darlin’, what have you become”
Describe your first gig.
So, in 2007, The Hot Tickets figured we had about three originals and enough Strokes covers to last a lifetime. Somehow (probably through Myspace? although I don’t remember how exactly) we were contacted to play a battle of the bands at a long-defunct venue called the Max. It was off the highway in the Dallas suburb Farmer’s Branch. We had no pedals, so we had to tune using my old classical guitar tuner offstage beforehand and hope for the best for our (admittedly very short) gig. It was exhilarating and terrifying. Another band we played with had one original and then tried to make up the rest of their songs on the spot, which went worse than anything we did, so that helped. We didn’t win (never have won a battle of the bands), but it was the first of many, many gigs, so I guess in a way we did.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
Last year I got a job working for the AT&T Performing Arts Center in the Dallas Arts District, working on the marketing team. It relates directly to work I’ve done for years in music. As for favorite jobs, that’s tough – it’s always been a means to an end, and the end has pretty much always been music. I’ve done a lot of different things – working retail, driving buses, working construction, serving, teaching 7th graders math… my favorite day job might’ve been collecting unemployment over the COVID lockdowns, haha.
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’s definitely increased, at least marginally. There comes a point in your career where you stop taking the no-money gigs and start valuing your work more, which helps, and in general the volume of gigs has increased. Hopefully that keeps growing as I look to take my career to the next level through more touring. I recently signed with Atomic Music Group, which I hope to work with to that end.
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
You don’t have to know everything from the start. You don’t have all the technique, to know all the bands, you don’t have to know what’s cool or what’s not, the history of this or that or what every guitar part is. Part of the joy of it is the learning and the discovery. The folks who know it all aren’t cooler than the folks that don’t. You’ll get there, slowly, the way it should be.