Welcome to episode 92 of the Bandhive podcast.

It is time for another episode of the band. I've podcast. My name is James Cross and I'm here with Matt Hoos of Alive in Barcelona Matt. How are you doing today?

I'm doing pretty well. James. How are things over there on the east side? Glad to hear that I am having a great day. It's a monday, but I don't hate Mondays. I actually embrace Mondays because I get bored when I'm not working. But I got to do something really fun this weekend. I got to go up in a small private plane, like a little four seater propeller plane. That was my first flight ever. And now I'm going to be pursuing aviation lessons. So this time next year properly, if all goes well, I'll have PPL and can fly personal flights and stuff and little planes.

That's man, that's awesome. Yeah man, I'm super stoked. And this ties into the topic of today's episode because as you've probably heard me mention in the past on the podcast, checklists are super important in aviation standard operating procedures, that kind of stuff. And today we're going to talk about checklists because it's really important for artists to have checklists as well. I realized this a couple of weeks ago Matt when you were talking about music videos and how your bass player forgot his base. I also know a bass player who has forgotten his base.

I don't know if it's a bass player thing. Glenn fricker would say yes, it is. I'm just gonna say two is a coincidence. three is a pattern. So there's not a pattern here yet. But if somebody is listening and you know, a bass player who has forgotten their base before a show or a music video or recording session or anything like that, go ahead and let us know on our facebook community at band. I've got rocks slash group that will take you to our facebook group and just start a thread and say, yeah, my basis forgot their base and then we'll know, okay, it's happened three times.

It's no longer a coincidence. It's a pattern. I'm going to start cataloging these bassists. What's a good title for it? I'm sure there's like organizations that have databases about incidents and we'll have the bassist incident database, the bid. I wonder if there's any bands that have just left their bassist behind. Oh, I'm sure it's happened the one guys in the bathroom and he walks out and sees the bus pulling away and has like run after them. I've played with a couple basis over the years that I wouldn't have mind leaving at a random gas station at four o'clock in the morning.

Oh, brutal. I'd be a liar if I said I had, it's always the basics straight. It's always the basis. Not always, but they draw the short stick a lot, that's for sure. And I'm just so everybody knows I started as a bassist, so I'm allowed to talk all the smack that I want on bassists, your bassist and you're a ginger that's like, man, you must have had a tough, I did absolutely. But I was also the coolest kid in the room, so that made things a lot easier.

Yeah, fair enough. It was like a weird paradigm shift. I didn't have to be the guitarist of the singer to be the coolest, but now I'm a singer anyway, so it kind of fits in. Yeah, well before we move on, I gotta drop one pun just because listeners, you know me, why did the bass player regret joining the army? Oh no, he had a different idea of basic training. Oh my gosh, that was literally the worst joke I've ever heard. I actually filled in on bass for abandoned once because their bass player joined the National Guard and was away at basic training.

So that's what I came up with. That joke. Like the whole, it was like a five day tour. The whole tour is just like, oh yeah, I'm not actually the band's bassist, he went to basic training, he's in the National Guard. I don't think it's what he expected from basic training. And so we are just making fun of him the whole time, All five days like Yeah, he missed the whole tour. He got basic training. You got base training. Exactly. And then I broke his tuning pedal.

I still feel bad about that, but I didn't even break it. Like I stepped on it and it just fell apart. Like if that guy's listening James, you just incriminated yourself. So oh, he knows, he knows. Yeah. But no, it's just like, it was one of those super cheap like $10 or 200 pedals and I just gently put my foot on it and the whole thing like exploded. No fighter. Just the springs just decided to go haywire. Anyway, I've done enough side tracking at this point. Sorry for all the awful puns.

If you're a longtime listener, you already know this and you've come to expect it If you're a new listener, apologies in advance for all the other puns that I'm going to be making in this episode because it's probably going to happen. So we've told, as I said two stories on the podcast about different bass players who have forgotten bases at some point in their careers. Either for a show or a music video shoot or anything like that. So the first thing is the benefits of having a checklist.

