Welcome to episode 105 of the Bandhive podcast.

It is time for another episode of the Bandhive podcast. My name is James Cross and I'm not here with Matt Hoos of Alive in Barcelona, but I have two very special guests on the show today, Robert Writhe and Rikk R Treat of The Writhers.

How are you both doing today? James, thanks for having us. Yeah, I'm doing doing fine, awesome. Yeah. My pleasure to have you both here Rikk. We've known each other for like four or five, maybe six years. I don't know. I think we met on instagram from like warped tour F. I post or something. I think you're right. I think you made like a F. I pins was like, these are cool and yeah, yeah, that's, that's probably what happened. And then I think we found out we had a mutual interest in some of the same bands aside from a few because I think you were at the Stellar Corpses Argyle Goolsby show at Two club.

Yeah, that is where it was, wow. Yeah. I think you messaged me after being like, hey, where you at this show? I'm like, yeah, I was where you and then small world because when we first talked about a fire or pins or whatever it was, I was living on the opposite coast. So small world, then I've kind of followed your progression through multiple bands to where you are now with Robert and The Writhers Robert, This is our first time meeting. But in the few minutes of chatting so far, you seem awesome.

It's great to have you here. And I know I've told Rikk multiple times that the branding that you do for The Writhers is on point. So if anybody listening is looking for a lesson in branding, look no further than The Writhers, but that's not actually what we're here to talk about today, surprisingly maybe it should be. Yeah, yeah, we'll have to do this another time and get the full of branding scoop. But I was super impressed because Rikk told me that you recently did a tour I believe was 11 shows correct?

10 shows, 11 days though. 10 shows in 11 days. And this was like september october and you actually turned a profit, which is really rare for a D. I. Y. Band, especially, I think this was your first tour as The Writhers correct? First proper tour. Right. Right. Yeah. We had like a, it was like a 45-day tour in 2019, but this one was more extensive. We actually went out out of state. So this is our proper tour. Yeah, that's great. So where did you go from? You know, you're based in southern California.

What was the route like for that tour? We started in santa ana and then we went to Tucson Vegas, reno pacific Pacifica, which is in the bay and then we went to Portland, we went to Everett Washington and then back down to san Jose and then we played in Glendale, which is part of L. A. And then we ended in san Diego. That is great to make it that far. I mean a lot of artists would go up and down the coast in 11 days and you went inland a little bit too and made your way up five separate states. Yeah.

Which on the east coast is nothing on the west coast? That's like, wow, you actually made it to five states. Exactly. You didn't just stay in California the whole time? That's crazy. Yeah. Over here I could be in four different states in the span of like two hours and I mean that's not like 1/4 quarter situation that's actually going to the state, not like the four corners you guys have out there in the southwest. How did the travel and lodging situation come together for this? Like I know it was a van tour Rikky and I were discussing that, but what was the deal where you sleep in the van crashing places, hotels, Airbnb s or all of the above.

It's funny, I want to mention that when I was talking to Robert about doing this interview? One of the things that he said in his very flat sort of way was, what am I supposed to say? Get lucky and just not have to use a hotel room and in reality, I mean, I don't want to say that's all of what it is, but it's, it's true, we got really lucky and we're very fortunate to have had friends in those cities or people that could help us crash at a house instead of having to sleep in the van, we were prepared to do that.

For example, Tucson, right, instead of playing in phoenix, which would have probably been a little bit more lucrative. Well, I don't want a lucrative, it would have been a little bit better crowd wise. I think I have my old bandmate from they feed at night living in Tucson, so we got to crash at his place, so it still worked really well and that was sort of the pattern for most of the spots that we were at that I have no a person or the promoters that we went through were able to set up a place for us when we played in Pacifica.

The spot they're called Winter's Tavern is where we played. And they have like a little, almost like apartment on top of the venue specifically for the bands to stay at. That's amazing. Like if if every venue had that right, It was cool because they had, it was, I mean, I wouldn't say it was fully stocked but it had couches and stuff for people to crash on. So it was a cool, it was cool spot. That was something I felt kind of bad about because it seemed like a very like give a little, take a little at that apartment spot and we were supposed to actually stay there like a second night on our way back down and so that was gonna be the day that we were going to give back like you know, put a put a six pack in the fridge or something, something like that because that's what everyone else had done, there was like some random drinks in the fridge, there is some random food in the freezer, all that sort of thing but we ended up not staying there again.

