Stage Right

The majority of what makes a show happen lives offstage, and this stage right shot, taken not five minutes ago, features everything you’re hearing from guitar world, as well as the laptop controlling Pat’s teleprompter (relax, uppity musos, literally every singer in any band playing these kinda rooms uses one. Lots of words in a twenty year catalogue).

It’s important noting that I can approach guitar tech Stephen and stage manager Tim (on laptop duty) at any point during the set, and they’ll happily answer any question I might have. But god help me or any other poor bastard who takes a crispy boy from the cooler pictured bottom right.

The two main rules any touring pro will tell you: don’t poop on the bus, and don’t touch, or even look at, anything labeled “crew only.”

Pet A Dog

My new project, Climb The Sky, has released three singles and three live/acoustic videos so far.

As mentioned in previous posts, it’s a welcome exercise in patience, a quality I’ve lacked historically, and this Train/Goo Goo Dolls tour highlights the benefits of the long game - releasing music consistently, playing shows that make sense, and keeping on doing that, forever.

If you like, follow us on Spotify, or wherever you stream music. I welcome any and all constructive criticism, as well as sycophantic praise.

And if you have a violent dislike towards the tunes, or me in general, I get it, but kindly keep that nonsense to yourself, and maybe go pet a dog.

Last Outposts

Bangor, Maine is the last outpost of coffeeshops and hipster breweries before a whole lotta nothing, not counting unregulated maple syrup production. 

And wherever there’s a “last outpost” of anything, there’re hippies.

And as much as I clown on hippies in this humble newsletter, it was fantastic seeing dreadlocked acid casualties writhing along side the typical Train/Goo Goo Dolls demographic in relative, if pungent, harmony.

Towards the end of a long tour, seeing folks in childlike love with music can be just enough to scrub away recent memories of acrid beef stroganoff and unwanted advances from middle-aged divorcees, emboldened by wine coolers. 

I, for one, will be out there with them tonight, celebrating the absurdity of my chosen path.  

Woodstock

Tonight’s gig’s in Bethel NY, the original Woodstock location, and the amphitheater staff graciously offered to give us a tour. 

One of my first CDs was a “Live at Woodstock” compilation, where I heard Jimi Hendrix, Richie Havens, Crosby Still and Nash, and so many others for the first time. Even as a kid, I recognized the visceral honesty, and that it was special.

What Woodstock represents resonates loudly, perhaps especially, today: within music and art - despite feeling marginalized and disenfranchised against brazenly corrupt, preposterous cronyism - your truth is safe, and heard. 

All That Matters

Tonight we played the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), a famously beautiful venue surrounded by forest and trails and things that make you feel like you’re not on tour, at least for a moment. 

I run into a bunch of our touring party on my pre-soundcheck constitutional, all of us breathing deep in wistful remembrance of decadences like king-sized beds and not brewing coffee at 70mph. It’s an odd life we’ve chosen.

I like what Johnny Rzeznik said tonight while introducing “Name,” how when he wrote the song in some shitty attic apartment in Buffalo almost 30 years ago, after a decade of dogging it in the van, it wasn’t about money or fame - those had long become abstractions. “If I don’t have something to say, just to share as an artist, I’m done.” 

A rockstar dream, suffocated and moribund, becomes a desire simply to contribute, in some humble way, to the thing you love. 

And that, it turns out, is all that matters.

Yin and Yang

Concert photography provides a necessary yin and yang to the professional Peter Pan-ing experience.

There are moments where you might look kinda-sorta like a rockstar, the light hitting your pouty face just-so:

Then, literally five seconds later, you’re Jabba the Hutt:

Both pictures I pulled off the internet, ie they’ll follow me around forever.

Ultimately, all one can do is relax and have fun, because, at just the right angle, everyone looks like an asshole.

Just Fine

When I turned 20, I was in my final year at Berklee College of Music. 

Like all 20 year olds, I was in a hurry, to where or what I had no idea. Probably generally to get away - from school, from feeling like an outsider, from never quite saying the right thing. I was young, which is, on balance, just fine.

When I turned 30, I wasn’t rich, or famous, and was reasonably certain those things should’ve come my way by then. 

But the Allen Stone machine was steadily rising, everything in my life was changing, and I was still young, though old enough, I’d been told, that I should know better. Which concerned me, because mostly I didn’t. 

