Every job has its downside. For example, being in a band; the travel part of it - getting picked up from your house in a car, going to the airport, getting on a plane, going from the airplane to a van, then going from the van to a hotel.
We wrote 'Tush' at a soundcheck in Alabama in about six or eight minutes.
I'm not going to say no to playing a show in Missoula.
My first show was at my friend Corey Petrick's basement in Bucks County, PA.
I usually hang around the room listening to a bit of last night's show. If there's one available, I go to the steam room every day for my voice. I spend half an hour there and then I eat, because I can't eat later than four o'clock. Then I go for a soundcheck. That's my day.
To do more of a concert thing, it takes so much preparation. You don't just show up and wing it. You're putting countless hours in the studio, not just to write and produce stuff, but to come up with edits and special things for the show.
The song 'Hello There' was written because we never got a soundcheck. 'Hello There' was our soundcheck.
I catch Filter in Des Moines doing their soundcheck at a small club. After tearing through a few songs, they spend nearly an hour meeting with fans as part of a radio station meet-and-greet.
I got the whole band set up in the basement and we are jamming.
We record a lot of our shows, we record our soundchecks.
Performing live can be a drag, the process that leads up to the actual performance. It's all the travel, it's working up all the details and everything, which I hate.
There's a lot of downtime when we're not on stage leading up to the gigs.
There is a lot of work just in terms of traveling and logistics and people and gear and all that kind of stuff. But I never really have problems playing music. That never seems like work.
Ricky Washington is from a Baptist church in Miami, Florida, and he can pretty much sing anything. We just started working it up at soundcheck, and holy smokes, it's just great! The audience gets to singing. So there's that stuff to do - find some old obscure R&B stuff - because we can do it justice.
When you make records, you gotta think about what's going to be happening at the concert.
