The Pretty City lads are part way through their 27 date European tour (in 30 days!) for their new album Cancel The Future. Touring the world obviously provides you with a certain level of wisdom and street smart – the band thought they’d take it upon themselves to give us a few tips on how to make it out alive, living life on the road.
Touring is great fun, but don’t forget you are eating, sleeping, travelling, performing with the same group every day. Boundaries need to be set early to ensure smooth sailing on tour. Our biggest tour was 21 shows in 26 days last year in Europe which we’re about to break this month with 27 in 30 days.
We survived the first one so I’m sure we’ll survive the next, but here are some tips that helped us get through it which you can use, no matter how long the tour.
Wash regularly
This may seem like a no brainer but you’d be surprised how easy it is to miss a few opportunities to wash in a row and be a filthy mess. Everyone’s heard of the spaghetti incident. If not look it up here. Not the same incident about Guns n Roses album but rather a separate incident involving spaghetti (what a world we live in where there are two different rock n roll stories called the spaghetti incident!).
In this story a competition was created in Mötley Crüe around who could not wash for the longest time. The rest of the story isn’t exactly G rated so follow the link if you dare.
Anyway, point is, sometimes not washing can’t be helped because you lost your hotel reservation key and spent a few hours trying to break into your hotel at midnight only to have security swing by and grill you for 2 hours before finally letting you in then having to leave at 5AM to drive 15 hours to Copenhagen the next day. Just don’t make a habit of it.
Equal bribing material
‘What happens on tour stays on tour.’ Bullshit. Everyone has a smartphone and if you’re not big enough to be snapped by the paparazzi yet then you have to be your own paparazzi. Why? Cause you can keep everyone in line with a little bit of bribing material.
You don’t even need much. Everyone sleeps with their mouth open on a tour van and looks gross. Snap that baby up and whenever that person doesn’t volunteer to drive after you have 4 times in a row you can threaten to post said incriminating photo to Instagram.
Watch how quickly they behave themselves. No one wants to ruin their chances with European Tinder dates and they will do anything to keep the mystique of looking like cool rock stars.
Swap bunk buddies regularly
There’s 4 of us in the band and most hotels are giving us two double beds or two rooms with a double bed in each. That means you’re gonna be sharing a bed or a separate room with one other person every night. Not a big deal, we’re all adults here and Ken is good at spooning.
Point is, don’t keep the same bunk buddies whole tour – share the good spooner around. Two things will happen, one, it will create two opposing camps. One camp might think the tour is going great and the other is thinking about leaving at the next truck stop. Also you’ll start to hate the person you’re always bunking with. It happens. Just a little too much contact.
So be regular about swapping who shares with who and if you’re lucky to get a bunch of single beds and a king on it’s own, just let the tall guy have the big bed. He’s sleeping extra rough.
Rotating party roster
On tour every day is a Saturday night. And you can easily slip into wake up still drunk from the night before for a week straight. But that doesn’t help when you gotta share driving. Make sure one person is having a quiet night so they can take first shift next day.
Have an informal roster going cause some nights one person may just be more popular than the rest for whatever reason so you want to play it by ear a bit. But don’t be a dick and never volunteer. You’re all in it together after all. What you can also do is figure out when you have a day off and make the night before designated party night. Then you can all go off tap together and sleep it off the next day.
Same per diems
We usually get paid in cash on tour, which pays for petrol and food while on the road. But don’t have everyone dip into the kitty as they please, cause there’s always one person who lives on diet coke and chewing gum and one that lives on main meals at every stop.
So to avoid any issues, everyone get’s same cash deposit every few days. Then they’re responsible for feeding themselves. If they spend it all on roadside chocolate in the first day that’s their issue. But then again I was really happy eating chocolate for 2 days and I didn’t have to share it either, so really the system works well.