Now, the idea of turning 40 isn’t so unfathomable. I’m still not rich, or famous, but now I’m reasonably certain those things don’t matter quite so much. 

I’ve seen more of the world than I’d ever imagined, played music with heroes, admirably swash buckled and gotten into trouble. I don’t have much that resembles a normal life, and that bums me out every once in a while. I’ll be an older father, if I’m ever one at all. But that too is, on balance, just fine. 

The creative fire burns brighter than ever, and I’m unafraid of adventure, or the change that anticipates it. 

Lightning

Sorry to everyone who came out early in Indianapolis to catch our set. Soundcheck was particularly good, and I swear we would’ve sounded amazing.

Every venue has a different policy regarding lightning. Some postpone if there’s activity within two miles, others eight, and tonight was ten, so by the time it was deemed safe enough to open doors even the Goo Goo Dolls had to cut a few tunes (Johnny Rzeznik just popped his head into our green room, incidentally. “What’re you writing?” he asked).

So, no show for us today, which is a bummer, but who doesn’t dig a rainbow?

Tag

It’s hot today in Chicago, the kind of hot that saps all energy, frazzles every nerve, and leaves you a sweaty heap of unmotivated blubber.

But various children of various Goo Goo Dolls are playing tag on deck, “missing” posters of favorite tour personnel (likely the ones with candy) scribbled in blue crayon and taped, with the help of Train’s production coordinator, throughout the maze of backstage corridors. 

It’s easy feeling like this business strands you on some barnacled hunk of nowhere, messages from the mainland dancing across turbulent waters, tantalizing, before redirecting into the depths.

But I’m tagged “it” on my way to stage, and it’s wonderful. There’s a life to be lived out here, filled with family and laughter and lessons learned from both. 

Without Shame

A lazily tattooed man hamfists classic rock, accompanied by a vacuum cleaner (literally), Trump flags fly above battered RVs in the festival campground, and we’ve just played soul music to people - stone-cold sober people - in MAGA and NRA hats. 

Northern Minnesota, while strikingly beautiful, might not be my bag.

Then again, there are all manner of familiar misfits scattered throughout the crowd, young and over it and destined to become the inspired contrarians our future yearns for. And people are dancing during our set, pleasantly surprised by our unique brand of “huh?”

Music, especially this music, has a way of displacing learned biliousness, stripping away layers of cliché until one’s inner child smiles back, naked and without shame. 

Chaos

I didn’t write the newsletter yesterday because even committing a few hurried thoughts to paper withdrew me from the stillness my body and pysche needed. 

As industry people pilfered our green room, it brought me great joy closing my laptop and excusing myself to a bench just off site, where I sat in smug triumph, doing absolutely nothing. 

Touring can be an inelegant dichotomy, providing the perfect environment for busyness, preoccupation, escapism and avoidance while also ample opportunity to tune in to how we might be feeling or what’s really going on in our lives.  

The MOAT’s goal is encouraging mindfulness, and I’m glad I chose to circumnavigate the chaos rather than plow through it. 

Ocean Vuong

Thanks to Union Ave Books in Knoxville, TN for recommending this truly remarkable book. A day off’s exploration well-rewarded.

I haven’t been reading as much as I typically do on this tour - I’m grateful for the inspired prose and perspective.

Under Pressure

I’m writing this from front of house during the second song of Train’s encore, a cover of Queen’s “Under Pressure.”

There’s no amount of Mike’s Hard Lemonade that can ameliorate the stifling North Carolina humidity, but by god people are trying, and I’ve had to discourage several 40-somethings, emboldened by sickly-sweet booze and nostalgia, from jumping the barricade and clapping on one and three next to Jamo (Train’s FOH), Joel (their LD), and Chris (their day-to-day manager).

I’m unintimidating with my side parting and hipster glasses, but fully prepared to pull a hamstring in the name of solidarity. Come at me, Proctologists.

Wiz Khalifa

Wiz Khalifa played at the PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte NC last night, which means our dressing room reeks of weed, catering reeks of weed, the stage reeks of weed, and the blinding, underpants-destroying humidity amplifies a medicinal remanence that puts I imagine Woodstock, and I know certainly the greater Denver Colorado area, to shame.

Pat Monahan, Train’s singer, not realizing Wiz Khalifa played the PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte NC last night, ducks his head into our dressing room, nods approvingly, and not-so-subtly suggests that an innocent toke might be just the thing to alleviate the pressures befalling a multi-millionaire rockstar.