It means you're not going to forget your gear or belongings when you're leaving a venue or a studio or whatever situation you're in any time. You are packing your vehicle, your van, whatever it is, you're going to have a list of what is supposed to be in that van and you just go down the list and say, okay, guitar cab, bass cab drum, you know, there's four drum cases, we have the drum hardware, we have the drum Cymbals, everything that goes in there, and you know, you're not gonna go into, like, incredible detail and say, we have this cable in this case, like, that's gonna be the responsibility of whoever packs that case, but making sure you have every single large piece of equipment that you need so important.

And then you could put your band members on there too, in case, you know, you get to a rest stop and your bass player goes to the bathroom and you leave them behind, got to have them on the checklist to especially the bassists, one less mouth to feed. True, you couldn't do what New Politics doesn't just backtrack the base. They literally said we're not getting a bassist, we're going to use backtracks for the baseline, Rings of Saturn. There are so many bands that do that now. Oh yeah, I'm just wondering now if New Politics was really like, we don't want to deal with the bass player or if that was just like a natural organic thing.

They're like, we couldn't find anyone. So we're going to backtrack it. I once talked to these old timers who were like, they had spent a whole lot of time touring and after like going through like five different drummers and never being able to hold somebody down. They've got a drum machine and they named him like dan because it was like the drum, automated node, whatever, whatever, whatever. And so they just called him dan. Sounds like spinal tap. Oh dude, they were like, it was the best thing ever.

Like our drummer was always on time. He's never late to shows. It was the best thing ever. Like we tried so many times to get a drummer and didn't work out, they toured for a long time. They didn't do anything super great. But I mean it was pretty funny to hear that story. That's for sure. I appreciate your pun there. The drummer was always on time you caught that, did it. I did, I did. And now the listeners did as well if they didn't hear it, the first time jokes are always always funnier when you have to explain them exactly, exactly.

That's the best kind of joke. Anyway, a checklist is also useful if the worst thing happens and your gear gets stolen, you can tell the authorities or your insurance company what's missing and this is where you would have something a little more detailed called a gear manifest and it's going to be probably a spreadsheet in most cases, but you can also do like a google doc or something listing every single piece of gear, the serial number, the date you acquired it, what it's worth as much information as possible.

And if you can include pictures, that is perfect because then you can say to the police or your insurance, here's the stuff that was stolen. This is what to look out for. And you can also go to local pawn shops or music stores and say, hey, here's a list of stuff. If any of this comes through here, please call me right away because it's stolen in some states, like in California Guitar center, if they buy used gear, they cannot sell it to you for 30 days. They can take the money on it and say, okay, come back in 30 days and pick it up and then you can buy it or you know, come back in five days if it's already been there for almost a month, but that is done.

So people don't sell stuff and then it's just gone right away because guitar center sold at the same day, there has to be that waiting period. I'm sure other states have that too here in Vermont, it's not like that. How is it out in colorado matt? If you're aware of how it is, you know, luckily I've never had to deal with that. Um, I just know that as far as like pawnshops are concerned, like pawnshops really get a lot of visits from cops about stolen items already.

And I really like what you said about having pictures of your gear just in general because it's like, you know, if there's any gray area whatsoever, it's like, believe it or not, yours is not the only mesa boogie in the world. You know, so saying that like, oh my mesa boogie was stolen and then they go to a pawnshop and that pawnshop has a mesa boogie for sale, There's not really anything that they'd still be able to do. But if you have like unique characterization on your amP or things like that, you know, uh, a red ribbon tied around to handle, uh, you know your name, you know, a piece of duct tape that has phone numbers or whatever or something and probably something a little bit more permanent than that.

Just character marks, but things that are identifiable and whatnot. And those are also things you can actually send pictures to your insurance agencies as well. So if you end up having gear stolen, that's a good thing to have because basically that's the point of cross referencing that the cops or the insurance people will end up using. So the whole idea of the list is just being extra prepared. Extra cautious theft is a weird world, especially since, you know, people steal stuff and then they resell it and I've had friends that have had stuff stolen have been able to locate where it was, who stole it with video evidence and nothing has still been able to happen.

So the insurance is really, really important because even if you can walk up to the guy's house who stole your stuff and knock on his door, that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get it back, your best option of getting stuff back as having insurance policies. So we definitely recommend that, I'm not sure as far as actual legislation and laws go in colorado what like the waiting period is on buying used gear. But I personally have never had to wait to buy used gear. But that could also be just because it's been in the shop for, you know, X amount of days or whatever.

