Warming Up for 2018

It’s currently ten degrees in Nashville.  Seriously.  Ten goddamn degrees.  

Growing up in Walla Walla, when it was ten goddamn degrees, I’d sit in my room, fueled by romantic underachievement, and jam along with Metallica records.  It’s how I taught myself to play.  On this balls-cold ushering in of the New Year, it seems appropriate that I crank up Ride the Lightning and begin the journey towards getting my R&B fingers back into shredding shape.  

I’m noticing these days I’m actually able to lay back somewhat over stuff like this, which is thanks to the Al Stone band.  

Guitar’s fun, kids.

Sunsets

In the early stages of touring with Allen and the fellas, I took a lot of sunset photos.  We were On Our Way- anything was possible and everything seemed huge, hence my obsession, I imagine, with expansive, fire-red skies.  I remember feeling like the band was anointed.  I was naive, but magnificently so.  The issue isn't so much being naive, I realize now- in fact, when it comes to lunatic tasks like launching a band, it's a wonderful thing- but how you handle the inelegant landing back into reality can determine a whole hell of a lot.    

Now that the dust’s settled and the band’s experienced, along with our successes, several cliched set backs, I’ve noticed a shift in my curated photo diary.  More pictures, now, of me in silly hats, gazing earnestly into the Matrix.  Screen shots from fan profiles, immortalizing ill-advised tank top phases and preposterous cowboy themed stage attire.  Shows photos (literally staged photo ops) and promo pics.  It’s a business now, fun to be sure but an established Thing.  There are new dynamics, egos, politics and comrades in arms.  All of us have grown a bit more guarded and appropriately wearied, as one emerging from the trenches inevitably becomes.  We’ve seen a major label deal sour and new creative interests draw us in unique directions.  We’ve also seen a core fanbase stick by us.  After six years, I’m still standing.  I’m still here.

All this said, I miss those sunset photos.  At what point does wonder give way to self-seriousness?  That I’m aware enough to ask the question means I’m capable of making some changes and, with luck, stumbling upon an answer.  

An Ode to Moose and Sheep Dogs

I love Canada.  They’re playing Neil Young at an uncomfortable volume in the Vault coffeeshop here in Nanaimo and I enjoyed a moose stew for lunch.  The coffee’s strong, the sun’s out and I’m going fishing in an hour.  

We haven’t played in Canada for over a year and it felt great entertaining the fine folks at the Philips Backyard Weekender in Victoria a few days ago.  What a cool festival- small, accessible and fun.  We played right after a Canadian mariachi band which, while buzzed on local Pilsner, is just about the most delightful thing there is.  Later that evening, in a misguided effort to combat my dad bod, I find myself in a hipster vegetarian establishment.  I recognize a harmonized guitar line from one of my favorite Canadian bands, the Sheep Dogs, buzzing through the cafe’s underpowered speakers- they opened for us for a week last year, sweet hearted road warriors to a man, unknown in the States and down to log some serious van miles.  Just a few kilometers across the imaginary line, the Sheep Dogs are everywhere, more popular here than we are in the US.  The world’s a big place.  Good music always finds a home.

Tomorrow I hop on a sea plane over to Vancouver then back stateside for a show with Swatkins and the Positive Agenda.  I’m thankful for this quick trip into the Great White North.  I’ve been hunkered down in Music City for a while, slowly growing innocuously more bizarre, and it feels good getting my travel legs back.  Travel reminds me that monotony equals creative atrophy.  Spending nothing but time and taking nothing but pictures makes me happy.  I’ll always grow more bizarre, and I’m content doing so fueled on moose ass and Kokanee. 

This Bacon's Terrible

"This bacon's terrible!" declares the man sitting across from me at the Frothy Monkey.  This has nothing to do with this post other than it just happened and I couldn't come up with a title.  So, thanks angry bearded man.  Dude digs pork.

We’re being put up in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, one owned by a company that synthesizes high fructose corn syrup and horse hoof into a palatable tooth rottener.  Knowing we’d be staying here, I’ve packed light, leaving ample room for 50 or so packets of obesity fuel.  What did Oscar Wilde say?  Everything in moderation, including moderation?  