So I do feel a little bit about that not being to pay it forward, there's always next time. Yeah, for sure definitely. And this was our second time playing there, this is the first time of us actually staying at that little apartment but it will definitely happen again in the future. So I think that's another piece that was really important was don't say all of but a few of the places or a few of the spots were based on us either playing there previously or were meant to be be that way and maybe something fell through and we got scheduled somewhere else.

But I've really taken a lot from this tour on spots that we have to play again. Yeah, just keep it in the back of your mind, like that show was amazing or they treated us really well and then you probably have some areas to, or like maybe we don't play that spot again, Vegas. Yeah, Vegas. All of Vegas or the specific venue. What do you think, Robert? Uh well, because the way that we've been, me and Rikk have been talking about it is that we're, we're going to avoid Vegas at least for the next couple of times.

But I think I would say that if we tried Vegas again, we would try like a more underground spot because it looks like the underground spots can really pop off with like, you know, in quotes, the true punk scene because both spots that we went to at least to me, it seems like there are more rockabilly psycho, billy garage focused. That could just be my perception. Not that we don't fit into those groups, but we're definitely kind of the odd man out when it comes to shows like that because we're just kind of weird.

Too weird in most cases. But yeah, we've played in Vegas twice to different venues again, both similar vibes and they were, they were both okay, but it wasn't like anything really to write home about. But then like, right after the tour, we saw a couple of bands we follow, like have some video from some underground spots and those looked wild. So I feel like if we wanted to try Vegas again in the near future that we would try to aim for something like that. And I think the hard part about the shows that we have played there was that just sort of the first one that we played was very last minute.

We had a show booked there or we thought we had a show booked there and it fell through. So we got some friends to throw us on the show they were playing, but that means that we were opening, people were there, but they didn't really get in until the second band, right, Which is the local and then the second time we played there, people were there and they were really into it, but we got thrown on for the last spot because that was also sort of a last minute thing.

So, again, a whole show, like a showcase of locals and the venue didn't put us, they didn't touring band sandwich us because why would they, they didn't care. We got thrown onto the last spot, it's Vegas. So it didn't matter if it was late or not, but no one knew who we were, so they didn't stick around and the ones who did were just there and like, my girlfriend or my boyfriend is trying to make me watch this band, you know, they were sort of a begrudgingly, I think.

Yeah, so not the ideal situation. And Robert you mentioned a few minutes ago that your sound is just weird. It's a little bit outside of what people come to expect. So I think that's a perfect time to segue into who you are as The Writhers first. I want to mention that this episode airs on november 30th, but we're recording it on november 1st. Halloween is a big central part of your brand as a band. And you have a new song called Halloween Inside that's streaming now. So anyone listening, you can go find on Spotify Apple, all the major players.

But let's take this time to have you introduced the band and talk about what you do. Well, the way we've been selling ourselves for lack of a better term is we call ourselves horror punk ability, death rock and roll, which of course is like a Frankenstein genre of like what five different genres, which I feel like sonically all those genres kind of cross over into each other Anyway, so it's not too strange, at least in my opinion. But uh yeah, we can really catch people off guard when we're playing like kind of your standard horror punk banger.

And then we play something that has that DNA but it's also like funky and then it goes really hard. Like we kind of throw people off guard. Sometimes our top three influences, at least the ones we tell everybody because they know who they are would be the cramps the misfits and the dead Kennedys, definitely the dead Kennedys. So we are considered a horror punk band, but it is kind of funny. I kind of laughed when you said that we revolve around Halloween because I feel like we don't play, we're probably never going to play a Halloween show ever, partly because I think as lovers of Halloween, we want to enjoy it, but also because now Rikk's anniversaries on Halloween, so out of respect, why would we do something on Halloween?

It's funny, I was just thinking yesterday during Halloween that like, I love Halloween, but we do so much like dressing up and just like quote unquote everyday is Halloween that I was like, you know what, I kind of appreciate christmas more because it's because it is a contrast, It is more different than our daily lives. I don't know, I could keep segueing into like other things where it's like, well we're kind of Halloween, but we also kinda, we don't really fucking care. We've been trying to do an annual show now called the Ghoul gang gala, We didn't do it this year.

That was just because of the tour was kind of around when we do it anyway. And then of course other scheduling things and other World situations, but we always do it early October and a lot of people are like, isn't that too early for a Halloween show and it's like, no, no, it's not Halloween all year? Well, and then also like, I mean, I kind of feel like a lot of people are this way, but maybe it's not the popular opinion, is that October is Halloween season, so it's never too early to celebrate Halloween as soon as it's October one.