So maybe there is a 30 day waiting period here to yeah. And you know, like you said, there are so many pieces of gear that are not unique. That's why it's also really important to have the serial numbers. And I would recommend taking a picture of the serial number. So that way they can't say, oh well you just walked in here and looked at the serial number and like wrote it down. You have a picture of the serial number like next to your face in a different room.

So they're going to be like, oh, that's not our store obviously. And the insurance company had that six months ago. Yeah, exactly. And the police had it six months ago to, so like, hey, we filed this report. But yeah, so that's another thing to watch out for is having a gear manifest without all that information and that's where you'll really get into the details with the weeds and have all the information. And then checklists also just help with organization. For example, if you're booking a show, you can have a checklist of all the things you need to confirm with the promoter or the venue and go over with them.

Same thing. If you're going into the studio, you know, making sure, hey, each song has the right demos. We've hashed it out. We've done this, we've done that. Those are all things that could be beneficial because you use checklists. It's basically there to make sure that you don't forget anything whether that's a piece of gear, your bass player or just a step in the process for a checklist to be effective. It has to be easy for you to do. You don't want to hate doing checklists so they should be thorough.

But they should also be quick. You don't want to over complicate it. So like that goes back to what I was seeing with the gear. You're just going to say, you know, we have these cases, you're not going to say, we have all of these little individual things in these cases just like, okay, we have that case. Good. Going back to, you know, whoever packed that case is responsible for everything. In that case, they need to make sure that everything is in there and you might have little sub checklists inside the case, you open up the case and inside the live, there's a list of what goes in there that works.

But the main checklist has to be easy quick, especially if you're trying to load out of a venue and they're closing, you don't want to stand there for half an hour, you wanna see your bandmate bring a piece of gear up and say, okay, check that's off the list. This is something I did on a tour. Years ago, we had a very limited space, we had one bench in the back of the van and then everything behind there was all our gear, we didn't have a trailer, So he went to Walmart and bought a $40 set of walkie talkies and I would literally be in the back of the van and radio into the van and say, okay, bring this out next.

And that way we could pack the van consistently every time because I made a list of what goes in the van and in what order. So we knew we weren't going to have to repack the van because something didn't fit because we figured it out before the tour. And then that's how we packed at the rest of the tour. That's just what we had to do And it was totally worth the $40 for the radios because this is an old van and we didn't have a backup camp.

So that was a plus two. We could park the van much more easily with a spotter outside on the radio. Then we could have doing anything else really. The other thing about checklists is you want them to be easily accessible if it's something you're going to be using a lot on tour or at shows or anything like that, just print it out and laminate it and then you can get a dry erase marker and check things off as you go. Once you finish it, just swipe it off with your sleeve or a rag or something and it's good to go again.

You can use it over and over again. And that way you don't forget you've done something or think you've done something when you didn't because you have those check marks and you're not going to erase it until the whole thing is done. You can actually have a laminated checklist in each guitar case, depending on the level of the game that you're playing at. You're going to be doing more than just like sticking your instrument in the case and taking the case outside when you're playing national tours, change over time is like really, really short and you have to quickly round up all of your stuff and get off stage and do it in a timely manner.

So you're not forgetting anything. We've had people leave computers behind, We've had people leave wireless receivers behind. I myself have left a GoPro behind at a show because we went to set it up, we were like, oh we're going to get all this extra footage. But we didn't add it to any of our checklists and lo and behold, I attached it to like one of the mic stands at the front. Then the end of the show came and we all just left in my mind it was like it wasn't even set up on my mic stand, I set it up over on the side so I was thinking somebody else would see it and grab it but it wasn't on anybody's list.

And whoever was standing over there, they were in their routine of picking up their stuff. So you know the nice thing is, is like if you open up your guitar case and you just have a laminated piece of thing there. It's like, oh yeah wireless, Oh GoPro totally forgot that because that's on my mic stand that belongs to the venue. So now I'm gonna grab that. Now I'm gonna make sure that goes into my case and we're good. Also a laminated list on the inside of your trailer door.

