Getting Endorsements

I’m often asked how to develop relationships with gear companies, etc.

In my experience, it’s an “if you build it, they will come” scenario. Mesa Boogie, for example, approached the band back in 2012 at the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco - they dug the set and signed us then and there. D’Addario became interested only after numerous sold out shows in LA, and we weren’t on the the head of A&R at Dunlop’s radar until he caught a Bay Area show.

There was, at no point, a strategy, or even a semblance of a game plan - we just did cool shit and, eventually, people took notice. 

So - frustratingly, I know - it’s a long game, but that’s a blessing in disguise. It’s in your best interest to build your thing to a point where it’s undeniable, and on your terms, and it’s in their best interest to partner with artists they believe in. Building to a tipping point’s the only way the two paths meaningfully intertwine. 

Solidarity

I’m attempting to write this while “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” by Pink Floyd’s playing at the Red Bicycle, specifically the intro, wherein not-yet-chubby David Gilmore, at the height of his understated, Britishy powers, plays perhaps the perfect guitar solo. Maybe I should drop acid after all, and embrace a megalomaniacal Roger Waters as the cantankerous brother he is. 

This song has everything I love - obscure lyrics about psychedelic adventurers , not-jazz sax solos, and a rock shuffle into a classic fadeout. Erstwhile songwriters, if there’s ever a formula for success, this is it, or at least a formula for pleasing an unknown musician with scoliosis.

The playlist’s just shifted to the Grateful Dead. I’m as big a John Mayer fan as you’ll find, but he’s perpetrated an egregious crime - making the Grateful Dead popular amongst generations not yet embracing golf and proctology exams - and for that, I’ll in no way make a scene if I’m ever fortunate enough to meet the man, but I feel it’s important sharing that I don’t care for the Grateful Dead, and if you don’t either, consider solidarity voiced. 

Guitar Thoughts

I’m gearing up to teach a few online lessons and figured I’d share a quick thought on approaching the guitar.

Whatever’s fueling the fire in the moment - a riff, solo, melody, whatever - I’m a big fan of reverse engineering the awesomeness. For example, learning “Run Like Hell” by Pink Floyd gives you an understanding of the song, which is great, but not necessarily a deeper understanding of the instrument. The how’s there, but not the why. 

But by practicing triad inversions, the building blocks of the main riff, you not only get the tune, but also a nifty roadmap that’s applicable to everything. 

Now, you can play the song in multiple keys, say, or in a different register, or different position on the neck, or, most importantly, come up with your own thing. You’re in possession of a creative tool, rather than just a lick, primed and ready for Instagram.

TLTL Podcast

The Trevor Larkin Talks and Listens podcast is back! Well, almost, new episodes starting next week.

After being a guest on a few podcasts recently, I was reminded how much I enjoy talking with interesting people and putting it on the internet. That said, it was important stepping away for a while. 

I’m a relentlessly creative person, one who needs multiple outlets to stay sane, but after the Allen Stone tour last fall, I realized I seemed to be doing everything except the thing I wanted most - to make loud rock music with my friends.

So, the podcast went on hold, Climb The Sky was formed, and now that we’re settled into our video and single every month routine, I’m inspired to share some conversations again.

The podcast’s returning to an audio-only format. It was fun adding video, but the show felt most like “me” on the road, with just a couple mics and my trusty Zoom H6. Whenever a camera’s involved, people inevitably slip into show mode - myself included - and I want to capture something more honest and spontaneous.

I hope you enjoy listening as much as I’m enjoying making them, or conversing, or whatever the hell it is I’m doing, which, thankfully, I hardly ever know.  

Reminders

I’ve written about my neighbor Big Country in this newsletter, but I have another neighbor, Don. Just as hillbilly, just as nuts, and just as disconcertingly wise. 

While BC is jovial and, provided extreme caution’s applied, approachable, Don is not. He used to be, but something inside him’s soured, manifesting in ranting, reclusiveness, and hobbled posture. Whatever friends and family used to come around no longer bother. I’ve seen him chase them off, anyway. 

There’re any number of potential reasons why, and my aim isn’t to conjecture overly, or conjure a dark cloud over your morning coffee. I wish I could help Don. I wish I knew him better, or that he’d let me in, even just a little, but I don’t, and he won’t, and that makes me sad. He’s a good man, but that’s just how it is sometimes. 

I’m reminded of tendencies within myself, to withdraw, to feign strength, not to ask for help, to microscopically and insidiously become overrun, and how no wrong, no matter how egregious, prevents me from taking incremental steps towards where I perceive the good stuff to be.

Magnificently Lost

Headphones off, it’s Waylon Jennings, the clacking of designer boots against concrete, and a table of born-again Christians evangelizing in the general direction of eavesdropping hipsters. Oh, Tennessee. 

