Welcome to Episode 45 of the Bandhive Podcast.

It is time for another episode of the Bandhive podcast. My name is James Cross. I'm here with the drummer of Suburban Samurai, Aaron Gingras. How's it going today, Aaron? Oh, it's going quite well.

I can't believe this is Episode 45. I cannot believe that. Yeah, time flies. We are seven episodes out from Uneven 52 which will be almost a year for the Bandhive podcast, because we did drop three at once. So technically it'll be week 50 for us. But Episode 52 we will officially have made UNEP ISS owed for enough weeks in the year. Even though we're not quite at the one year anniversary yet, I feel like 45. The big number 50 will be a big number 52 then what is that? 54. If we did two extra for the first release.

Yeah, So Episode 54 will be our actual one year anniversary. Time flies. It really does, especially during a pandemic. When you can't do anything or go to shows or anything like that, it seems like it's been 10 years, and it's only been six months. Yeah, I was thinking about, like, a tour I was on and 2015 earlier this week. Just I was talking to somebody from that run, and it's like, Oh, my gosh, that is 2015, just like how many decades ago does that feel like it? Waas Mind blown. I think we're also like, dating ourselves right now, because when I think back the first time I did Warped Tour was 2014.

That was six years ago. And now it's like, Oh, that was six years ago like, No, that was, like, two years ago. That was like, No, that that wasn't six years ago. And then I looked at the calendar. I'm like, Oh, yeah, yeah, that was six years ago. You know, when you start thinking about how many years ago you graduated like Well, to put it another way, I, uh You know, I've said on the podcast before. I am a big plane nerd, aviation nerd, and some of the pilots I follow are about my age or even younger.

Like 25 to 30. I think there's one who's like 22 even he's super young and he's a first officer. Probably furloughed right now. I couldn't tell you for sure. With basically American Airlines, it's amazing to me how their pilots my age I used to be a little kid and be like, Oh, only old people are pilots And now I'm like, Oh, this means I'm an old person now. Uh huh. I, like, ran into that a few years ago. Where? Yeah, yeah, I remember planes. Uh, that was like passenger commercial planes.

I've had a few of those where was, like, I got on a plane and, like, very, very clearly the, you know, the pilot or copilot? It was somebody in in the front cabin, like very very in my face. Like that person's younger than me that first that person's younger than me. You know, I've seen, like, cops or, you know, like a lot of professionals or something. Like dentists. Maybe, but like for some reason. Yeah, like the pilot thing. I was like, Oh, my wow. This person can fly this big thing.

Yeah, it's crazy. But anyway, all that aside, we haven't Episode brings the people if we haven't already just bored them out of their minds because we're talking about getting old. Granted, I would say at least half of our audience probably has felt the same way. And the other half, you'll understand it in 5 to 10 years. Join us. Eso. While we've just been rambling on and doing a terrible job of controlling this podcast, we're just chatting as if we're friends, because we I mean, we are friends. But that ties into something that will be talking about later.

Because today we're gonna be talking about musical performance anxiety. You're probably thinking, What is that? And you'd be right, because no one calls it that everyone just calls it stage fright. And so most people have performance anxiety to some certain extent, but it could be much more severe for some people. And before I hand it over to you, Aaron, I'm just gonna toss in a personal experience story there. I've been an introvert as long as I can remember, and I used to be terrified of talking to people I didn't know and I still have that issue to an extent at certain times.

But going back to what I was saying about doing work towards six years ago, Well, guess what? When you're doing Warped Tour, you have to talk to a lot of people who you've never met before and you will never meet ever again. So first year on warp tour, I was out there with sponsor and I would be talking to hundreds of people a day. I think my personal record was like 837 people in a single day that I talked to. I approach them. They did not approach me.

I talked to them briefly, but I talked to them. Now I have no problem talking to people in a professional setting. If it's like a personal setting, it's still a little awkward for me. But if I'm working somewhere, or if I have a business need to talk to someone, there is no awkwardness. It's just like, Hey, how's it going? Like let me talk to you about X, y Z and I don't care if you think it's boring. I'm going to talk to you, and it's relieving toe.