That's the best place for a list. If you attach it there and then you get a little dry erase marker, like James is saying let it dangle right next to it. And then one by one, you go through things, the same. People load the trailer pretty much every night and it should be all of you, everybody should be working on this together. But when you have a checklist and you have an order of operations and so you're naturally going to see the things that go in. Unlike your trailer checklist, it can be very simple guitars times five amps times two Base, sometimes 1, 5 drums, one rack or whatever.

You can get really descriptive with your each individual personal list and whatever. So it's like, oh yeah, you know, make sure that you get your pedal board and make sure you get your pearl inlaid, blah blah blah blah blah shit there per listen, you know like you can be as ridiculous as you want with them. Really, it's gonna be. However, it's easy for you to remember. But having a checklist in a spot that you have to see, it's physically impossible for you to not see. You will put your guitar into your guitar case.

So having a list underneath your guitar, you will see that list when you have a list on the back of a door or just inside on the wall of a trailer. When you open your trailer to load items, you will see that list. And then when you go, where's the laptop bag, why don't we have the laptop bag? And it's like, oh, you know what we left our $2500 laptop inside of there. You're gonna save yourself some really, really expensive mistakes by having simple checklists, what I would call dual control to people checking over them just to make sure.

So I it's nice to have everybody in the band actively working to load things together and you can just work down the list one item at a time. And if you get to something that's not there, then you have an abundance of people that can run into the venue to go grab it or to search for it. When you're on tour, you're in different parts of the country, you might have different friends, different family members or a different event that you're going to do. Or somebody invited you to do something at any given moment, one of the people in your group is going to have something that they need to go do or that they want to go do and that's totally fine.

That's a good thing. That's the goal of the music industry, is to develop those relationships across the country. But what you need to do is make sure that, you know, like business comes first. Like you don't get so excited about being done with work that you forget to lock the door on your business. So this is kind of like the equivalent of locking the door on your business. You have to be intelligent, you have to be cognitive, thinking about, you know, your head needs to be in the game and then when the game is over, that's when you celebrate, that's when you go and have fun.

That's when you go see family members and whatnot. But in my advice, it wouldn't be until after the last item on the last checklist has been crossed off. Yeah, absolutely. That's a great example of the pre departure checklist is so important. Any time you're traveling with your band and you know, you're not always going to have the same pack list. So this is something that you'll use it for the whole tour. But at the end of the tour, you might have to make a new one for the next tour because your production might change, you might get a second laptop as a backup, you might get another member and have more gear, who knows One other thing, as we're talking about this map you mentioned inside your cases, This is a $40 label maker that actually connects to my computer and I can on my computer type up little label strips and print them out automatically and it's amazing if it's something quick and easy, you just put inside your guitar case, a thing that says, don't forget X. Y. Z. I have that right here on one of my power conditioners in the studio, it says stop our external drives off because that's the power conditioner that runs my external drives.

And if those drives are on, when I turn off the power I could damage them. So I have to turn them off before I turn off the power conditioner and just having notes like that where it's literally just in big bold letters, it says stop, Is this the case? And then it's like, okay, yes, this is cool. I can turn it off or no, it isn't. Let me turn off the drives now. I can turn off the power. A lot of studio guys just leave their stuff on all the time.

I actually shut down my studio almost every night unless there's something uploading like a large video file or something overnight. The other type of checklist that you can do and I alluded to this earlier is a digital checklist. This is something like maybe it's a repeating task. We use a checklist for the podcast or at least I do all the time that goes through the list of things and I can pull it up right now. I use an app called Tremolo which is free for the most part, I don't pay for it.

And here's the outline that we use or not. The outline, but the checklist episode topic chosen, outlined, created, recorded prepped for edit, edited, finalized show notes scheduled sent to Big heavy World, which is the radio station. We syndicate to edited video clips, created headliner videos scheduled on youtube scheduled social posts and email scheduled once. All that's done. It automatically says, okay, everything is complete and it moves over to another column where the completed episodes are. So I've built this system in that way. I never forget a single thing when it comes to the podcast and that's how I stay saying every single week.

Like if I had to remember all that, I would be pulling my hair out and I would forget stuff all the time. It's so easy to use a trailer board, it's free. It'll be linked in our show notes at band. I've got rocks slash 92. I definitely recommend it for anything like booking shows. The other thing I mentioned earlier as an example was if you are going to go into the studio, you can have like a demo checklist for all the songs that you're demoing to make sure you got them down.