Headphones on, it’s my pal Louis Baker, crooning about love and forgiveness. Next time, maybe New Zealand won’t let me leave. “Trevor, you’re simply too handsome, and we need your sexual magnetism continually to uplift and inspire.” With predictable humility, I accept the challenge, and am immediately emblazoned on their currency.

I’ve been fortunate enough to travel a whole lot, and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt as deep a connection with a country and people as I did with New Zealand.

Google Flights cued up, curser hovering over “book now,” it’s taking every ounce of restraint not to hop on the next flight and get magnificently lost, all over again. 

Badge of Honor

Four days in Nashville, no longer swimming quite so catastrophically in jet lag, at the trusty Red Bicycle, tapping away on the ol’ keyboard. I’m back, baby! Thank you for tolerating my semi-coherent posts while I was returning to a semblance of normalcy.

The hardest part of touring remains that sense of well, now what? Epic adventures, screaming crowds, cheesing in front of selfie sticks, and then, what, the freaking grocery store? An oil change? The goddamn DENTIST?! It’s like hitting a brick wall, every time.

In a sense, this is where jet lag comes into its own. 2am work outs and 4am trips to an already dubious Kroger solidify a satisfying and still necessary sense of otherness, and all there is to do for the better part of a week’s allow thoughts to roll around one’s depleted noggin, trusting it’ll all make sense when it’s time.  

Fellow touring weirdos, I hope the YouTube rabbit holes are plentiful, and furiously cleaning your house at 5am out of sheer desperation is, in fact, a badge of honor.

Sleep

…and one final jet lag inspired post, this one, ironically, about sleep.

Matthew Walker is a professor of neuroscience at UC Berkeley, the Berkeley most people assume I went to (I don’t bother correcting them). His book, Why We Sleep, is an international best seller, which, to my shame, I haven’t read, but I recently listened to his podcast with Joe Rogan. 

Say what you will about Joe Rogan and his meatheadish tendencies, but the dude has some fascinating people on his show and, in this case, lets the guest steer the ship. 

There’s so much about sleep we’re not taught, and sleep machismo dominates our workaholic society. I came away from this interview dismayed by how little I knew, but eager to entertain said dismay after 7-9 solid hours of shuteye. 

Where Were You

More beautiful rediscovers courtesy of jet lag! 

There’re lots of great guitar players, but very few who’ve cultivated a truly unique voice on the instrument, and fewer still who’ve conjured a magic so deep that imitators are few and far between.

Jeff Beck is just such a sorcerer, and on top of his musical genius, he’s a bit of a bastard, which I love. 

I’m mesmerized by this performance every time. The Live at Ronnie Scott’s version’s also killer, but there’s something about the rawness and vulnerability captured here.

It’s inspiration to continue chasing the timorous-yet-sparkling music in my head

I Can Change

I’m embracing the jet lag like a champion and deep diving into some quality tunes. I love this song by my pals in Lake Street Dive. Their confidence to state the truth without equivocation always inspires, and Rachael Price is one of my favorite singers. She and Bridget wrote a classic.

Rivendell

This morning, I was in Rivendell, and now, I’m watching fireflies dance in the Tennessee twilight, marveling at how distant and impossible one place feels against the other.

And yet, here I am, back again, embracing jet lag like an old friend, scheming how life might continue taking me brazenly around the world.

But, for now, sleep. Like the dead. For the next 12 hours.

More thoughts on the trip tomorrow, from a decidedly less soupy and loopy brain... 

Back to Work

It’s eye crushingly early in the departure lounge of the Wellington International Airport, which evidently also doubles as a sleep apnea research facility. I’m flying back to Nashville today, and not entirely thrilled at the prospect.

Would that I could hang out indefinitely in variously accented, international hubs of intrigue, and as I’m writing this it occurs to me, hey, why not? Never having had a real job lends itself to head scratching lifestyle choices, and why am I trying something as stupid as getting a new band off the ground anyway? Better to hang out here, herd sheep, and drift into anonymity, right? 

Perhaps sadly, that’s not in the cards. Reality’s a subjective thing, and that I’m heading back to it means only that it’s up to me how things take shape. I like that. 

Rights of Passage

Last full day in NZ, and thankfully the band’s popular here because I can’t wait to come back.

I’m struck by the similarities between NZ and Iceland, two places I instantly fell in love with. Both islands, isolated, fiercely proud, gifted with millennia-old lore. Small, but with seemingly infinite, grand, and deeply wild country, the backdrops for reimagined tales of fantastical heroism.

And both with gnarly-yet-delicious seafood delicacies, rights of passage for wide-eyed off-islanders, that even staunch meat and potatoes enthusiasts from impossible places like Connecticut wolf down with near-orgasmic delight.

The sign of a good trip’s when you leave questioning everything, and this has been one of the best, and most necessary, in a long time. 