The picture that sparks this memory is one of me sitting in this mansion, fedora’d and bespectacled, playing an ostentatious, USA-themed piano.  Red, white and blue, baby.  Part of the gig for bands staying at the Fructose Fortress is advertising your presence without giving up its super-duper secretive location, hashtag blessed etc, and this is my offering.  I’m not opposed to ostentation here and there, and I like candy. 

Post photo op, Jason’s shooting pool, Allen’s flying his drone and I’m in a sugar induced coma in the hot tub, glass of whiskey in one hand, cigar in the other.  It’s in moments like these I reflect on the fact that many friends my age are married with easily describable jobs and young families.  I'm in a hot tub, in my underpants, ashtray filled with gummy candy and a nice whiskey buzz preventing the one percent from harshing my mellow.  It’ll come as no surprise that I’m single.  I don’t own much- a few guitars, couple amps, a handful of clothes.  Inspired by back health and generally not having stuff, I ditched my bed, preferring instead a thin mat on the floor and a couple pillows.  You’d think that I’m about to launch into a tirade against the Man, the Industrialized Food Complex and see I’m already boring you.  I live a simple, uncluttered life and, in decluttering, I have more space for others. 

This blog’s actually been the catalyst for my downsizing.  On a recent, particularly dreary afternoon, I shut my laptop in disgust, declaring to my empty living room that I sucked, was totally useless and there's no point even finishing this sentence.  So, I started taking things to Goodwill.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.  I started with my closet, donating clothes I hadn’t worn in years, then moved on to the garage, sorting through bric-a-brac that’d inexplicably made the cross country trip from Seattle to Nashville.  8 hrs later, I realized I could now pack everything I owned into my Toyota Corrolla and not even fill it half way.  It was time to retackle that blog post.  You're reading it now.  

For whatever reason, I’m living a kooky, Peter Pan lifestyle that seems to invite two perspectives.  One, I can search for holes, things I’m lacking, hopelessly comparing myself to friends buying homes on fat Amazon salaries.  Two, I can own my situation to an almost comical degree.  Get rid of everything.  Travel on a dime.  Talk to everyone.  Take nothing but pictures, spend nothing but time, trust I’ll become one with the Force eventually.  Guess which one I've chosen.  

I wrote a lyric recently- “I may be lonely but, when it’s time, I’ll let that go.”  For now, it’s me.  My shitty back, my foibles, but also my curiosity, my open-mindedness. 

I’m where I need to be.  When it’s time for a tiny Trevor perhaps or an infinitely patient woman convinces me to buy a bed, I trust I’ll have arrived there right on time. 

Update from the Stonerverse

Getting started is the hardest part.  Diligent musicians as we are, we’re usually still tasting the toothpaste at a gentleman’s noon, and that second pot of coffee’s perfect fuel for GTA rampage missions.  Naturally, those Bastards Must Pay. 

Adolescent bloodlust satiated, it’s time for lunch.  On this day, lunch consists of a banana, ice cream and the guilt from appreciating a surplus of corn syrup and potassium does not a hit record make.  But we do eventually settle into the project studio, fire up some amps and begin tossing ideas around.  The surrounding evergreens, perennial overseers of our lakeside retreat, rustle an underscore of judgement through a brisk, reluctantly summery breeze.  Get to work, Meat Sacks.  

We’re writing songs, everybody.  Good ones, lots of them, and they’re coming easily.  Our process has been kinda sorta under wraps, but I’m telling you now that the next chapter of Allen Stone and His Merry Men is well underway.  We’ve got two solid record’s worth of material and we’re super stoked.  It’s a 100% collaboration within the band and you can hear each member's unique creative voice in every tune.  The vibe’s eclectic and, for those of you who’ve seen a show, sounds very much like us.  One final writing session to be on the safe side and we’ll have it.  I think we already do.  

It’s an exciting feeling, knowing in your gut there’s something magical being made.  

We're just five friends, two pooches and one infinitely patient Aussie angel in a cabin somewhere deep in the heart of Bigfoot country, trying our best to be real good.  

Thank you all for being patient.  It’s worth it, I promise. 

Tour Bus Ramblings

It’s dark.  Tenebrous, aphotic, no natural light whatsoever.  It’s the easiest thing, spending your whole morning in womb-like inky blackness, but not this guy.  Up and at ‘em.  