You have everything you need to go into the studio, any repeating task. You could do release checklists. Like once you have a good formula for your releases. Make a checklist for that and put it in. Trillo, it's super easy. You just have one template card and you make a copy of it every time you have a new thing. That's what I do for the podcast each week. Boom! New copy. Same thing for my studio. If I'm doing a mixed project, I have a card that I can duplicate.

It's got a checklist for everything I got to do for that mix, same thing for mastering. I've got a checklist for mastering that just makes it so much easier to go through the process. You don't realize how how helpful the checklist is. You're leaving for tour. All right. You need to get all your gear, You could have a gear list. What about a list of maintenance requirements for your vehicle? What about? Do you have new tires? Do you have a trailer brake? Is the wiring on your van adequate?

When's the last time you checked your brakes as the van had an oil change? Do you have high quality headlights? Do your windshield wipers work well, these are all things like if you have a part on your vehicle that routinely goes bad, just due to the nature of you towing a bunch of heavy equipment. Do you have excess of that part? We once went on a tour where we went through three wheel bearings. So, I mean, a wheel bearing, you're gonna, you're gonna go through like 1 to 2 wheel bearings in a car throughout the entire life of the vehicle.

We had one of two ideas as to what the problem was, and so we have to keep buying the same part over and over and over again, because that's what everybody kept saying the problem was. But we knew that after the second one went bad, were like, this is not possible. So then it was nice that we had the surplus because then we were able to like make the repair on the side of the road and we did some really crazy Macgyver ring stuff, but our head was in the game, we had a checklist essentially that said, oh yeah, we know that the wheel bearing on this van Gogh's out way faster than it should and we didn't have enough data but we had the checklist and so like we were never in a situation where it was like we're completely screwed, we're out on a limb is like no, we had a maintenance checklist, so to speak, we had extra stuff like do you have extra gas?

Do you have a spare tire? These are things that you might overthink but it's the difference between like sleeping in your van on the side of the road and you know minus 10 degree weather or like making it to a hotel, 99 out of 100 times you're fine and you won't use those things, but it's when you're in those emergency situations like do I have jumper cables, that's very important. These are all things that if you have a checklist for one person doesn't have to do all of them, you can like always delegate your responsibilities, you know, delegate it yourself and so everybody can do something different to make sure that they've got their head in the game.

Like for us, jesse is definitely more mechanically engineered inclined than I am and so like he does a lot more of them, making sure that things are working, you know, making sure the A. C. Is working if you're on a summer tour, making sure the heat works is for on a winter tour because the last thing you want is like those types of things going out and the thing like a checklist is very simple. It takes, you know, half a day to go through all of your checklist to make sure they're printed.

You can go get them laminated at a Fedex Kinko's, you can go get some cheap expo markers at any retailer across the country and tape it to your door, put it where it's visible, it will save your time, it will save you money, it will save you life and honestly it'll save you stress and when you're on the road stressing it's like the difference between strangling your best friend while he sleeps or smothering him with a pillow. Yeah, it's incredible. And that gives me one more idea for a checklist.

We're going to have a couple examples here in this episode, but there are so many more things you can do, like anything that you do repeatedly make a checklist for it, a pre departure in the morning checklist. So for example, you played a show last night, you stayed at a hotel or a stranger's place or a friend's place or whatever you get in the van and you go right now you want to open up your trailer and make sure that somebody didn't take all your stuff and close your trailer door and make it look like nothing ever happened.

So you want to list that says, okay, open the trailer, make sure nothing has shifted or been stolen, Check your tires. You don't have to get out the tire gauge but make sure that none of them are flat, Do a quick walk around the vehicle, make sure that nobody hit your van because when you're driving for work essentially, you want to make sure that your vehicle is in good shape and that you're not six hours down the road before you go, Hey, wait, where does giant scratch come from?

Who hit us? And it could have been anywhere. You don't want that to happen. That would be such a nightmare. You're six hours down the road. You like somebody hit us last night in Albuquerque and we're in texas now flashbacks now and speaking of cars, I did a tour where we had a new to us. E 3 50 that was donated by a school tech department, like their I. T. Department And it didn't have any bench seats. So we had to go buy a bench seat for an E 350.

