Tell us about your tour vehicle.
We have gone through many touring vehicles in our career, but we are currently so lucky to be driving a 2001 Freightliner bandwagon that was originally built as the hot air balloon mobile for Wells Fargo bank. We found it on Facebook marketplace in 2022 while we were on tour through New Mexico. It was such a fluke that we even went to look at it and once we saw it in person and drove it, we knew we had to have it. It has air brakes and we probably should have our CDL to drive it but because it is technically a RV, we are able to slide under the restrictions. It has been such a great vehicle for us. It can ride 10 people and all of our gear and it can sleep up to 6. We call it “The Rig” and we love it so much.
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
The main way that we attempt to eat cheaply and healthily on the road is to bring huge boxes of Perfect Bars that we get from Costco. They are a meal replacement bar and have tons of protein and everyone in the band likes them.
Another way that we try to eat in a cheap and healthy way is to order from either Jersey Mike’s, Jimmy John’s, or Chipotle. Each of those places has options that are decent and store well in our cooler so a lot of times we can get two meals out of one main menu item.
Last, but at least, we try to stock the cooler with tons of seltzers, non-alcoholic beers, and kombucha. This helps us watch our alcohol intake and keeps us feeling better for the long-haul.
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
Wow, what a great question. We probably break a string or two every tour. The expensive part comes in because we try to change all of our strings every couple of weeks. This keeps our instruments sounding bright and fresh and helps us play better. We probably spend $300-400 a year on strings alone.
Where do you rehearse?
Our rehearsal space is our tiny house. Austin and I live in a small garage apartment that my dad built back in the early 2000s. It’s about 400 ft.². We typically rehearse in the morning when we’re feeling the most creative or at night when we’re trying to unwind. When we rehearse with the bigger band, we oftentimes have to rent theater spaces or rehearse at a friend’s house.
One time we rehearsed in a storage unit and the lights were on a timer. The entire space kept going dark every 30 minutes and it was pretty terrifying to be in a teeny metal and concrete box while it was pitch black. Not great for my claustrophobia!
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
I was probably in the fifth or sixth grade when I wrote my first song. It was a very endearingly precocious song I called “Under the Sun.” Looking back it sounds like a jingle for sunscreen or tanning lotion, but my twelve year old self wanted it to be an anthem for recognizing the beauty of humanity. I can still hear the melody and lyrics in my head: “we’re all under the same sun, we’re all under the same spotlight, we’re under the same sky, but you’re still asking me why, we are under the sun.”
Describe your first gig.
Our first gig for Chatham Rabbits was at the Saxapahaw General Store just a few miles away from where I grew up in the Piedmont of NC. We played for tips and free lunch and cane sugar sodas. At the time we didn’t have many original songs so we played a lot of old-time tunes and Gillian Welch covers. Those were the good all days.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
Austin used to be a financial planner and I was a Montessori music teacher. We both absolutely loved and thrived with what we were doing, but we wanted to embrace our creativity, be our own bosses, and spend more time together. Making music together for a living has been so much more difficult than either of those jobs, but so worth it!
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?
Our music related income has changed over the years mainly because we play more high profile and higher stakes gigs now than we did when we started. We are also able to sell more merch and engage our fans in exclusive events on our farm and small pop-up experiences for our Patreon community. We hope that over the next few years we will be able to rely more on mailbox money and streaming revenue. Right now we have to leave our beloved home and farm for so much of the year to make a living and that’s tough, especially because we want to think about having a kid one day. I also hope that venues across-the-board will get on board with dropping merch cuts from contracts, especially if the band sells their own merch. It is so painful for independent artists across all genres to handover a significant cut of their merch at the end of every night.
Through all of the ups and downs, including Covid, changes to consumer behavior, and norms within the touring industry, we’ve been able to increase our gross income each year we have been a band. I really credit a lot of that to Austin’s business skills, our collective, and our booking agent’s tenacity.
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
I wish someone had told us sooner to embrace who we are and not waste a single second on comparing ourselves to others or trying to be artists that we are not. Austin and I have learned through the years what we are not cool, not hip, not shredders and not esoteric muses. We just love writing songs, playing music with our friends, connecting with fans, and making people feel good. Authenticity is a cornerstone of music, but especially roots music. That’s why we’re all here: To feel something meaningful and rich. I always tell up-and-coming artists to pay attention to what makes them feel most like themselves and to embrace that and share that with their audiences.