Musician’s Notebook

Bands on major record labels are frequently on long tours; one year, eighteen months, sometimes even more, of constant globe trotting while the executives lean back in their big stuffy chairs at home and enjoy the green smell of cash, cash, cash.

It’s true that when you’re getting your band off the ground, a hard-slogging tour will get you off the ground and develop a nation-wide fan base.

It’s true that those hard-slogging tours keep established bands in business.

But isn’t there a smarter way to do it?

Here’s where the record labels have all their thinking mixed up: long tours mean more money, right? Wrong!

These horrifically long tours can (and almost always do) cause a variety of problems that mean that all parties concerned will be losing out on money in the long run.

• Health concerns and physical exhaustion
• Musical and creative burnout
• Band tension and subsequent break-ups
• Family tension and subsequent break-ups
• Self-medication as a coping mechanism; drug and alcohol addictions are just one example

When the band is suffering from the listed issues caused by excessive touring, money should be the last concern of anyone involved with the band; helping them fix their problems, their health, repair their families and bands, and kick addictions should be the first order of business.

But we know that money is always the first order of business for the record companies; they don’t really care about the wellbeing of artists.

And while we’re looking at this from the company’s point of view, shouldn’t it be obvious that excessive touring leads to loss rather than profit? Well, no, because these people barely passed business school (if at all) and don’t have the smallest bit of foresight. A sustained brand like the Rolling Stones is sure to bring in more money over time than a one-hit wonder, no matter how big that hit is.

My band’s policy documents have a very important clause in them.

When my band’s manager asked me to form some policies that I and the other band members would like to see included, the first that came to mind and I subsequently included went something like this:

We will never, ever tour so excessively that we alienate each other, our families, or ourselves, or cause serious damage to our lives in any other way.

This is a policy we make binding between ourselves and with any companies we deal with. If a person or company doesn’t like this clause, we go elsewhere.

A band can still do a hard-slog tour and form a following, but it has to be done in such a way that the band, and the band’s families, can handle it. That means frequent breaks, and not on the other side of the world, but at home.

I have a wife and a son. If I could not take them with me, the most I’d ever stay out on the road for would be a month (and even that would be excruciatingly painful). However, I do have plans in place to allow me to take them with me at minimal cost. We’ll talk about how to do this another time.

Make reasonable touring and tour breaks a matter of band policy, and never back down from band policy when dealing with external forces, especially record companies.