A previous installment in our how to play in a rock band series (Issue 226) dealt with touring and how do deal with the demands of being on the road. In researching the article I spoke with a number of touring musicians (also see our article on Blood, Sweat & Tears guitarist Gabe Cummins in Issue 227) and in this segment I’m featuring my conversation with James Lee Stanley. He’s released 37 albums since 1973. He played various roles in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He wrote the 1984 dance club smash “Coming Out of Hiding” for Pamala Stanley. He hosts Another Radio Show on folkmusicnotebook.com.
Frank Doris: So, what advice would you give to musicians who are thinking about going on tour, or getting ready for one?
James Lee Stanley: The first thing that they have to do…if you want to be in a band, you have to practice. You have to get together and play regularly, and it has to be like a job. [It can’t be], “I don't feel like it today. I'm busy today, my wife [won’t let me]"…no. If you want to be in a band, you pick some days that you're going to practice. And those days become inviolate. You always practice on those days.
So when you do go on the road, you own your repertoire, because that changes everything. When you have your stuff down, then you're able to handle whatever problem [on the gig] comes up, because something always goes wrong. Something with the sound, something with the lights, something with the promotion. There are always things, but if you're prepared, then you can handle them. If you've got to also worry about the words to the song you're going to sing, it makes the whole thing a nightmare.
FD: I can relate.
JLS: The other thing is that if you're going to go on the road, you’d better have at least two or three of everything you’ll need. Extra cords, extra straps, extra batteries, extra pedals. Because something always goes wrong.
FD: If you’re an acoustic guitar player, your battery (in your guitar) is going to crap out 30 seconds before you're ready to go on.
JLS: Or in the middle of a song when it suddenly sounds like dinosaur farts.
FD: I measure my batteries with a voltmeter before I go on stage to make sure they’re at 9 volts. I know, I’m that kind of person…But I'm more concerned with talking about the psychological aspects. I don’t think people realize that how physically and mentally punishing it can be to tour.
JLS: Yeah. I must admit that when I started in this business…I had my first recording contract when I was 16. I guess by 1972, I was on the road up to 10 months a year for the next 20 years. And at that time, I would be hired into a club for a week or two. So I would go to a town and I'd get to spend time there and I'd get to have downtime. But when [touring] shifted to all one-nighters, which is what it is now for everybody, it became exhausting.
When I have a tour and I'm playing Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I make sure that those gigs are close together, no more than a hundred miles apart, and I get plenty of rest. And even since my 20s, I always take a power 20 minute power nap in the afternoon before the show, because it seems to bring your energy together. Because what you're doing is, you're entering a room, and now you are the battery. You are the one that's bringing the energy to the room, and if you bring it to the stage, the [audience] will give it back to you and you'll get this reciprocity of energy and it's wonderful. But if you don't have the energy, then the show just lays there. You don't get rehired and the audience doesn't come back. I’m in my 80th year now.
FD: Amazing.
JLS: I've been on tours where I wasn't included with the band, so they had a bus and I had to drive in my own car by myself, so frequently. I remember tours where I would literally do my opening act slot, go out in the lobby and shamelessly pander my music to anyone who would buy it, and then jump in the car and drive until midnight, then get a hotel room and get up at 6:00 a.m. and then drive sometimes all day to get to the next gig. I did that once for three months.
FD: Do you even have any semblance of a mind left at the end of a tour like that? How do you keep your sanity?
JLS: You have to learn to meditate. In the car, I would write songs. I'd listen to music. I'd study French. You know what I mean? I would do stuff in the car to get me out of the humdrum, the routine of just getting in the car, driving, going to the gig, going to the hotel, getting in the car, drive. You have to bring some other stuff to the party. I read a lot. That helps. And I listen to books on tape. But the best way, of course, is when I'm on a tour bus and somebody else is driving and somebody else has made all the arrangements.
I would use a travel agent to find hotels. But with the advent of hotels.com and other [sites], I don't do that [anymore], because hotels, if they're successfully operated, operate around a 60 percent occupancy rate. So if you go on sites like hotels.com and Travelocity.com at like four o'clock in the afternoon, you'll find four-star hotels for the price of a two-star hotel, because they want somebody in the room. They want to make some money.
FD: That's a great tip.
JLS: Always use that for hotels, and you have to call that day. If you call in advance, you're not going to get a good deal.