Have that? Just because I, you know, jumped into the deep end pretty much and it feels good. So that's my personal story. And we're gonna be talking about getting over musical performance anxiety today. But, Aaron, I think you had a couple things you wanted to toss in here is well, before we get into the tips and tricks. Yeah, well, I mean, a lot of this, to be honest, is kind of fresh in my mind. Future listeners, I promise I haven't been, but not not because, you know I'm, like, nervous or so or have anxiety about this.

But the day that we're taping this episode tomorrow, I'm going to do a little studio work, which is on top of everything else going on. It's it's a little mind blowing that I have the ability toe to do that, you know, with just gonna be a little nice piece of, like, normal for a few hours. So, yeah, it was, like, fresh in my mind. And, you know, when we talked, I think it kind of seemed like something that everybody experiences at some point in their career in some way, whether you're like you know, you've never made it out of your garage or whether you're like a local or a regional act or like a studio musician or, you know, a national or an international somebody you know who's become very successful and well known.

Here we are just talking about musicians, but, um, you know, this kind of thing. You find that in any art that you look in like pottery making, for God's sakes, you know, or like competitive pottery making or like, you know, cubing. I think that's the thing where you know people, like, are really competitive with, like Rubik's Cubes and then obviously like acting, I don't know, competitive like figure skating or something. It's It's everywhere, so I don't know. It was something that we thought it was kind of cool because it's not cool.

But it is so common, and it's something that everybody will understand. Yeah, go figure that you would pull the most uncommonly niche competitive sport out of nowhere. What was it? Pottery or Rubik's cubing figure skating? The sports figures? Yeah, just like of all sports figure skating. Oh, man. I remember when I was a kid watching the Olympics. They had speedskating. Oh, no. Was the guy so I was always rooting for Oh, no, I can't remember everyone or not. But anyway, side tracking. And I want to say I'm side tracking intentionally to illustrate a point that we'll get to later, which is just be comfortable.

Side tracking like that has nothing to do with what we're talking about. But it shows that we're human, and it shows that like, Hey, yes, we're recording a podcast. But we're also having a casual conversation. It's not going to be perfect. We're not producing an NPR radio show or anything like that. You know, it's not going to be the tightest sounding recording and editing and all that, because when it comes down to it, we're having a conversation. That's what a podcast is, anyway, going deeper into it.

Stage fright is something that even professional musicians who've been touring for the years they get that they get nervous before a show, and it's perfectly normal. Um, same thing like you mentioned Aaron before you're going into the studio, Some people could get really anxious just because you know that the tracks you're about to put down, our going to be out there for ever. Like we said before, we're putting together a list of tips and tricks that can help you cope with stage fright. And this will be both for studio work or for live shows or right now, considAarong the pandemic live streams, because that's kind of the same thing.

The one nice thing about live streams is you don't see people's faces staring back at you. I remember well when I was performing for ah Friends Band. That was always weird. Just toe like, have everyone's attention on you, or at least you know, in your general direction. And I'm like, I don't know how I feel about this and that's why I'm still behind the scenes kind of guy. So, Aaron, do you wanna go ahead and talk through this first part of the list? Yeah. So we've split today's topic into two parts theoretical and practical. Really.

The take away from this should be just focus on what works best for you. Maybe you take a little bit from both sides and you know something along those lines. Probably gonna yield the best result. So diving right into it. Theoretical tips to reduce state right performance anxiety. The first one. The big E p. M. A positive mental attitude. Think of the good rather than the bad. One good example we have here is you know, if you're headlining is sold out gig, That's awesome. You know, don't think about messing up your solo or your performance, but instead, remember that all of those people you know, give enough of a damn about you and your band toe like buy a ticket to your show.