I’m usually the first guy up in our band.  All this means is I’m the first one hit by the farts, foot oder and general foulness bunk ally’s been incubating for the past eight hours.  It’s formidable- even Oscar the Grouch is reaching for the Fabreeze- and I’m quickly navigating the discarded shoe obstacle course towards the relative oasis of the front lounge.

We’ve been blessed with very good bus drivers over the years- maniacs to a man, but smooth and steady on the road.  But pizza boxes, half empty beer cans and bags of Cheetos don’t possess gravity defying powers, and we’re in a moving metal tube after all.  I spend a few minutes picking things up, wet wiping exposed surfaces, and I fire up the Keurig.  It’s monotone whirring lulls me from my somnolence as I…wow, this thing got off the rails pretty quick.  This is a goddamn tour bus, not Geoffery fucking Chaucer.   

Writing’s a funny thing.  I’ve always enjoyed it, and getting my mind out on paper's always felt as natural as playing guitar or crafting tunes.  Am I a good writer?  Subjective, but probably not especially, no.  I write how I talk, though I know I’d be throat punched if I tossed around “aphotic” at the Crying Wolf- even East Nashvillians aren’t that Emo.  

This is the type of BS I mull over while sipping lukewarm Keurig juice in the front lounge.  We’re bouncing along, a few hours out from the venue, and I don’t feel like reading, playing Halo or contemplating the amount of Chef Boyardee in the cupboard above me- I just want to sit here, feel a bit sorry for myself and think about the road not traveled toward the actuarial sciences.  

Here I am.  I love this, it’s what’s I know, no longer my new normal but state of being.  A grown man, smart, capable, careening down some midwestern highway on a pirate ship filled with lost boys, a ship on which I can’t defecate.  That’s bus rule numero uno.  Ask the driver to stop, hot bag if you must, but under no circumstance does one defoul the onboard crapper.  It’s for liquid and show only.

Ok, this is getting real dumb.  Maybe it’s time for some Halo, after all.  

Checkered Shirts

I've been a full time touring musician for just over five years now.  For some, that's an eternity but, for me, it feels like a drop in the bucket.  It’s amazing how many things I’ve already forgotten.  In my shaking the memory tree and seeing what falls out, this blog’s become a welcome companion.

I’m scrolling through my Instagram feed and notice I wore recently the same checkered shirt I wore on February 2, 2013 in Rossland BC.  We played a gig there, presumably.  I don’t know why wearing the same shirt four years apart’s struck me as noteworthy.  I mean, inarguably I need more shirts.  I suppose I can’t help comparing myself to the (slightly) younger man in that photo.

Four years ago, I’m newly single, nominally killing it but building the tracks just ahead of the train.  A few days ago, that same shirt adorned the dad bod of an older, calmer schmuck lending advice to several up-and-coming Nashville musicians.  These up-and-coming Nashville musicians speak with the same hurried enthusiasm and unchallenged optimism I remember so vividly, one that traveling's made more measured.  I listen, forehead wrinkling in concentration, realizing that, somehow, I’ve become a guy who Knows Stuff. 

I sometimes wonder how I look to musicians early in their careers.  I'd like to think I'm this sage, Splinter from the Ninja Turtles kinda figure.  Maybe I'm a cautionary tale.  When you're 21, turning 30's about the most terrifying thing there is, and when 3-0 rears its ugly head there's no way you'll be blithering on like this dingus, right?  

It's at this point I realize I'm writing this in my underpants.  I'm happy about this, and I've worked hard for the honor.  I've paid my dues.  So, aspiring artists, enthusiastic craftspeople, practice, work, write, any number of verbs that require my using additional commas but, for the love of god, do so in your skivvies.  That's when you know a Grammy's imminent.  

Leather Clad Proctologists

Fueled by Kambucha, organic kale and legal cannabis, Allen Stone and His Merry Men inspire dance parties the world over.  This is a good thing, and we’re good at it.  We are, however, weirdos, and not the endearing kind to leather-clad proctologists, say.  “Unaware” is an unlikely feature on the Golf Channel or Fox and Friends, and I have a feeling this biker convention we're booked to play with OAR isn't going to go so well.  

