The Road

For a musician, the balance between music and survival is a contentious and constant problem. Even the most successful musicians need 'day gigs' if you define a musician as I do: someone who writes, records, produces and performs music. Anything outside that, even if intimately related to music; selling 'merch' (T-shirts etc), giving music lessons, buying and selling music gear, inventing a new music gizmo, are essentially day gigs. It's difficult to survive without them.

For the rest of us that means having a regular, forty-hour-a-week job. 

I used to curse the concept and wish I could spend all day every day being a musician.

Then I tried it and as a result I have had a slightly greater affection for regular employment.

But still...

A time a couple years ago I was a full-time musician. My sole income was performing one the road with an Eagles tribute band. It was very satisfying for once in my life to be able to tell people “I am a musician” and have it be absolutely one-hundred percent true.

In early 2007, I had had it with my day job. I decided enough was enough. I had always dreamed of hitting the road with a band. Riding down the highway in a gleaming tour bus, I was going to get a full-time gig playing bass on the road if it killed me. I started a blog on my Myspace about my 'road to the road' (http://myspace.com/joeltjohnson -it would take a bit of back navigation to get to early 2007). Later I renamed it "Diesel Fumes"

Not long afterwords, out of nowhere it seemed, I got called to audition for a touring country band. I passed the audition but afterwords, a former band member threw his hat in the ring was naturally preferred. That band felt badly so they recommended me to another band who, a few months later, hired me sight unseen, without any audition or a face-to-face interview.

I quit my regular job, I sold a bunch of music gear so I could buy a bunch of different music gear and some stage clothes, stepped on an aging odd-smelling tour bus with my suitcase and *presto* I was a musician.

The highest paid member of the band: I'm talking about the bus

In many ways it was great. I played all across the country, from Southern Florida to Northern Washington State, from San Diego to Long Island, from a stone's throw from the Mexican border in remote Arizona to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We played Wyoming cowboy bars for a few dozen people and opened for well-known national acts in front of thousands. We played dusty fairgrounds in Montana and opulent and grand old theaters in West Palm Beach, Florida. 

This theater was actually in Pittsfield, Mass

We even had a few girls flash us their boobs. Truth be told it was not entirely spontaneous rock star worship; we had a sign.

This truck full of rowdies in Iowa gave us quite a show

A typical day was spent traveling whether we were playing or not. We spent the majority of our time riding on the bus. We could ride for days at a time, driving through the night. I had my own bunk I to sleep in and my own stock of food in the fridge to heat up in the microwave. Of course there was bathroom too so we only had to stop for fuel and to change drivers–with no professional driver, the whole band rotated in four-hour shifts at the wheel.

The bus broke down at least four times in the time I was on the road. Sometimes in the middle of the night, sometimes in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes both.

Broke Bus Mountain

A video I made when the bus dropped a tranny in the middle of Pennsylvania

We might arrive at a hotel in the middle of the night or at high noon. There were times I awoke from my bunk to find the bus parked God knows where and find a hotel key or two sitting on the table. There were times after a gig when we checked into a hotel room just long enough to shower, then we'd drive all night to some other theater, or fairgrounds, or casino.

In six months I covered over ten thousand miles and thirty-one states—eighteen of which we played shows in.

We performed four to six days a week and rarely had more than four days off to spend at home.

A gig usually went down like this. We would arrive, load-in and sound check around mid-afternoon. A catered meal was both preceded and followed by time simply hanging out, either in a hotel room or a dressing room. More often than not, the bus served as both.

The performance itself was rarely over ninety minutes. After playing those twenty six songs a few dozen times those ninety minutes felt more like nine. Breaking down the gear and packing it back under the bus took less than half-an-hour. Then it was back on the bus and on to somewhere else.

I had a love/hate relationship with life on the road. It was cool to be rolling about the country and only 'working' for a couple hours a day, but being marooned on the island that was the bus, hotels and venues could really be draining. It was especially difficult to be away from my wife.

I started to understand what Bob Seger was talking about in his song “Turn the Page” -minus the hearing loss, cigarettes and underage groupies.

Okay, okay, there was a little hearing loss.

Then there was the money. Even with the lower expenses, we were barely surviving. The sad part was that the band I was with paid better and had more gigs than most. How some musicians manage doing that for years at a time I can't imagine.

My least favorite thing was that I felt like a fraud. I was playing music that someone else wrote and recorded; strutting on the stage pretending to be a rock star. Even when I was younger, the 'rock star' thing was not my vibe. It blew my mind that after the shows people, especially in rural areas, wanted my autograph. I hadn't with the band long enough to be in the band photographs they sold at the merch table, so I was actually signing a picture of some long-haired dude I had never met.

“You look different than your picture,” someone would always say.

“I know, it's like I'm a whole different person,” I responded.

They would laugh ...and I would pretend to.

Then I took a week off to travel to New York for Christmas and came back to find myself replaced. It was an harsh adjustment at first, but in truth, the timing was perfect. I was happy to be back home with my wife and our cats on a daily basis. I was also suddenly unemployed. Fortunately, was able to get my job on Jeopardy back and eventually find some other work to fill in the gaps.

I decided I had fooled around long enough and it was time to record and release my own album.

And that's exactly what I did.

CD or Download at CD Baby

Also on iTunes

I no longer dream of tour buses and of a life on the road. I dream simply of bring my own music to people who will love it. I might hit the road again when I have opportunity to do it playing my own music and if I could take Audra along with me.

I do still miss the satisfaction of being a full-time musician, but precious little else. I don't regret a second of my experience on the road, the wonderful friends I made both in the band and great folks from the audience that have been in contact and reading my blog ever since.

I also learned a lot.

Like the importance of a good contract rider. Mine now specifically states that all the brown M&Ms must not only be removed from the bowl in the dressing room, they are to be flushed down the toilet with a compliment rose pedals and a fifth of gin while three monks sing Rapper's Delight in drag.

And no wire hangars!