You know, if you mess up, it happens. No big deal. Chances are they're not gonna hate you because they're not going to criticize you as strongly as you criticize yourself. The same goes for recording in the studio. If you mess something up, who cares? That happens. That's literally. That's why you're there. Toe hash out the same thing, a bunch and get the best. Take hard drive Space is dirt cheap, so just do it again. Major acts literally. You know they do it. Dozens, if not hundreds of times, depending on what they're trying to put down, just to get the right one that's going overboard.

Don't do that just because somebody else might do that. But the point being, don't be afraid to mess up. You can always do it again in the studio. Yeah, and on that note, you know it's the major acts do it because the producers are looking for something specific. I don't think they would want to be there doing it that many times, and that's very different from seeing a local musician. I know somebody who literally did. I think he said 800 takes of one part because he wasn't happy with any of them.

And so I asked him, Hey, why don't you just comp this like That's what any engineer would do? Just stitch it together. You know, if you're happy with the 1st 10 seconds of this one in the next 15 of that one, and then you go back to the second take and that's totally okay. And he said, No. Well, I don't roll that way. I want it to be live, and while I can understand that if you're doing 800 takes of something that's not going to benefit you in any way, and I think part of that was performance anxiety.

He wanted to get it out there, and he wanted it to be perfect, even though no one listening would ever know that that part was stitched together from multiple takes, which again, it's perfectly normal. That happens on every single record out there. Bar a few, like Bruce Springsteen's new record, is all live no overdubs, which is incredible, but the average artists can't do that. But that was his fear of putting out that song, knowing that it wasn't truly one performance that he had put out there. It was stitched together.

I think that is deep down what was stopping that artist from just doing three takes and finding the best parts of each single one? Yeah, so keeping on going with sort of that, you know, the theoretical kind of like in your minds intangible stuff. Say you're in a live performance setting. A good thing to do is to try to think of the audience as a big group of friends, try to form a connection with them by interacting with them, making eye contact. Of course, that has, you know, there was an added bonus of if you're making eye contact with somebody you know, you're connecting your nurturing a relationship with them.

That's a great way to, like, dragged them even deeper into their fandom and then kind of off of that just sort of be yourself. I like the point that you made in here, James, because identify with it hard. If you're a nerd, whatever that might mean to you lean into it and be nerdy. You know, don't be afraid to show who you really are again. That's gonna allow people to connect with you on a deeper level, and in the end, you're gonna have a stronger and deeper connection for it.

I had not planned this at all, But just earlier I was talking about being in aviation nerd. Yeah, like I did not plan that. I had put that in the outline, but that was not intentional. I just brought that up because I felt old. It's but that's exactly what I'm talking about is like embrace who you are. I don't feel like anyone's going to judge me for being a knave geek. And if they dio who cares like I don't care, I'm going to do what I enjoy doing as long as I'm not hurting anyone.

Why should anyone else judge me for that? Yeah, and like the total like after school special version of that which is like, totally. Also true is if you're yourself and you know whether it's aviation or whether it's like comic books are like anything else in the world. The people who you connect with because you're being authentic. Think about it for a second there, connecting with you and your authentic self. So if I were you, I'd value that relationship, you know, even more. And and it's for me or the kind of offer peace of mind like that, you know, you know that they're there because they know what they're buying into with, like the relationship, whether it's like a personal one or a professional one.

Or like I'm a fan and I just see you on stage relationship like whatever it is like you know, it's genuine, I guess, is what I'm trying to get at, and I think there's a lot of value in that. Yeah, I agree, and I love that you brought up comic books because that made me think of a very specific artist. You're probably going to guess who it is. It's not Gerard Way, but Claudio Sanchez co hidden camera. And I say it's not Gerard Way because he started the comic book thing after M C. R. Or at least as M c.

R. Was kind of falling apart. Claudio Sanchez and Co. He'd have actually, like, tied the music into the comic books that Claudio does, which I think is amazing. It's going to say it's like concept, right? Yeah, exactly. And I have to say I'm not a massive co. He'd fan, So I don't understand the connection fully. I just know that Claudio does comic books and the music ties into them in some way, shape or form. So somebody who is like a diehard co he'd fan could explain this much better than I. My point being, they have a very specific type of fan in general, and that fits in perfectly because it's on brand for them.

