King Washington – TOUR TIPS

In this Tour Tips segment, the rock ‘n roll band, King Washington, give you their tips for being on tour. You can check out the feature, after the break.

Preface
Whether this is your first tour or it’s your goal to get yourself out there to be heard, let these be enduring words to inspire future ventures!

Being a band from LA, it’s very hard to make an imprint in an oversaturated market of musicians gigging on the regular. The demand to get people out to shows is higher than other cities, door deals aren’t usually good, and it’s the hardest city to pull people in. With so much going against us for so long, we never thought we’d be able to afford to book a tour on our own.

Eventually, we put our foot down and booked a little acoustic tour in NYC in 2013. The three of us flew out there with five or six coffee house gigs booked through a dear friend and great songwriter, Niall Connolly. We had no idea what we were doing. We rented a car and made our way around the city singing to everyone who would listen. At the end of our small trip, we learned a few things from our first voyage. Never rent a car in NYC, always carry business cards, and get the hell out of LA.

The NYC crowd reactions inspired us to explore new territory. There was magic around every corner; people reaching out to us, imploring to help in different ways. Whether it was a free photoshoot in Central Park, people having us over for dinner, or even housing us. This was the beginning of our taste of touring. Now, roughly three years later, we’ve played over 140 shows in 38 different cities across the nation. Here’s what we’ve learned:

1. Accommodations
If you’ve ever heard the tales of an unsigned indie band touring, they’ve most likely come back home breaking even or in the hole. There are many ways to save money on the road and the way we started was by utilizing the incredible website that is couchsurfing.org.

If you reach out far enough in advance, you will find incredible hosts that will house all of you for no cost whatsoever. It sounds too good to be true, and it is. Every single experience we had was truly special. Great people with big hearts let you into their homes and sometimes even feed you breakfast or dinner. They treat you like family. Do it. couchsurfing.org

2. Food/Drink
Eating healthy and affordable food on the road is virtually impossible. It’s usually one or the other. That’s why we usually take a ton of Soylent with us. Great way to keep the hunger away until you get to the venue where hopefully they provide a meal. At the smaller venues, they will only provide drink tickets. Do not forget to ask for and distribute these tickets to your thirsty companions. These beverages may be the only thing from causing physical and mental collapse on a long tour.

3. Merch Value
Having sufficient merch on the road is what will make or break the significance of your tour. Keeping the merch organized and looking good will help drastically when the fans come flooding towards you after the show.

Always plug the merch from the stage towards the end of your set. After you get off stage, steer the entire band to the merch table immediately. Engage with the fans and do not be shy to get their emails. Every email is a lifelong connection to a fan that will remember your show and buy all of your future releases. We use an iPad with the sign-up screen displayed right up front, so you don’t have to spend hours trying to decode all the scribbled handwritten emails later.

4. Per Diems
If you do well with merch, you can use the extra monies to dish out daily per diems to all participating road warriors. The way we do it is, if it’s a show day, you get per diem. If not, you do not get said per diem. Sounds rough, but it’s a safe way to avoid going into the hole and forces the per diem holder to spend his/her cash sparingly and wisely. If you have five shows in a row, you don’t need to spend all that cash night after night. Usually, we book our tours pretty tight so that we don’t have too much overhead from all the days off. (Depending on the busyness of the schedule, this policy may or may not work.)

5. Bring A Sound Engineer
If you can afford to, get someone who knows your music to run your sound at every show. It will make a world of difference and help gain more fans, connect with the crowd, and sell more merch. If you can, get someone to run lights as well. Keeping the audience engaged is key to capturing lifelong fans.

6. Develop Your Show
Every band knows how to play their songs, but very few have the set list dialed down to an exact 45-minute set. It’s important to have your frontman or speakers deliver your spoken dialogue with well-rehearsed confidence. These things won’t matter to the fans that already know your music, but when playing to a new crowd, it’s what will set you apart from the other bands. Write a script in between the songs you’d like to talk after and rehearse it until you are off book. Doing this will save you dreaded stage mumbles and awkward silences whilst tuning. On the other hand, if you are all masters of improv, disregard this message.

7. Keep Receipts
If your band is a partnership or LLC, it is imperative to keep the receipts from every expenditure. Dealing with taxes at the end of the year will ruin you if you haven’t kept track of all the spending. Unless of course, you have no income to claim. In this case, disregard this message.

8. Disperse Responsibility
There are a ton of things to deal with when you’re on the road. Tours are best enjoyed when someone has an organized tour schedule and can get the band in and out of the venue with everyone in a good mood. However, the designated tour manager may feel overwhelmed week after week if he/she must do too much. This is why it is important to designate different responsibilities to everyone.

Eventually, you may get lucky and have roadies doing all the work, but until then everyone must do their part to attempt to keep things civil. We like to separate some of the key responsibilities into five categories:

Housing organization
Post-show designated driver
Merch warden
Venue infiltration management
Treasurer

Generally, the hardest and most tedious task is dealing with the merch, so it’s best to switch out that responsibility quite often.

9. Escaping The Group
After a show, it’s easy for a bandmate to socialize and possibly ditch the band for an after party with a new friend (perhaps a girl who has stolen them away from the venue without a trace). These are policies all bands should discuss before the initial embarkment.

Never leave without letting someone know.
Make sure all your gear is packed away in the van before leaving and that you are done with your assigned responsibility.
Keep your phone charged.
Have a copy of the van address and time of departure so you can make your way back in time.

10. Stay in Touch
It’s a good idea to thank the talent buyer/venue owner for having you perform at their venue. Operating a live music venue is no easy task and these people work hard to support us hoodlums in our attempts to follow our dreams. Let them know that their hospitality was greatly appreciated and the staff treated you like kings. They’ll appreciate it more than you know and likely remember you on future tours.

Same goes with the fans you collected emails from. If you make the time to thank the peoples for signing up and address it to their city, they will most likely remember you in a positive light when they receive an email in a year stating your return, rather than another promotional email from a band they may not remember by then.

11. Stay Positive
You are the energy that you surround yourself with. It’s important to go out of your way to do all you can to keep the peace on the road. If there is a member who has a big ego or shorter fuse than the rest, do what you can to work with them and tolerate their occasional need to whine or project. If you feel the urge to attack someone, just remember you are stuck with these people for the duration of the trip. It is best to avoid stirring any turmoil if you can help it. So…don’t be an asshole. Just remember, you choose how to behave. Everyone needs their alone time after a while. Practice deep breathing, read a book, take a walk after sound check. Make good decisions, do your part, and the tour will go by much smoother!

Keep up with the band on Facebook!