FD: One of the other things I hear about constantly is having enough clothes and taking care of personal hygiene. How do you deal with stuff like that?
JLS: Well to tell you the truth, I never go days without a shower. I work it out in the beginning [of the tour]. I guess I just always made sure that my life was good. The fact of the matter is that no matter how much money I've made or how little money I've made, I essentially picked a level of comfort, and that's what I maintain. I have a nice home. I have a nice car. I have a nice life. Sometimes I make no money for months on end, and sometimes I'll score a TV show and all of a sudden I've made 30 grand. You know what I mean?
FD: Yeah. I’m a freelancer.
JLS: I don't go out and buy a Maserati when that happens. I just put it in the bank.
You even want to pick someplace where you live so that you're not impacted by [having] no work. And the road is hard work. It really is. Particularly if you're a solo performer. You've got to do everything yourself. And it's weird. It's about audiences. Here's the thing – it doesn't matter whether you play for 10,000 people or you play for six people. It doesn't matter, because you're on stage. That's what matters. A friend of mine was mocking me [at a gig once]. I'd never been in the town or in the club before, and I had very sparse audience.
I got there at 5:00. I did my sound check. I went in the dressing room, and I just sat there and played in the dark. And this guy came in, he said,” What are you doing?” I said, “I'm warming up for the show.” And he said,” James, there's nobody here.” And I said, “so what?” And he said, “Man, you act like every gig is Carnegie Hall.” And I said, “It is. Every gig is Carnegie Hall.” You’ve got to take that mindset into the performance.
FD: If you worked hard to get the gig and six people show up, it's hard not to get depressed. But I agree with you. You can't just say, “Oh, well, nobody's here. I'm just going to be half-assed.” I've never had that attitude either.
JLS: No, no. I've never had it. If you're going to be in the spotlight, you better bring the party. You better bring the goods.
I remember there was this really crap room in Los Angeles, and the guy was paying musicians 20 percent of the food [sales]. If he sold a hundred dollars’ worth of food, you got $20. This was way back in the early seventies, and I had just moved to Los Angeles. I go to the club to play, and I said, “That doesn't seem very fair to musicians.” He said, “Hey, I never know when Joni Mitchell's going to walk in here.” And I said, “You know what? I never know when she's going to sleep with me. But that doesn't really change much, does it?”
Another thing is, try to get a guarantee. And the reason you want a guarantee is because if the venue, the club owner, if the promoter has some skin in the game, he's going to do what he can to get people in there so he can get his money back. When you go in there for no guarantee, they don't have to do anything. And they almost always do nothing.
FD: Oh, the whole subject of musicians and what they get paid. If we want to go off and get irritated…
JLS: Know what, though? Part of the reason [that musicians get paid so little] is that so many musicians don't recognize this as a genuine vocation, a real job with real responsibilities. You really do have to practice every day. You really do have to not only maintain your chops, but you always have to up your game.
Because the fact of the matter is, artists are in the midst of that joke: every time you think you're on top of it all, they move [the top]. And I don't care how good you are, you're going to see somebody or hear somebody [else] and you're going to go, wow. Wow. I want to be that good. And that never goes away. I just…how does Jacob Collier play every instrument better than I play any instrument?
FD: Do you know Muriel Anderson?
JLS: Yeah, I know Muriel.
FD: One day one of our band members held a song swap, and told me Muriel Anderson was going to be there. I'm like, “Are you kidding me? Oh my God, I better practice for three weeks straight.” And I wound up sitting next to her! And I'm thinking, “I think I'm good. But I'm not on her level.”
She played “Imagine” and after a couple of minutes, asked me to do a solo. I couldn’t tell you what I played. I was in a trance. But I knew I was playing at a higher level.
JLS: Here's something interesting that I heard from Branford Marsalis in an interview. I don't know Branford. But he was talking about being with a teacher, and he was saying, “Boy, I'm never going to be able to play it like that guy plays.” And the teacher said to him, “Listen – any lick, any chord progression, any music that anybody plays, you can also do it. Maybe they can do it easier than you can do it, but if it's been done, then if you want to give it enough time, you can also do it.” So it just depends on the amount of time you're willing to commit to your art.
FD: And why wouldn't you want to constantly get better?
JLS: I tell you, Frank, I don't understand that. I know so many musicians who were really good 50 years ago, and they haven't changed a bit. They haven't gotten better. They haven't learned more chords. They haven't learned to sing. They haven't learned to write. I mean, I don't understand that you could not want to get better.