The issue was the junk yard only had the very back seat and for those of you who have never been in any 3 50 there's four rows of benches or up to four rows of benches. Rose 1, 2 and three of benches. So behind the driver row, Our three cedars and in the very back rows of four Cedar. So it has different rigging to attach into the floor. So we got that bench and said, okay, well we don't want to put it in the way back, let's put it up front.

And that's when we discovered, oh, the attachment points are different. Oops. So we had to rig it in with ratchet straps. I kid you not. We made it work and we tested like we literally jumped against it to see if it would move and we're like, okay, it's not moving. We can't lift it, we can't wiggle it like this is gonna be fine unless we get pulled over. We didn't get pulled over and it was also winter. So we covered all the ratchet straps with jackets. It just looked like we had jackets.

Nobody would have noticed. Oh, hey, there's actually ratchet straps under there. Why do you have a winter jacket in july? Like, but figuring stuff like that out, make sure you have the right equipment and a checklist. If we had been doing this before the day, the tour started would have been much easier to follow because we could have said, do we have the bench? No, let's go get one. Let's get the right one. But it was nice since that was the only bench we were using. We had a little extra space to spread out.

So it was a plus in that sense. Another example of a checklist that I would definitely recommend for all artists is a merch setup checklist. So this basically will just say like, hey, do you have all the items that you need to display displayed? Do you have them displayed in a way that they look appealing? Do you have proper lighting? Do you have your ipad or iphone charged? So your square reader has battery. I've gone to places were like, oh yeah, give me 10 minutes. I got to charge my iphone so I can use the square reader.

It's like, no dude, I'm not coming back in 10 minutes, like the show is over, I'm leaving. Why wasn't your iphone for the square reader charged? Like be prepared? Have a checklist. All that kind of stuff goes in there. You know, part of that checklist. Make sure you have change. I've had to go to the bar at a venue, be like, hey, I'm so sorry, I know you guys need change, but all I've got is 20 is like, can you give me some fives and most of the time they're like, yeah sure, no problem.

But at other times I've had them say, yeah, like we can swap out 1 20 for you, but we can't do anymore because we don't have enough change ourselves. Maybe that checklist at the end of the night you say, okay, this is the change, we need at least this much on the way to tomorrow's show, we're going to stop at a bank and that's part of your emerged checklist, flagging that you don't have enough change. So the next day you can get more change and not bug the bartender about it because they don't want to deal with that, it's not their job.

The next example that I mentioned earlier is the show booking checklist. This is a great example of a checklist that you would want to do in Trela because it's more office oriented. You're not going to be in the van or I mean you might be in the van doing this, but you're going to be doing it on a computer or an ipad or something like that. So you'll have a template card and it will include tasks like the initial outreach to the venue promoter confirming the show details like what you get paid the date the time, all that kind of stuff, providing program materials to the venue promoter.

So either you send in posters or you email them, graphics, whatever it is that your standard process for shows is make sure you send them all that information then handling the production advance is going to be on that list because you're booking the show in advance of that. You want to do the production advance. Now, here's the other thing in trouble. You can set due dates. So for example, you could say the show is on September 30, your booking the show for September 30 and on there, you say, okay, production advances do September 25 because that's something you'll typically do the week or two before the show, then you'll have anything else you do for every single show on that list, whatever it is that you're in the habit of doing, put it on there, sending the stage, plot and input list to the production manager, anything like that, anything that you do for every single show needs to be on that list and then last but not least doing your settlement which is collecting the payment that will be on the list as well after that.

Remember this is digital, but you can have a thing on that checklist that says now go do your pack checklist. So that way your digital checklist cannot be completed until you do your pack checklist and you're leaving the venue. That's great. I like all that, really. What we're trying to say with all of this is you need to have your head in the game, you're never going to run a business without actively being involved in all of these processes. Now, you don't have to be a control freak about all these processes, You don't have to be anally retentive about all of these processes, but they do need to exist and you do need to have people that you trust in each individual area.

