Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?
We tour in a 2019 Ford Transit with around 77,000 miles on it, which we bought used. Our most notable repairs are also all from our most notable breakdown stories — getting a flat on the way to Oxford, MS, the latch on our door breaking in Atlanta, GA, & we had a window blow out recently — so we’ve been through a window replacement, a door fix, and we now have our spare tire mounted on a rack on the back of the van. But it sure beats touring in a minivan with a trailer, like we started out doing!
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
We eat a lot (and I mean a *lot*) of Chick-Fil-A, Chipotle, Cava, and Tropical Smoothie, which seems to treat us all well, constitutionally speaking. I think we’ve found our groove in terms of accommodating everyone’s diets and tastes, and we usually try to cook together when we get an opportunity at the occasional AirBnB.
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
Guaranteed at least one fiddle, guitar, and mandolin string per trip out for a tour run. Each of us handles our own maintenance and repairs individually, but I’m sure the grand total of costs would shock us! It would be really (*really*) nice to have our strings paid for or provided one day.
Where do you rehearse?
We rehearse at our drummer’s & keys player’s house, in their living room typically. We’ve always maintained some kind of homebase practice space at one of the members’ houses, and perhaps the best part of our current setup is that Jacob & Keegan’s neighbors haven’t hassled us a single time about being so occasionally loud. I think we also all enjoy the cozy, beverages-on-tap if you want ‘em vibe of being at each other’s houses.
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
“She’s Got Brooklyn” is the song’s title. “Absolutely, sweep you off your feet — she’s got ‘Brooklyn’ written on her knee. Absolutely, sweep you off your feet — she’s good lookin’, take a shot on me”
Describe your first gig.
It was a backyard DIY show, and at the time only three of the five of us were even technically *in* the band, with Matty’s brother and sister-in-law filling positions temporarily. We ended up having to disperse early because of a local noise ordinance, which seemed to set the precedent for our continuing record of encountering disaster (vehicle malfunction, show cancellation, terrible weather) and sorta persevering through it as a family.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
As a group, we all still do a mix of things to make ends meet when we’re off the road — valeting, remote marketing work, a donut shop, a drum shop, a coffee shop, an ice cream store — but personally I’ll always miss my first job in food service as like, a youth the most. I think that was the kind of thing that’s a near necessity for character building in terms of stuff like patience and willpower.
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?
We feel blessed to be in a position now where we can afford to tour as much as we do in a year and not end up in the red, which is a far cry from our college-kid days of losing money on single-show trips outside of Mississippi. We still don’t get to pull grandiose salaries from the band’s income, but I think we all just look forward to one day maybe paying our mortgages off only music-based money.
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
Likely anyone who’s been around long enough knows this fact so deep-down that they think it doesn’t bear repetition to newcomers, but it does: just be a good hang. Nothing is of greater value in the music biz than being *genuinely* kind to people and just having fun making music happen with others. None of any of this needs to be treated like it’s a contest or a competition.