I love it. They take advantage of that, not in a bad way. It's they're doing something really great and they're adding value because, hey, you like comic books? Okay, there's a soundtrack for this Siri's Oh, hey, you like our music. Cool. Well, you know, check out the graphic novel that goes with it. That's awesome. I don't know of any other artists who can say that, Like Gerard Way, sure Umbrella Academy. But that doesn't go with them. CR's music that is his own standalone project. I'm sure there are other artists who have done something similar.

I just I don't know of them or I can't think of them off the top of my head. Moving on from another little nerd out about comic books and cohesion, Cumbria and planes and all that. We are going to get into the practical tips to help you combat stage fright, which again can also be studio fright. And the first main thing is, just be comfortable with what you're doing. So for the studio, for example, that would mean make sure you have good demos and pre production, so you have the arrangements for the songs ready?

You can listen back to what you know. You want to play in the studio and then record yourself playing your part over your demo until you can nail that part because then when you can nail that part, you have it in your head that hey, you know what? I played this yesterday I listened to the recording and I played exactly how I wanted it to be. All you have to do is do that again in the studio and we'll be golden. And obviously there's still that element of pressure.

But like we said earlier, you can do it again. No one's gonna hate you if you have to go through one or two more times. And, like I said, to 3 to 5 takes is the ideal. So if you have to stitch some stuff together, that's okay. That's perfectly normal. It happens all the time. I can understand wanting to play live, but it's really it's not treating to just edit here and there because you still played it and it's going to make your album sound better. So from that standpoint, wouldn't you want it to be the best?

It can absolutely be. Of course you dio, that's the whole point of putting out music is you want to showcase the best art that you can make if you wanna learn more about being prepared for the studio, go to Bandhive dot rocks slash 16 That's the numbers 16 and check out our episode called How You Could Save Thousands on Your Next Album because Matt and I went really in depth about preparing for the studio in that. And practicing your parts is just one of the many things that you can dio to really get solid takes in there and get out of the studio more quickly so you don't spend as much money on recording.

Now, when it comes to live shows, all we're really going to say is, practice, practice, practice. And that doesn't just mean practicing your instrument. That also means practicing interacting with your fans, your stage presence, your banter, everything. Aaron, You and I did a really fun episode all about that. It was number 17, so these two that were shouting out. Right now we're back to back. You can find it at Band. I've dot rocks slash 17. That's the numbers 17 and it's called Fix Your stage presence now, which ironically came out 10 days after the cove it locked down started all over the country.

So probably the worst timing ever for that episode to come out. But I am sure it helped people with streaming as well. At least I sincerely hope it did. And then one thing that also goes into both studio our lives, but especially live is that when you look good, you feel good. If you put effort into your appearance and take care of yourself, you're going to feel better. We're not just speaking of, you know, your physical fitness. We're also speaking of your clothing, your style, all that kind of stuff.

I spent years as a dude wearing T shirts and cargo genes, and I still wear T shirts like I love band shirts. But the cargo pants. That's just a thing of the past. No way like it took me three years of college to realize that's not my look. That's not what I'm going for. And now I wear black jeans that's like my thing. I feel comfortable. I feel better wearing that. So take care of yourself, your body, and dress the part, especially if there is a general aesthetic for your band, you want to have everyone in the band fitting that branding, especially at live shows.

Take, for example, a band like Ramstein. They basically have costumes on for their shows. Not even. Basically they do have costumes on for their shows. It's a very theatrical environment now. Obviously, they don't dress like that when they're not playing shows. But they still address Thio. Ah, certain standards. So if they're seen out in public and somebody recognizes them, it's not gonna be like, uh, dude, that's the singer of gum Stein. He's wearing like workout shorts and a wife beater. Like what? Dude, what a slob. No, he's not gonna look like that because they are very aware of their branding.