We've had episodes where we talk about somebody not pulling their weight, you know, in delegating responsibilities and that's a really, really big burden to carry and when you're competing at a high level of the game, there's like a lot of things you have to remember and honestly to quote Albert Einstein, why would I memorize anything that I could look up and that is the essence of what the list is. You have the ability to remember all the things that you need to do on a daily basis, but after you've done it for 25 nights in a row and you have to roll with a couple punches maybe merch, you have to set up in a different area.

This time you have a smaller table, like you still have to be flexible. The life of a musician is still a more fick. You still have to be flexible, you still have to be go with the flow, but that doesn't mean that there's not a certain level of rigidity that you need in your own personal business. Like you can be flexible with how you work with other merchants, you can be flexible with how you, you know, plan your itinerary and things like that. What you can be flexible with is making sure you collect your money at the end of the night, making sure that your merchandise or your amps and your guitars are in your van, making sure that your tires are good to drive so that you don't die on your next leg of the race.

Those are in fact things that you cannot be very flexible with, those are things those are like hard absolutes in the music industry, to where like if you value your life, your business, your money or your bandmates, you need to have these things, it's all about personal accountability, it's about everybody having their head in the game, focusing together being a collective and working towards that same end goal and doing it night after night, even when you're tired, even when you're frustrated and most importantly, it's about having good quality communication and simple little reminders, why do we practice guitar scales?

Because it's a simple reminder. It gives us muscle memory for playing some of the other things that that's that's literally all life is life is just practice, you practice, you practice, you practice and then you implement. And so the more lists, the more tools and more resources that you have to basically coddle you and to make sure that you're okay, the more safety blankets that you have, oh man, at the end of the night, you'll swaddle up nicely in your bunk and you'll know that you are doing everything correctly.

When you start to let some of these other small things fall through the cracks, then your business starts to waver, then you don't really know where you're supposed to direct your attention. So like if you need to be working on your business as a means to like setting up more interviews for daytime's or going to hot topics and playing acoustic shows or running and meeting a pr company for coffee before you're at the next venue, whatever it is that like you need to be doing for working on your business, that can very quickly get thrown out the window for catastrophic events.

If you're thinking, I have to get to Dealey Plaza in Dallas to meet with to meet for an interview and then you're like crap, I left a guitar in san Antonio, that interview is not happening, you're not going to do it. And so really by a lackadaisical, lazy, unprepared mentality and unprepared business, Not only does it suck to leave that Qatar behind, but you're also going to miss out another opportunities, So keep your head in the game, keep your ear to the ground, communicate well. If you have to ask three or four different people if the merch is packed up before going and checking yourself, Well that's fine because that means that you're going to have the ability to make money at your next show.

Certain things are worth the double triple quadruple check. Absolutely. That is such a good way to put it and I fully agree that you have to have your head in the game, but there are gonna be times when your head is just not in the game and that is when these checklists are going to save you the moment you get distracted or you're tired because you just played a show and you've had like an eight hour drive before that and you're tired and you're not feeling it, that is when this checklist is going to save you.

And even on days when you're perfectly awake and organized, why remember all this stuff when you can have a list, it's going to make it easier for you to stay organized. Save your bass player some embarrassment and enjoy as much as possible of your tour while you can you should enjoy toward yeah, it's work. But you should enjoy it. And if you're constantly stressing out about the next thing you have to do because you don't remember what it is you have to do. That's a problem. So please, I definitely recommend taking a page out of we the Kings book and saying check yes to Mhm mhm mm That does it for another episode of the Bandhive podcast.

Thanks so much for tuning in and listening. I really hope that you already use checklists for your band. But if you don't fingers crossed that this episode convinces you that its the right step for you to take to make sure that things don't go wrong. Checklists help you make everything work out the way you planned in Probably more cases than you realize checklists help a lot of different ways. If you already use checklists, I'd love to hear what you use them for and maybe share them as examples with other members of the band, I've community.

So whether you do or don't head on over to Bandhive dot rocks slash group that will automatically drop you into our facebook community where you can read about other members checklists and share your own checklists. Now of course we have lots of other discussion in there as well, anything to do with the business of running a band. So we would love to see you there again. That's Bandhive got rocks slash group. Or if you prefer, you can just search for banned Hive on facebook. We'll be back with another new episode next Tuesday at six a.m.

Eastern time. Until then, I hope you have an awesome week. Stay safe. And of course, as always, keep a rocket.