I’m asked frequently how I handle hostile audiences.  First of all, do you, don’t over think things.  I mean, they hired you.  Secondly, make a set list and stick to it.  Read the room but, again, do you.  If you’re, hypothetically, a soul band known for singing soul music, do that- now isn’t the time for rambling non sequiturs or bombing at the Radisson.  If you’re contracted for an hour and fifteen, put 75 minutes worth of tunes on the set list, grit your teeth, power through and say “thanks for having us.”  Get off stage, collect the check, chug a beer.  You’ve earned it.

In this case, we aren’t actually booked for the biker convention per se- OAR is, and we’re piggy backing on their bill.  The promoters, and certainly audience, genuinely have no idea who we are and are authentically concerned when we produce a mic stand covered with plastic flowers.

We panic.  Our first song’s an ill-advised audible (best not leading with a ballad), followed by cryptic hand signals from our singer that we gather mean “jam.”  Which we do, but not in the southern-rock kinda guitarmony way that would’ve gone down well with our Trumpy audience.  We weren't booed I don't think, but dagger-like stares are a potent heckle. 

Experience teaches you that some shows are there so you can get to the next one, and if you treat them as such you’ll likely have a decent time.  Be a pro, take your lumps and move on.  And always, ALWAYS decorate mic stands with plastic flowers.   

Somber Vegas

I’m in my Justin Bieber-y kinda sorta bowl cut phase, wearing a bright blue sweater, H&M scarf and truck stop sunglasses indoors.  It’s 2012, at the Flamingo Hotel on the Vegas Strip, and I’m being filmed literally singing the praises of our former keyboardist, who’s passed out in the hallway.  Our singer, who passed out like a champ at 7pm, has puked and rallied and is ready for anything.  Anything, in this case, involves impromptu attempted cloth lines, giggling fits and solo missions for vodka Red Bulls.  

It’s our first time in Vegas as a band, and we’re excited.  The gig’s officially full time (we’re really doing it, Mom!) and we’re given permission to fire up the van and GO.  Show after show, one off after one off, obliterated truck stop restroom after obliterated truck stop restroom.

There’s no way of appreciating the fatigue and homesickness this kind of schedule invites until you’re fully in it.  Later that summer, I'd experience my first “oh shit oh shit what’s going on” moment.  There was, of course, no processing time before the road gobbled us back up, and I absent-mindedly drifted away from my previous life and the people in it.  The dust would settle 300+ shows later and I’d find myself somewhere, well, different.  

Our former keyboardist's now rallied and we’re puffing on cigars, exuberantly annoying fellow Strip stumblers.  He splits off in search of a strip club and I’m left on my own.  Under a somber moon, the noisy street washed in neon, I’m just a kid in an ill-fitting sweater with a lousy haircut, about as invincible as paper in a fire. 

I'm Wearing a Checkered Shirt. It's a Lovely Day for a Checkered Shirt.

It’s summer of 2012 and Greg Ehrlich and I are sitting on the patio of a packed hipster eatery.  I’m probably having eggs benedict.  A few minutes into our man date, my skull’s grazed by a fast-moving metal projectile.

I know how the above sentence reads- sadly, on Manhattan Beach, trust fund money discourages badass, James Bond-style gun play.  Turns out, the cafe’s awning's exploded, sending parts every which way, one of which kisses my cranium and clanks to rest about ten yards down the road.  I'm lucky- being hit squarely in the back of the head, experts tell me, isn't good.  I'm looking forward to a glorious old age involving drooling and non-sensical diatribes, no need ushering in that chapter prematurely.  

The cafe management handles themselves with the utmost grace, apologizing profusely and comping our meal, and Greg and I enjoy a tasty brunch.   We leave a sizable tip.  It’s what you do.  Besides, no one at the restaurant's at fault and I’m fine.  As we get up, some botoxed catastrophe of a woman stops me, baffled and enraged in the kind of way only someone who’s never worked for a living can be.  

“Are you fucking serious?” she moans.  “You left a tip?!  I can’t believe it!”  Her husband, similarly botoxed and tanned in the kind of way only someone who’s never worked for a living can be, doesn't look up from his phone.  