Yeah, I mean January three months. Yeah, but for real, if christmas can have three months, then why shouldn't Halloween have at least the whole month of october? If I have to listen to Mariah Carey for three months, you have to listen to the misfits for one. Yeah, The misfits and A F I Oh, that reminds me quick. Side note. Years ago, F I did a Halloween MTV show, I think like 2000 and nine with Paramore and somebody else. And then answer was like, and f I wrote this song Halloween on All Hollow's Ep, I'm like, you work for MTV, You should know that they did not write that.

That was the misfits. It was that bad boobs. Uh anyway, we're not here to talk about MTV fails, which, I mean, is basically all of MTV in the past 25 years, we're here to talk about the tour that you guys did, which did the tour have an official name? Like, did you name the tour? Or was it just the tour? Yes, the single, we just released that you mentioned earlier? Halloween Inside? We named it after that single. Okay, Gotcha. So, the Halloween Inside Yes, the Halloween Inside tour. Yes.

So, we essentially toured on a single, which Why not? Right. Got to celebrate or highlight something, Right, Well, and people are starved for art right now too. I mean, even with shows coming back more and more, it's still very different, at least to me who is going to my first indoor show in a year and a half. At the end of this week, I've seen a couple outdoor shows, but nothing indoors yet. Like it seems like there's still a lot of people who are hesitant about going to indoor shows or any kind of large gathering in general.

So, Covid aside, what was the decision making process that you guys said, hey, let's sit down, let's plan out a tour. Let's see what we can put together. And again, Covid aside, obviously I know that probably factored into things, but just looking at the more business mindset rather than the, what's going on in the world mindset. So I think the to put context into the business, I guess mentality for the band, a lot of it lately is me just bugging Robert, hey Robert, We should totally do this.

Hey, can we do? Yeah, basically. But I think so. Originally we had a plan to and we want to still do this in the future, but we have some friends up in Canada and a horror punk psycho, billy band up there. They're called five cent freak show and they're essentially a sister band to us. Very similar qualities, right? We would have liked to do a tour with them. I was gonna say, let's back it up even more. We had a tour planned. Oh yeah, we did and I forgot about that.

That stings and that would have been an american southwest tour because we would have gone through from southern California, We would have gone through Nevada to Utah down through colorado, maybe one show in texas and then back across through album Mexico and Arizona. Yeah, did I? I just remembered that I had that was almost entirely booked. I totally spaced on that. So yeah, thanks for reminding me. So basically, I feel like the biggest motivation if I was to answer anything is that all of us probably generally speaking, but especially Rikk has been anxiously waiting to tour.

So we've been just trying to like, when can we tour? When can we tour? I feel like that's a big part of it. Why don't you agree Rikk? Yeah, I think so. And one of the things that I've noticed from that experience and just pandemic in general is playing shows is awesome. And you know, I miss being able to do that and I feel like I take a lot from the, like things that I hear from the calories brothers about how they market stuff and I feel like we're a good band and we should be heard by playing shows.

I think that's one of the main ways that we're going to have that happen. So I think that's what that was my mindset going into it as well. Aside from just like already set up this whole thing, I don't want it to be you know for nothing. Yeah. Well actually on that note that brings me to a slightly tangential question, you know, calibrates for listeners who don't know is another legendary band in the scene that you guys are in. And when you're looking at a rather niche genre like horror punk psych ability any one of those success is defined so differently than when you're looking at 15 years ago.

Pop punk now whatever M. G. K. S. Pop punk offspring sound is. So looking at an artist like calabria is a really good way to compare because even though you might learn things from looking at what X. Y. Z. Pop punk band or X. Y. Z. Metal band does if they're achieving success on a different scale just because there's a larger market for that sound. The lessons that those artists are learning might not be appropriate for you. So I just wanted to touch on that and say like it's really cool that you're looking at calibrates because they are specifically in that same or similar area.

There's gonna be a lot more overlap there than A D. Ii. Banned in who knows what other genre country whatever its hard for from my roots, I guess in like post hardcore metal core right? To look at those bands, even when I was doing metal core right? When I was doing J. H. B. It was always kind of too weird to look at those bands and be like, well this is what they did to get heard. Doesn't really apply as easily with bands that kind of stick out a little bit more.

