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. 

New Standards

Delta Rae’s kickstarter campaign’s raised over $174k in 48 hours. 

Taylor Swift and Melissa Etheridge retweeted it. Seven people have donated $10k or more, and Rolling Stone country’s taken notice.

I’m not anti-music industry, but I find complacency abhorrent. Scott Borchetta, the Goliath to Delta Rae’s four-part harmony David, is an easy target, and within his bedazzled, anachronistic nonsense, the takeaway’s obvious:

Artists are writing great songs, finding an audience, and putting out music however the hell we feel like. We are talented, engaged, courageous entrepreneurs, and it’s fucking fantastic calling our own shots. 

The times they are a changin’, and changin’ fast. It’ll be too much for most, maybe especially for famous names from the old guard. We must stop seeking approval from these people and pave our own way.

The industry’s only as good as the music propelling it, and that - thank god - is on us. It’s up to labels and managers to meet the new standard we’re setting.

Delta Rae

Dedicated MoaT readers know how big of a Delta Rae fan I am, and yesterday they launched a Kickstarter campaign for their two album concept, The Light and The Dark.

Delta Rae broke right around the same time as the Al Stone Band, in early 2012, propelled by viral YouTube videos and a touring schedule that’d make Black Flag soil themselves.

They, like us, released a successful indie record and decided to drink the oh-so-delectable major label Kool Aid (Warner Bros and Big Machine in their case, Capitol in ours).

Both projects enjoy a uniquely rabid fanbase of discerning musos who actively encourage putting out music, playing shows that make sense, and building a timeless, bulletproof empire of awesomeness and inclusivity, while actively discouraging Kool Aid of any kind, much less the drinking of it.

And, as of recently, Delta Rate no longer requires the stamp of approval from middle aged men in bedazzled jeans.

Eric, Ian, Brittany, Grant, Mike, and Liz - if there’s a band more qualified to call their own shots, I’d like to meet ‘em. You’re my friends, and you inspire me.

I backed their campaign today. You should, too. 

"Talent"

Today, in the city that hosts my favorite least-favorite airport, the first leg of the Train/Goo Goo Dolls tour comes to a close.

True to form in this part of the world, our set’s pushed back due to inclement weather, and it’s during this unforeseen downtime that I’m writing this, while people who actually work for a living scramble to save impossibly expensive equipment from impossibly large hailstones.

I’ve shadowed everyone on the tour and have a profound appreciation for the warm, fuzzy symbiosis that is a well-oiled rock and/or roll machine, so I know the best thing’s staying the hell out of the way.

Performers are referred to as the “talent.” Well, here I am, tucked meekly away in the corner of our dressing room, dressed like an asshole, possessing precisely none of the skills required to make the show happen. I’m about as “talented” as a hole in the ground.

When the tour picks back up in sunny Florida in a few days, I shall entice mosquitoes, fraternize with retirees from the Northeast, and second guess my life’s path.    

Yes.

Sometimes - most often, in my case - someone else says it best.

24/7

When you’re first of three on a giant tour like this one, it’s easy looking at the schedule and going wow, I have literally one hour of actual work each day.

But between making solid impressions on the other bands and crews 24/7, being inexorably polite to everyone 24/7, and staying out of people’s way while simultaneously seeing and being seen 24/7, it’s actually pretty goddamn exhausting, and our humble 30 minutes on stage feels like the only time we get to relax and be ourselves. 

So, on this day off, I’m savoring the pleasures of idleness, reminding myself how much of our perceived self-worth is intrinsically future-oriented, that our obsession with “maximizing time” yanks us from the present, makes savoring impossible and, ironically, derails productivity.  

Which is a fancy way of saying “see ya poolside.”

Crystal Bridges

Just got off stage in Rogers AR, and despite performing in direct sunlight and stifling humidity while rocking sure-to-be-immortalized-on-the-internet floral print, I feel reasonably ok, relaxing as I am in the back lounge of the bus, a fizzy water in hand and YouTube conspiracy theory rabbit holes in which to get masochistically lost. 

If you find yourself in Northwest Arkansas -  and I struggle to imagine a scenario in which you would, unless you work for our benevolent overlords at Walmart corporate (or are a professional rock and roll degenerate) - set aside a few hours to explore the incongruously beautiful Crystal Bridges Museum: an incredible collection, miles of trails adorned with modern art, and opportunities for quiet reflection abound.

Crossing Fingers

Summer packages are assigned catchy titles like “Play That Song” or “The Hits Come Alive,” but really they should all be called “The Exposed Electronics Tour.” 

Because playing sheds during the summer sure sounds like a good idea, especially from an air conditioned office, and especially when you begin routing through, say, Phoenix and Santa Barbara. 

But when you find yourself in Omaha NE, and the forecast promises mid-80’s and sunny, and you’re met by torrential downpour and hail, which is presently clanging at deafening volume against the roof of the bus, you think about all the lighting fixtures and speakers and amplifiers and instruments and computers and god knows what else - total value in the millions of dollars - and cross your fingers that everything won’t snap, crackle, then pop into (hopefully) insured oblivion. 

We managed hastily to tarp all our gear just in time…for the tarp to blow away, and everything to get soaked. 

Sigh. 

Cold Spark

PYRO! I’M FINALLY ON A TOUR WITH PYRO!

Well, almost. This is actually what’s known as cold spark, shot from, imaginatively, cold sparklers.

It assures you can enjoy a Rammstein-approved show without minor inconveniences like the venue burning down, or the charring of various tour personnel. It also means, as pictured below, that you can fire off confetti during the encore and watch it blow, consequence free, into what appears to be open flame. Neat!

It’s pretty wild - you feel a small amount of heat, as you would standing next to any large-ish light, but you can hold your hand over cold spark and be totally fine. And it’s hilarious eavesdropping on Train’s infinitely patient production manager explaining all this to fire marshals who are mostly just annoyed they’re not working the Brad Paisley show. 

I would say don’t try this at home, but you totally can.

LEGO

How you know you’ve made it in the show business: when a fan at the meet and greet presents a LEGO replica of your stage, complete with lighting fixtures, techs, and a whole buncha adorable mini guitars (and I’m sure Craig can look past the indignity of his LEGO likeness being caged behind a drum shield). 

Am I jealous? Intensely.

But I’ve caught a glimpse of the mountain top, and it is, my friends, glorious.  

Craft

Every Goo Goo Dolls song uses a different tuning, hence the army of acoustic guitars pictured below, about half of what John Rzeznik uses every night.  

In the foreground, you see his back up guitar for “Iris,” hands down the most popular song ever inspired by Nicolas Cage.

It’s in our cultural lexicon that song, almost impossibly massive, and yet its origins are humble, more than likely coaxed into existence on that very guitar in a moment of welcome disquiet, after hours of seeking and questioning and nearly giving up. 

Its a reminder that, when you strip away the video walls and the pyro and whatever accolades, it’s all about the courage to embrace the blank page.