So it should be the same thing for you. You might not be at the point where people are going to recognize you, but you will still feel better if you look put together and have a consistent and cohesive brand with your music. So kind of using that as a jumping off point and the whole If you look good, you feel good. Careful on the caffeine and the sugar and the other, you know, food items, you know, little weigh you down like the first thing that comes to my mind.

Is that feeling of like you just gulp down to leaders of water and then tried to run a mile, and then it's just like sloshing around in your stomach like, don't do that to yourself. Hashtag work tour. Yeah, well, only on the days that you don't sweat it out just as quickly as you consume the water. But exactly another point, which is probably gonna be a no brainer to a lot of people I hope would be, you know, communication. That could be a bullet point on any one of the 45 podcast episodes we've had so far.

But it's just this important here, you know, just in the same way that you kind of get comfy and cozy with, like, the music. Make sure that you know who you're working with and communicate as necessary and as needed. So whether it's, ah, you know, studio setting, you know, maybe you make sure you know what you're going to be playing if it's like not original materia or definitely know what you're going to be playing If it is original material, you know, just communicate with somebody, make sure that you check off all the easy boxes like you're on time.

You know you're bringing the right gear, you know, all those boxes air checked off. If it's a live show, you know, that's your bandmates. That's the other bands of venue. Whatever your responsibility is just whatever the communication needs to be. Just, you know, make sure that you're where you need to be within that process. So you sort of minimize the number of surprises that there end up being. So, speaking of surprises, you know, make sure that all your tools are up to snuff. And if you're a musician, tool means instrument.

Or if you're a singer or vocalist, that means you're, you know, general health and well being in your voice. You know, if you're an audio engineer, all the tools you use, that's whatever you used to get your job done. So again, just kind of coming from like a musician perspective, a drummer. Make sure your gear is in good shape. If you can make sure it looks good, especially if you're gonna be involved with some sort of video or photo content, which pretty much every studio session ever somebody is at least gonna be snapping one photograph.

Make sure that you're prepared. Just, you know, all the easy, low hanging fruit make sure that you're prepared with the extra strings and the heads and whatever it is, really just set yourself up for a smooth time. That's just the best way you can go about avoiding any unnecessary anxiety. The ideas. If you know you have a Plan B or if you're like James or myself, maybe a Plan C or C and a half, it's not going to feel a disastrous, and you're gonna be ableto remain composed and calm when Plan A totally goes off the rail and fails another point, which is super simple.

But ah, lot of people overlook, and then a lot of people don't overlook it. But it's just it is not possible. If they're doing their job properly is get enough sleep wherever and however you can that's so valuable. The better that you arrested, the more likely you are toe perform well. The more able you will be to perform well, you know, it could be tough to do, especially on the road, but knowing when to stop partying or, you know honestly when to stop working. If you're one of those people and get some rest, that's just so vital to the longevity you're trying to hold onto is an artist.

My sincerest sympathies toe all the tour managers of the world 90 hour weeks, and that's not the whole Oh, I'm on 24 hours a day. That's No 90 95 hours of waking. You have a job to do ours. It's or more. Yeah, it's intense. So at the end of the day, it comes down to two things. One being prepared and to taking care of yourself, both mentally and physically. And when it really comes down to it. I think being prepared is part of taking care of yourself. Because when you have all your ducks in a row and you know what is going to be happening that day and that you have backup plans for everything, you're just gonna be so much more relaxed that you are going to put on a much better performance.

And knowing that you're gonna put on a good performance, you're not gonna have a severe performance anxiety that does it for this episode of the Bandhive podcast. Thank you so much for listening again and again and again. We really appreciate it, and we also hope that you will be able to get over, or at least limit your performance, anxiety and stage fright by practicing what we have taught in this episode. If you have any questions, please feel free to head on over to our Facebook community.

You can find it at better dot band slash group. We'll be back with another episode next Tuesday at 6 a.m. Until then, we hope you have an awesome week. Stay safe, stay healthy and, of course, as always, keep rocking.