Johan Renck Quotes

You have to spend a lot more time on the road these days if you want to make a living with music.

After leaving Queen, I decided to stop doing those mega-four-month tours. I go out for a month, and my dog recognizes me when I come home.

Everybody thinks that touring is really glamourous, but I pretty much sit in a room all day. I have a sort of office where I do emails, and I go for a run, and then at the end of the night, I go to bed. It's not like some crazy party.

Well, I got pretty good and went on the road with a group. We starved. At that time I didn't realize that you'd work one gig in Kansas City, the next in Florida and the next gig will be in Louisville. You know, a thousand miles a night. That was really rough, man.

I say that I get paid to travel, and I play the shows for free.

I think bands, when they're on the road, they keep their sanity by developing an internal sense of humor.

I've always been in touring bands in some capacity.

I laughed at Willie Nelson, wondering why he spends all his life on that tour bus. And I look at myself, and I'm sitting in airplanes half the time.

I don't like touring and it seemed to be getting on top of me in a big way.

I am a touring artist - I get a kick out of it, like, a huge kick.

A lot of bands live and breathe out of hotels. I just happen to be the one that lives on my bus. I have camped and RVed my entire life.

It's funny to think that at 22 years old, I was really burned out from being on the road for 10 years.

When you're a touring musician, you're always turning over new rocks, and there's always a certain level of tension in your life. The music business, and the travel that comes with it, is stressful, challenging, redundant, exhausting, exciting, and often very depressing.

My life used to be record, tour, record, tour. You can never say no as a freelance musician. I was on the road 200 days a year.

Ninety percent of touring is a logistical maneuver, moving your body and everyone else's from one city to the next. You're like a piece of gear. Then you jump out of the box, get onstage, and play. That sounds cynical, but it sucks to move around so much.

The thing is, I'll always be a touring artist. It's what I am; that's what I love doing.

It's always difficult to be a traveling musician and still keep things together.

I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be in that world. But I also understood that being a touring musician meant that you'd be gone a lot and that was going to make other things a lot harder, like having a family.

I've always loved music. I've worked on music and written music, but, it wasn't until I was actually on the road full time with WWE that I put my first album out.

When I wasn't touring I'd be really down, then suddenly after a few weeks of crazy travelling - America, a double headline with Ray Davies in Denmark, TV shows here and just partying... Suddenly I had an acute psychotic breakdown.

When you give your life over to your touring schedule, it's so grueling, you have to have moments where you have your own comfort places.

When I started doing music full time, I figured out my job wasn't something I needed to be completely sober for.

You get so brainwashed. You're on the road 300 days a year, and that's why guys get so messed up. This life becomes a part of them. It's not real, but some guys who are still in the business think it is.

As a working musician, your first instinct is to try and do your job. It wasn't always my aspiration to sing; I just wanted to be a great working musician. But then Flying Lotus suggested I try, and nothing has ever been the same since.

Being a musician in Texas had its own set of risks.