And the thing is also, it's important to play with people that are better than you.
FD: Oh, yeah.
JLS: If you're the smartest guy in the room, you're in the wrong room.
I don't care if somebody tells me I have six months to live. I'm going to spend those six months trying to get better. I listen to interviews by every musician from every genre, because they all have interesting takes on the [subject]. The fact is, if you're a musician, you're always going to be learning. Matter of fact, always learning is a musician's curse and blessing.
One of the things that I do when I write a song is that when I think I have a good song, I go, “OK, what's the best song I know, by anybody?” And I'll think, “OK, is my song that good?” And if it's not, then I have work to do, because believe me, the world doesn't need any more bad songs. I mean, I've written at least 1,000 really bad songs. Sometimes you write the song, and you think, wow, this is terrific. Then as soon as you play it for people, you realize, “Whoops!”
And if you're going to put together a set…just like a song has to have an arc, it has to have the implication of momentum, and it has to have the implication of a destination that you're going to…you should also structure your set like that.
One of the joys, OK, not the joys, but one of the real lessons of being an opening act is for somebody to [tell you], “OK, you've got 20 minutes.” So if I have 20 minutes, I make sure that the 20 minutes that I'm out there are the best songs that I have. And you make sure that you do it in the 20 minutes.
FD: Oh, yeah. That's my pet peeve. The people that take too long to set up and go on late and eat into your time. That drives me crazy.
JLS: Me too.
FD: On another subject, I’ve been to open mics where some of the people just don’t belong on stage. Stopping to swipe your iPad in the middle of a song…
JLS: But that’s the crucible. That’s where you learn.
FD: I guess I shouldn’t be so harsh.
JLS: One of the things about open mics is if you're a solo performer or a band and you've got your entourage and you go play an open mic, you don't go to those open mics, go up there and play and then leave. That's bad form. If you're going to go to an open mic, you stay there and support everybody. Little bands come in with their entourage before me at an open mic, and after they play, they walk out into the audience. They're talking, I'm trying to do my set, and they're sitting there talking to their entourage, and then they get up and they all leave. And I'm thinking, “People, do you know what courtesy is? Do you know what grace is?” Do they know what compassion is? Do they know what loyalty to your fellow musicians is?
FD: Well, hopefully they'd learn. And if not, really, how long are they going to last as performers? Word gets around.
JLS: It's a community, and there's a responsibility today in a community. You read interviews with all the session musicians, The Wrecking Crew, and they always mention what fun it was to hang with that guy.
FD: How many times have we heard that the hang is as important as your musical ability?
JLS: Well, there's a million facets to doing this, and unfortunately, you have to be good at all of them.
There’s another aspect that musicians have to consider, and that's the fact that before television, people used to have to pay attention. Now, there's entertainment going on all the time, and people don't notice the responsibility of [being in] the audience a lot of the time. I remember playing this vineyard north of Sacramento, and it was in this big cave, and they were all there to taste wine and stuff. The [promoter] announced me and I came on stage, and the applause was mild. And then they [all] went back to what they were doing.
And I [told the promoter], “It's not your job to tell them to be quiet. It's my job to make them want to listen.” And that's what I did. It took me 15 minutes to wrestle 'em to the ground, but then they were an audience. You can't hold it against 'em for wanting to have a good time. It's not their job to make you feel better.
Here's something that somebody said [to me]: I have a gift. They said that I always find common ground [between the audience and myself], and if you're going to be in a band, you've got to find common ground, because you're going to have different interests and different educations and different cultural backgrounds, so you try to find some common interests, and that helps the bond.
FD: What about getting high or drunk on the gig?
JLS: You can get as high and as drunk as you want after the gig. But the fact of the matter is that the only person who thinks you're really great when you're playing music stoned is you.
FD: Will you be continuing to tour?
JLS: As this is my 80th year, I'm thinking that this is my last year I'm going to do national touring. I'm still going to tour, but only on the West Coast. I don't enjoy flying anymore. But there is the fact that when you're in that spotlight and things are right, it is the most magical thing in the world. When you're reaching them and they're reaching you, and there's that reciprocity of energy and affection and respect, it's worth all of it.
I’ve always responded to music, and it's kept me sane. It's kept me from going postal, and it's also given me a wonderful life.
Header image courtesy of Leigh-Anne Dickinson.
0 comments