Word To The Wise

After a couple day bout with food poisoning, I’m back and primed and ready for Lord of the Rings tourism! Word to the wise: when staying on a rural New Zealand farm, replete with sheep, horses, and any number of enthusiastically defecating creatures, don’t eat unwashed fruit you find on the ground. 

Anyway. Wellington is a truly remarkable place, windswept, rugged, and instantly and effortlessly charming. The NZ fanbase is predominantly Maori, and we’ve been welcomed with a warmth I’ve been told’s unusual, and inundated with generosity of all sorts. In Auckland, we played our largest headlining show outside of the US and, almost by accident, we’ve discovered the Al Stone band’s second home.

The world’s a big ol’ confounding bit of, some would say, flat nonsense, and regardless of the insanity levels of those I meet along the way, I’m happy to be right there on the front lines with them, just as befuddling in my own forsaking-soy-lattes kinda way.

Play Live

Today, we’re playing a speakeasy in Wellington, NZ, and everyone at the venue’s amazing and the promoter’s amazing and both shows are sold out and I seriously might never come back on account of this place being stunningly beautiful, think a Polynesian Victoria, BC.

The crowd in Auckland was so loud at times that they drowned out the PA - it’s been a while since the Allen Stone universe has experienced something so enchanting and visceral, and it took me back to 2012, when there was a special mojo propelling the band, and times were, if not simpler, certainly more focused - find the fans, pile in the van, and play live.

That’s what this band does best, and hopefully this trip’s inspiration to retrace our steps, embrace our strengths, and quit trying to beat the house.

Auckland!

It’s nice and autumnal here in Auckland, New Zealand, and I spent this morning in appropriate hipster fashion, munching on breakfast sushi, slurping down flat whites, and lamenting my subpar cardiovascular fitness while trundling along gently undulating downtown streets. People are friendly, and there’s a big needle in space that dominates an otherwise understated skyline. I like it here. 

Tonight, we play the largest ever Allen Stone Electric Mayhem Feel Good Ensemble show in Oceania, right around two thousand Aucklanders, all sing-alongy and otherwise exuberant. My comfy little house in Nashville feels every bit of 12,965 km away, and I’m tempted to have my neighbor Big Country kick down the door, erect a big ol’ sign out front that says “Take Everything,” and maybe, just maybe, your friend Trevor never comes back, content to fold into Australasia, living off of Vegemite and the promise of new adventures. 

The Art of Asking

Here’s the book I’m currently reading. Challenging, illuminating, deeply spiritual, refreshingly pragmatic, and so very awesomely punk rock. I can’t recommend it highly enough for artists, certainly, but really for anyone who finds it tricky offering and accepting a helping hand.

Commendable Frolicking

One of the many nice things about touring Australia’s you’re never at a loss for beatific perches on which to write a daily email newsletter, and this early AM’s no exception. 

The scene on the beach is equal parts surfer types, tanned and fit and shredding the gnar, and jet lagged musician types, ghostly pale and with handles made for loving and half-heartedly frolicking in the surf, despite a deep distrust of daylight in general. In a satisfying “I don’t know what to do with my hands” moment, a noteworthy blues musician’s standing in the sand in combat boots, his handler gently suggesting that maybe putting his hand in the water would be ok, and I’m tempted to skip today’s festival set and people watch until my hunger for Tim Tams overwhelms.

But, tragically, I’m back in my hotel room, restringing my guitar, disappointed by my commitment to professionalism, but happy that our tour manager Ryan “Bear” Drozd is snoring on the couch, blissful and carefree, dreaming no doubt of a world devoid of man-children incapable of locating the catering tent.

Made-Up Places

Before the VIP meet and greet yesterday, as said VIPs began shuffling in, I decided to sit at the front of the stage and chat with whomever felt like ambling up. It was nice - about a dozen people lined the barricade, and we shot the breeze about guitars, Iron Maiden, and impossible, made-up places like Nashville, Tennessee. 

I tend not to go out after shows - after a couple hours of wall-of-sound dance party, a quiet place where nothing can harm me, aka the hotel room, is just the thing for a sensitive soul. But I miss hanging with fans, and one-on-one, before the club’s littered with plastic cups and post-show mania’s in full swing, I feel connected to the spirit of the thing I helped build.

Imperfect Slices

It’s a beautiful morning in Brisbane, and I’m writing this on my phone, instant coffee coursing through my veins, feet propped up on a janky lanai table. Here it is, or rather here I am, in real time. Premium content!

It’s fifteen minutes until lobby call, and re-purposing little quarter hour chunks of time away from aimless scrolling and in the service of self-reflection’s what being on tour’s all about.

The jet lag’s more-or-less subsided, and while my brain remains largely filled with jumbled, sleepy non sequiturs, sitting here and pecking away in my “do not disturb” fortress of solitude, mini-bar ransacked and every towel used, fills me with peaceful thoughts.

Mine’s an imperfect slice of the pie, but I’ll take it.