Day 75 - May 25th 2009
Not a whole lot going on today. Just some Barbequing and hanging with my friends along with basking in the glow of last night‘s show (which was a roaring success) and looking towards the future.
Since today is Memorial Day I’ve decided that this is as good a day as any to wrap up this entire touring experience with Bang Camaro. I’ll spare you a narrative because you can read a day by day account of it here on the blog and those of you who have been following me know the story. I’ll just try to stick to what I learned and what not.
It wasn’t too long ago I was a guy that worked 9-5. I had an ok but dead end job, I was hitting the ceiling on my salary and looking for something different to do. Music was my first priority but whenever someone asked me what I did and I answered “I’m a musician” they would ask what do you really do. I had gotten to the point where I was pretty prominent in Philly as an original music artist and expanding into New York and DC. But there are mountains that have to be climbed.
One Craig list Ad changed my life and all of a sudden I found myself being offered a position to tour with Bang Camaro as a vocalist. Be in a rock and roll band, Tour the country, be on TV, a no-brainer right? It wasn’t that easy a decision to make. There was the anxiety of never being away from home, not knowing these guys I was gonna tour with, and the fact that I had to sacrifice quite a bit to do this. The job, my band, the booking agency, I had worked very hard to get the last two to a decent place. I was looking over the edge of a cliff and decided to jump off.
Here I was on stages all around the country, gaining experience, making new friends and contacts. I truly became a part of a brotherhood and like the mafia you can’t get out of Bang Camaro. I did lose some things upon my return home but I gained so much in return. A renewed confidence being the greatest thing of all. I came back knowing that I had what it took to really do this for a living. Now to what I learned.
The most important thing to me was taking care of my body as best as possible. Performing Night in and Night out can really take it’s toll. I learned very early on that I didn’t have the stamina to play a show and then party every night. So in order to last I personally needed to find a bed (or my air mattress) as soon as humanly possible after a gig. I also did my best to eat right, if I could get to a wal-mart and buy some soup or get to a Subway (although I don’t think I could ever eat there again) and get a healthyish sandwich I did that. Basically get as many veggies in your body as possible whenever possible. I quickly learned that I sweat like a slave on stage so for me that meant bringing a towel and dry clothes (including socks and drawers) to change into every night, the worst thing that can happen is you getting sick.
Secondly it became important that I take care of my mind/spirit as much as possible. The tour was pretty overwhelming especially at first. I felt bad wanting to get separation from the guys the first few weeks, but I’m the type that needs a certain amount of solitude so it’s important that I get that just to hold onto my sanity. So whenever we got to a city and finished load in/soundcheck I’d walk in a straight line as far away as was feasible just to get that breather, call home, soak in the scenery.
Third was the pursuit of free. There’s free shit everywhere, it’s free because they want you to have it. Find out where the free is located and make sure you make it there before it runs out.
Number four, it was imperative that I stayed focused and didn‘t lose myself. The road can truly be an amazing experience and it definitely made me a stronger person. But there’s so much stuff out here that has nothing to do with making or performing music and you can get so caught up in it that you can look in the mirror one day and not recognize who you are. There’s no one there who knows you that can check you when you step out of line. I tried to write tunes while I was out and even the action of doing that kept that creative part of me flowing. If I could find a place to play my own tunes, I did that. It helped a lot, not just from a promotional standpoint, it helped anchor me.
Finally I had to learn to lean on my bandmates. If I was goin through anything I knew I could come to someone and talk to them about it, they’ve done this dance before and some insight on how they handled it. I was able to try a lot of things before I figured out the best way to handle it on my own. They were excellent to make sure I didn’t spend to much time withdrawing into myself. I can watch a laptop flick or listen to my ipod for a 16 hour car ride. Sometimes they had to go “Take your ipod off and talk to us” I’m glad they did. I would have missed so much had I not done that.
So that’s basically how I survived two months on the road with Bang Camaro. How I get through the rest of this thing called life. Now that’s the mystery.
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