Photo credit: Sami Drasin
Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?
Sean Johnson: We don’t tour enough to justify owning a tour vehicle, so we end up renting vans as needed. Thank you, Costco! In the past, I owned a 15 passenger Ford Club Wagon and once I hit 100,000 miles, it broke down every single tour. Literally…
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
Johnson: Eating on the road is super tough when you have a limited diet, so you just have to get clever, like bring your own food that could sustain a few days. However, nuts and veggie subs can only take you so far. Luckily though the west coast, where we mostly tour, is generally friendly in the diet department. The MITC is doing research on touring diets and musicians’ overall health if you’re interested.
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
Noah Green: I tend to get about three shows out of my guitar strings on tour. On the third show, I’ll usually get nervous about the possibility of breaking a string and then it will happen. I started using Stringjoy strings in the last year and I do feel like I’ve gotten more life out of my strings than I used to. I’ve purchased about 15 pairs of those strings in the past year for different guitars and they’ve cost me around $175.
Jake Gideon: That varies quite a bit. The hope is that if a string is going to break it happens at practice or at home, rather than on stage, although it can be an exciting act of derring-do to watch someone attempt to seamlessly swap guitars during a song. I use Stringjoy strings, so it ain’t cheap. But maybe if they see this they will send me some free strings. Stringjoy: The World’s Finest Strings.
Where do you rehearse?
Green: Our current practice space is on the ground floor and it got flooded earlier this year. We got our equipment out and off the ground before the flood, but it still smells mildewed. Our old practice space was Downtown Rehearsal and the most exciting thing I remember from there is that during one practice we realized Interpol was rehearsing next door.
Sam Tiger: Tiny, musty, and loud. It’s sometimes hard to hear ourselves over the metal bands next door. I think we’re moving to a new space soon that will hopefully fix at least 2 out of those 3 problems.
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
Green: I started a band with my friends Mehran and Camille around the time I moved to LA in 2000 called Widows & Orphans. It evolved from my 4-track bedroom recordings with a Casio drum machine to practicing with a band, but never playing any shows. The one song I remember from that time was called “Up for Air.” It wasn’t very good, but it sounded a little like something from the first Foo Fighters album. The chorus went, “Everybody’s coming up for air, everybody’s gonna run for cover.”
Describe your first gig.
Green: I didn’t play in bands until my 20s, but the first band I joined that actually played shows was The Henry Clay People, which I played bass in. My first gig with them was some venue deep in Orange County opening for Wheatus in 2006. There were maybe 5 people there the whole night. That was the one show where I played my cheap, mostly broken, Ibanez bass that I’d had since high school. By the following week I’d upgraded to an 80s MIJ Fender P-Bass, which is the only other bass I’ve ever owned. The only other thing I remember from that show is Wheatus being rude and lame.
Johnson: Does my 6th grade talent show count?
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
Green: I currently work for a non-profit to raise money for programs that help make patient hospital stays better. My favorite job was working for Silver Screen Video, a small chain of video stores in Marin County, throughout high school.
Johnson: I work in the entertainment industry and enjoy it, but if drumming in an indie rock band called The Pretty Flowers was a way to make a sustainable living, I’d do that instead. I’m grateful to have the freedom to play on the side though.
Gideon: This isn’t an answer to this question, but I once overheard a guy on the Hollywood and Vine subway platform ask a woman what she did. She said she was a model and then he asked if that’s what she did for work and she said, “I don’t work. I work out.” Best answer ever.
Tiger: I also work in the entertainment industry, freelance. It can be rewarding but it’s also a rollercoaster. My favorite job was my summer working as a lifeguard at a water park in college.
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?
Johnson: I think it’s pretty dire for independent musicians to make a living these days and it’s been seemingly getting worse with each year. Streaming, which is how the majority of people consume, has close to zero payout and touring, with gas, merch splits, low venue rates, etc is getting harder. I see mid-level bands doing ok on the surface, but even then they still have other jobs while not on tour. It’s hard to not have the glass empty here, but unless you’re already established, it’s a pretty sisyphean task to make a living now as a band of our size.
Green: It’s nice to get some residuals from song placements that happened years ago and still happen occasionally, but there’s not much music-related income happening. Any merch or album sales usually go back into the band to fund more merch or recording costs. I fully expect band-related income in 5-10 years to be exactly the same as it is now.
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
Green: That the touring bands I went to see in the 90s that I thought were “making it” because they were out on tour and their records were available, still probably had day jobs and were struggling. Not that knowing that would have changed anything for me at all, because I love making music and feel lucky to be able to do it on my own terms with this band, but it probably would have been good to know that reality earlier than I realized it.
Johnson: I wanted to be a rock star when I was 12 and pursued that full speed. What I didn’t know is that, to use a cliche, it’s more of a marathon than a sprint. The successes I have had were seemingly random and came as an aside to the actual goal. I think appreciating every little crumb that comes my way is healthier than worrying about what I haven’t done.
Gideon: Setting goals is generally a terrible idea. All it does is create more ways to feel like a failure due to things that are entirely out of your control.
Tiger: My dad is a musician with a day job and growing up my parents were always clear that the odds of making a living playing music were slim. If you love playing music it doesn’t matter, I’m always surprised if I get a few bucks after a gig.