“How do you not kill each other?”
That’s a common question we get when we say that 6 of us live on one bus. This past May we took the leap from playing local shows every weekend in Baltimore, to touring full time across the U.S. and Canada. We sold all of our belongings, quit our day jobs, and renovated a shuttle bus into a glorified tour machine; with bunkbeds, 6 seats, and room to store our musical gear.
Each member of the band is responsible for a different aspect of tour management. We have two people who work exclusively on booking our shows, and reaching out to local bands and promoters. Four people make up our marketing team, creating and mailing out flyers, constructing social media calendars, revising our band website and tour schedule online, calling up local radio stations, and reaching out to the press/ music blogs for interviews and show promotion. Right now we actually have 7 people aboard the bus, the seventh being a photographer who has been filming and taking pictures at all of our shows the last two months.
As a full time band, we play 5-6 shows a week, in a new city every night. Most of us have online jobs to make ends meet. Video transcription, writing papers for college students, evaluating websites, and writing for blogs… are just a few ways a musician could make money on tour. Not to mention, busking on the street!
As strange as our bus looks from the outside, we have only been pulled over in one state so far. In Amarillo TX last week we were stopped on the highway for supposedly driving on the shoulder. After a few minutes, we realized the state troopers were more fascinated with hearing about our tour than writing us a ticket, and we were let go with just a warning. In New Orleans, our drummer was almost arrested for doing Fire Poi on Bourbon Street after 8pm. Luckily for him the police officer who was about to write him a ticket was a Grateful Dead fan, and had one of their album covers as his phone’s screensaver. He was let go with a warning.
Every night is a clean slate, another chance to share our stories with wild abandon on stage. As a band that see’s a lot of other bands just play stationary on stage, we make an effort to add some theater flair and rowdiness to our performances. We pride ourselves on playing with the same amount of energy to a crowd of one person, to a sold out room on a Friday night.
From the busy streets of Brooklyn, to the beautiful beaches of California… we’ve seen sea to shining sea. We have shows booked until Thanksgiving, then we’ll be taking a break to record our next full length over the holidays. You can expect to see a lot more of Community Center in 2016, with dates already booked through March, we plan on playing 300+ shows next year. See you on the road!
Tour Schedule: http://www.bandsintown.com/
Website: http://www.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/