It’s worth noting several bloody mary’s are comped along with our meal and I’m feeling mischievous.  I stare at her for a few seconds and declare, “I’m wearing a checkered shirt.  It's a lovely day for a checkered shirt.”  The look on her face is worth a thousand words, squared.  I walk away.  

The moral of this story?  There isn't one.  Just, please, always tip your server.  And, even if you’re born rich, work.  Do something, anything really.  And, for the love of christ, age gracefully.  You're not fooling anybody, and what's so bad about not being dead?  

Ned

I’m at Fido again.  Nashville's a lovely place this time of year and it’s a gorgeous evening, the sky an unspoiled canvas of deepening blues and pomegranite pinks.  I’m reflecting on how much time I spend in coffee shops, ruminating on the nature of this and that.  Tonight, it’s mostly “that”- that coffee shop in Seattle, just up the block from my old apartment where, in my previous life, I’d hunker down and put my thoughts on paper.  

One particularly dreary afternoon, I'm recalling, I create a composite character inspired by recent events- a gig played literally to zero people, my recently broken up band and a roommate cooking fish in the microwave.  I call him Ned.  Ned, I write, is a real piece of shit.  I bet that son of a bitch rocks loafers without socks.  Ned antagonizes clowns at the circus, knowing kids will be scarred for life.  Ned, that unspeakable, reeking pile of human garbage, is vegan but happily sports a leather man purse, that hypocrite douche.  This goes on for a while.  

Ned, I eventually reveal, is ticklish.  Oh, he doesn’t like to admit it but, if you land a solid tickle, Ned will squeal like a piglet.  Ned doesn’t talk about it much, but his neighbor’s elderly and he walks her dog on the days when her hip’s acting up.  Ned knows that the server at his favorite diner is a single parent who works two jobs.  He tips $100.  This goes on for a while.

It may seem like a silly exercise but, over the course of 500 words, Ned transforms from a narcissistic troll into a guy just trying to do the right thing.  I don't like him, but I no longer want to push him into oncoming traffic.  I'll sit with him I guess, listen for a while.  It seems like there's more to Ned's story.  

On this rainy afternoon in Seattle, I'm feeling like nothing and going nowhere.  Anger is easy and comfortable.  Maybe there’s another way?

Maybe.  

The Ballad of Metal Chris

It’s fall of 2012 and our first time playing Hamburg, Germany.  I’ve stuffed my face with Currywurst and am appropriately drunk, all before noon.  Also before noon, I’ve endured our proudly alcoholic, aggressively pierced bus driver, Metal Chris, confessing in heavily accented English that his wife no longer loves him, neither does the woman he left her for.  I can drink more than you, he says, because I have hate in my heart.  Later in the evening, he records our organ player Greg’s voicemail greeting.  

Before he records Greg’s voicemail greeting, I disappoint Metal Chris, twice.  The first way I disappointment Metal Chris is by, as he puts it, displaying an American reluctance regarding stimulation (Metal Chris is German, but his english easily is better than mine).  We are, he informs me, mere steps from the Red Light District, and here’s the thing about transvestites- she’s a woman now, and she KNOWS.  Oh, she KNOWS and, trust me, let her teach you.  

I decline.  You’re a coward, says Metal Chris.

We play the show.  This is where I disappoint Metal Chris for the second time.  On this tour, each band member’s given a solo feature, and tonight’s gig isn’t a great one for me.  I saw Modest Mouse a while back.  Half way through their set, Isaac Brock stops singing, looks down at his hands and declares his guitar sounds like actual shit.  That’s how I feel about our Hamburg show. 

Metal Chris is in the audience, a rare thing for a bus driver.  Post show, he grabs me by the shoulders and looks me straight in the eyes.  Metal Chris is not a beautiful man.  He looks, in his own words, like a feral Unicorn's nightmare (his english is, again, excellent).    He shakes his head, mockingly slowly.  Coward, says Metal Chris.  You’re a coward.  

Having played a mediocre guitar solo and declined sexual congress with a transvestite prostitute, it becomes clear to me I must Regain Metal Chris’s Trust.  How does a jet lagged, cowardly American win back the favor of a belligerent, adulterous career drinker with a mythical creatures fetish? 