He’s disappointed to find out our camp’s PG-13 on a rowdy night and offers a playfully sardonic critique, but that’s only because I beat him at HORSE last night. Hey soul sister, maybe work on your midrange jumper.

Dancing

On this tour, I’m being asked to dance, which - and this will come as zero surprise - makes me uncomfortable.

But here I am, owning the shit out of it, at least as much as an accountant look-alike can, and that makes me happy.

Here’s to continually pushing comfort zones, and wearing highly flammable animal print.

YouTube

My new band, Climb The Sky, just launched our brand new YouTube channel! And it is literally brand new. You could be subscriber number four. Consider yourselves early early adopters.

We’ve posted the live/acoustic video for our upcoming single, “Saint In Simple Clothes,” along with the videos for “Neverland” and “Hero.”

I’ve been deliberately low-key about CTS. I don’t want to deluge your inboxes with self-aggrandizement, plus I’ve never successfully pulled off the whole incremental consistency approach when it comes to new projects. I’m content allowing this band gradually to find its feet. 

The goal’s one single and video each month for the rest of the year, and so far so good. 

Flooding

In more conventional professions, team building exercises might look something like going paint balling, or convivial rounds of badminton. 

Last night, using every available garbage can, solo cup, coffee pot, and plastic bag, we tried, hilariously and mostly in vain, to prevent literally gallons of water from flooding the front lounge of the bus.

Turns out, sealing is something you can say you did, then totally not do, and now our bus company’s in very big trouble. 

We’re all sleep deprived and annoyed, having been on bailing duty all night, but it’s one more ludicrous feather in an already overflowing cap, which I love.

Florida = one million, band = zero.

Siblings

Chatting with members of Train and the Goo Goo Dolls yesterday, I learned we’re all the youngest in our families. 

Asking around, it turns out this is way more common than I’d realized it the touring world, sufficiently so that I redirected some Googling time away from home remedies for Jock itch (damn you, Florida).

Evidently, we youngest siblings are:

-Extremely skilled at going with the flow (definitely important on tour)

-Tend to be funnier (TRUE IN MY CASE SICK BURNNNNNNN)

-Usually more outgoing (essential for sanity preservation while bouncing around)

-More creative than our older siblings (older siblings, the study suggests, tend to have higher IQs - certainly true in my sister’s case - with more attention paid to rules and education, whereas I’m the beneficiary of my parents adopting a well-earned ’fuck it’ attitude and being left more to my own devices). 

This is obviously painting with a broad brush, and maybe these studies originate at the University of Phoenix, but are we youngest siblings really perfect engineered for touring? Possibly worth some deeper digging once this Jock itch clears up.

Fitness!

The second leg of the Train/Goo Goo Dolls/Allen Stone Summer Extravaganza starts today!

Fitness on the road can be a challenge, especially if your only option’s working out outside in, hypothetically, South Goddamn Florida.

Here’s a full-body circuit I’ve been doing, ideally in a spacious, air-conditioned green room, but usually in a sweltering parking lot:

Equipment - 20 or 25 lbs dumbbells, ab wheel

3x15 -

Pushups

Curls

Overhead Tricep Extension

Shoulder Fly

3x15 -

Dumbbell Row

Dumbbell Deadlift

3x15 -

Regular Squat

Sumo Squat

Straight Legged Deadlift

3x15 -

Ab Wheel Roll out

It takes me 30-40 mins and I’m always plenty beat afterwards.

Miraculous

This year, I’m celebrating the 4th of July in low-key fashion. 

I’ve eaten all my meals at Waffle House, and just slipped my neighbor’s dog a big ol’ slab of bacon - it’s gonna be a rough night for pooches nationwide, and I figure it’s the least I can do. 

My street’s alive with snaps, crackles, pops, bangs and kerpows - I’m settling in, party-pooper that I am, for an early night.

As I’m preparing to head out tomorrow for the second leg of the Train/Goo Goo Dolls tour, I’m spending this evening acknowledging the privileges that being an American has afforded me, and celebrating the people who’ve made my life here possible, namely my parents, who are currently, in glorious retirement, devouring castles made of meringue somewhere in Scandinavia, or possibly Scotland. 

They emigrated here so my sister and I could pursue our dreams. And we both are - her, with a young family and career in finance, and me, luxuriating in threadbare underpants most of the day and getting paid to bend strings out of tune. 

They are both, in their own ways, miraculous.