Alex Holycross: I'm in a band called The Native Howl from a very small remote town called Leonard Michigan with a population of less than 500 people, and we play a style of music called thrash grass which is a combination of thrash metal and bluegrass.
Travis Worland: My name is Travis Worland and I sing for Enterprise Earth and The Willow.
Chris Wiseman: My name’s Chris Wiseman, I’m 29 years old and have been a part of my two group Currents and Shadow of Intent since 2014.
GARZI: My name is Chris Garzon, I was born and raised in Miami, Florida. I'm 25 years old and have been making music for the last 5 years.
Please tell me a bit about yourself and your touring band
Alex Holycross: It's a lot of driving and it's not a lot of sleep. And there's different levels of touring... the headliner has to get there the earliest in the day and they'll get into the city at like 10am and they'll check like 10-3, the next band has to be there by 3 to soundcheck, the next band has to be there by 4 to soundcheck, then the last band have to get there till the latest in the day, because its in reverse order.
Travis Worland: A typical day on tour is pretty much the same as every other day, with a few exceptions. Generally, we pull up to the venue a little early so we have time to grab food and coffee, depending on the schedule for the day. Then set up all of our stage equipment, find out where merch goes, set that up and do some inventory upkeep. Then it's showtime, working the merch table, stretching before the set, all that fun stuff. Then we finish up the night, pack up, load out, and head on to the next one! it's a lot of rinse and repeat.
Can you please walk me through a typical day on tour
Travis Worland: Music is my primary source of income! When I'm home I freelance working production for various companies and clients, but it's still within the musical Realm.
Chris Wiseman: Every stream of income I have is related to music in some way, so definitely.
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Is music your primary source of income?
Travis Worland: Touring the EU/UK vs touring in the US is vastly different. We do get treated better by venue staff typically, there's always (well, almost always) get-in food, catering for lunch and usually pizza or something easy like that for dinner after the show. The mental burden for most of us comes in with the time differences. For example, I live on the west coast so in Europe I was 9 hours ahead of everyone else which makes talking to my friends/ family at home a lot more difficult. You really have to rely on your support system that you have out on the road with you.
Chris Wiseman: Language barriers can be a little bit of a burden to deal with on certain days, and I’m not as confident I can find certain amenities as quickly as I could at home. Otherwise with the right people with me I never feel too overwhelmed.
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Since you've just come off of a European tour, what differences are there between touring outside of the country? Are there any larger mental burdens knowing you're so far away from home?
What are some concerns when looking at touring through a financial aspect?
Alex Holycross: I mean there's definitely concerns and it's tour to tour, and it's all in balance with profit against cost. Obviously transportation costs, logistics, lodging, food. I don't see how the concerns for myself don't change much on the road vs at home.Just create a budget and try to stick to it, and stay within your means as things grow, build or progress.
Travis Worland: The Financial Security in the touring world is zero. It is an extremely volatile and ever-changing environment. It increases a lot of stress and anxiety, and pretty much every problem I've ever had with feeling like I can or cannot continue my career has been Financial at the root. At the same time, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I've been touring for roughly 8 years now, and money comes and goes but the joy of being able to step on stage and have a great night with everybody completely overshadows the financial stressors of its nature.
Chris Wiseman: Touring is not a realistic or sustainable thing to do 12 months out of the year like most jobs since it requires leaving home. Therefore, maximizing it for the months you do leave is important when finances are a concern. Touring revenue can continue to scale higher and higher as long as attendance, ticket price, and merchandise sales continue to have a higher demand. At the start for most groups, for instance 2017 and prior for us, opening a tour was more like an unpaid internship that college students would do. The revenue and costs would cancel out but the networking and experience were valuable for developing and continuing the career.
Artist Note:
This project was very impactful for me, I got to dive into the world of music and interview a variety of truly talented musicians. With the remix, I simply wanted to make the interview easier to read by putting it into a smaller area where it was not organized by the person, but by the question asked. I believe this helps the viewer more easily be able to draw their attention to the questions themselves, without having to read through each interview on its own given some are very lengthy.