Chocolate, obviously.  I break free from Metal Chris's disapproving gaze, fumble through my backpack and produce a snickers bar.  For you, I tell Metal Chris, I’d deliver the world.  He laughs.  You are not a coward after all, he assures me, but risk becoming fat.  I’ve never felt so validated. 

Sleepy Skrillex

Skrillex is taking a nap in a hammock.  I mean, why not?  His posse's loitering, confused, face drugs kicking in- how, after all, can one heap adulation upon and bask in the glory of said hipster DJ while he's contentedly sawing wood?  It’s 2012, our first swing through Hang Out Fest in Gulf Shores, AL.  My life has changed completely almost over night. 

A few months prior, I’d been teaching guitar lessons and bouncing around from band to band.  It was suggested to me, very lovingly, that I’d make a great therapist- perhaps I should consider going back to school?  Face facts, Trevor- if it was going to happen, it would've happened by now.  You’re never making it.  And that’s ok, we love you.  But, please, let it go.  This was pre-Frozen, mind you, so little empowerment's attached to that statement.  Rather, resignation.  

Defeat.  

It’s strange, the whole thing.  It's registering, in the sweltering Alabama heat a half decade ago, that I’m a full-time touring musician, playing in this quirky band, everything’s shiny and new and I’m so excited I can hardly sleep.  We’re still in a van at this point and stage hands chuckle as we beep beep beep in triumphant reverse, wedging ourselves between the Port-a-Potties and Switchfoot's tour bus. 

I’m thinking this is gloriously unexpected, and thank you whatever higher power's casting its omniscient gaze in my direction 'cause I need this.  Finally, after all the years and opportunities evaporated, I'm, well, here.  Just here.

2012 is a year of so many firsts- first open bar at a big music festival, first celebrity sighting where I have the same VIP access.  First time playing the Gorge, first time on national television, first time being mistaken for John Mayer.  There're other firsts, too.  First time landing in Seattle, depressed and jet lagged, heading to an apartment where half the stuff’s in boxes.  First time packing up my half, renting a storage unit.  First time knowing there’s a number I can’t call anymore.

That was five years ago, almost to the day.  A lot has changed, thankfully.

It's still strange, the whole thing.  I hope that never changes.  

'Cause You've Gotta Start Somewhere

Someday, my heavily photoshopped countenance with dominate media outlets worldwide.  But not this day.  

This day, I’m a little known guitar player, songwriter and singer- a song and dance man who, objectively, can't dance for shit.  That said, I've been dealt a reasonably decent hand over here.  My full time band pays me a livable wage.  I’ve traveled the world, picking and grinning, several times over.  I have elite status on several major airlines, the kind of fancy that fattens you up on complimentary dark chocolates but only occasionally gets you upgraded.  My dumb face has even been on national TV a few times.  And yet, even to diehard Allen Stone fans, I’m largely an abstraction.  Why have I been so reluctant to share more of myself and art with the handful of folks who might be interested?  

Judgment?  Not really- I want people to hear my music and saying more dumb crap publicly would do me good.  Failure?  Sure.  I mean, all creative people fall in love with an idealized version of themselves, hence the photoshop and egregious auto-tuning of carefully sculpted pseudo vulnerability.  I'm as guilty as anyone.  

I think it’s this- when you spend most of your time strumming along in the stage left shadows, it’s easy thinking this muted version of yourself is what the machine requires rather than the full, raw flavor.  As I sit her, tippity-tapping away outside the Frothy Monkey on a gorgeous Nashville evening, I'm feeling more like an obliterated, boiled-to-shit bowl of green beans, brown and unappetizing, rather than the crisp, in-season offering I know I am.  Yes, I've taken this metaphor too far, I know, and I haven't written in a while so I'm working out the muscle here.  It's fun!  I can still string words together, it turns out.   

I’m not a genius, thank god.  I can’t imagine what that must be like- it’s hard enough being smart enough to know how little’s really up to you.  But I really enjoy, you know, doing stuff.  So, here’s to sharing- music, tons of new music, blogs, podcasts, videos, photos and so much more.  I dig bumbling along in real time, and it's long overdue. 

So, join me!  It’ll likely be pretty good, I think, and failing upward is a noble pursuit.  2017, I’m coming for ya!