The outliers, I guess another band that I think is a good, at least from my perspective influence on what I think about when we're doing stuff. Business wise is a band called the Jason's. I've spoken to their singer, Jason V. And what they did was essentially started it in the horror punk scene and then denounce the horror punk scene and went into the Ramones Core scene because that's really what they are sonically, they're more of a Ramones core band that dresses up like a horror punk band would be right.

But because they fit in both, they have the ability to have fans in both and do really well in full scenes. And I don't want to assume the Ramones Core scene is bigger at all. But if it is then the horror punk scene that it will be a little bit more lucrative for them, right? And one of the things that Robert and I talked about his ideally we leave our trail in the horror punk psycho billy seen if we can and then ideally make it a little bit closer towards the greater punch scene, you know, I think the punk scene, I'm gonna use that loosely the underground scene, right?

If I were to be more specific, I think it would probably be that like art punk scene that we have in town, you know, the younger bands that actually give a sh it about music, you know, just art and our experimentation. I think, I think that's where we would probably fit the easiest, but who knows? Right. I mean, so, I was gonna say, uh, let me make a dumb joke to transition into something during the tour. We were kind of making jokes that, like, everyone was waiting to see the first time Rikk was going to bring up a F. I or like play them on the radio.

So then we were saying like, oh, well, we should have like those swear jars and every time Rikk mentions a f I has to put money in the jar. So then we are deciding what's everybody's swear jar band or whatever. And so mine would definitely be the band. They might be giants. I don't know if you're familiar with them at all. So, that being said, I talk about they might be giants to Rikk a lot as far as like, when they were starting as a band and how they fit into their scene, they're from Brooklyn, they played a lot of art shows and they played a lot of punk shows and they were too rowdy for the art shows, but they were too weird and artsy for the punk shows.

So they ended up having to basically make their own scene, which obviously they were successful in doing so I guess that's basically what we're doing. But it's a tough thing to do to create your own scene almost from the ground up. Yeah, Well, I mean they might be giants. I think they were founded in like the earlier mid eighties. So they've certainly done well. It's Been almost 40 years. If not already 40 years. They just put out a new album. So they're still doing stuff. Yeah, that's great. And that's the kind of example where A band is in a niche that's not really that popular in the mainstream, but they still make a career out of it or you know, to look at the biggest level of things bring me the horizon.

You know, they were like a death core band 15 years ago and now they're pop metal. And I have to say personally, I like their nearest stuff better than what they were doing 15 years ago. But that's a conscious shift that even back with what was it some paternal in 2012, that change is already visible and some people expected it. Most people didn't, I don't think I expected it to the extent that it's changed, but there was a clear trajectory kind of being painted ahead of them. And you know, I'm not that familiar with, they might be giants.

I know a couple of songs like the one they have about the sun and how it's a ball of super massive gas and I know because I'm like a space. So, but point being is that, that's not a bad strategy at all saying like, hey, we're gonna get our roots in this and then we're going to over time, slowly ease into this other sound and try to bring our fans along with us because that's something that, and I know this is not train related. So I'll bring it back to touring in a second.

But it's something that a lot of artists like bad religion, I'll throw him under the bus. They've had an almost identical sound for almost 40 years and you just hear like, oh, that's bad religion. No matter what era of bad religion it is. You know, it's bad religion. Then there's bands like a f I, I'm gonna have to put some money in the jar where you can listen to two different records and probably not realize that it's the same band unless you recognize the vocals and even then that might be a stretch if you listen to very proud of you and answer that, okay.

But if you listen to black sails in the sunset and december underground. No way. Like that's not the same band. No way. That's not a thing. So it's really growth over time, tastes change? Music abilities change and just being able to plan that into your sound, say, hey, like overtime, we're probably going to change and let's see where it takes us, maybe it'll go this way, maybe some other way. But recognizing that that change is going to come at some point I think is a really healthy thing for a band, definitely.

Yeah, so that said, I did say, I'll bring it back to touring when you are putting the tour together, either this tour or the one that got canceled by Covid a year and a half ago. What were the most important elements of planning and what kind of questions were you asking yourself that you needed to answer before you could put things in place and start booking shows? So I think I am, I am terrible at geography. So that was part of it. I, I had like, well what if we play, I don't even remember the location, so I'll just use examples, right, what if we want to play um, san Bernardino?

And then from there we go to phoenix and then from there we go to Albuquerque and I was just throwing things together and then I'd send it to Robert and he'd be like, look at this map, look how how far these things are? Let's try and make it closer together because I think he wanted to go from Vegas to Portland's or something like that. And I was like, do you realize how long a drive that is? And I'm like, no, I don't. But uh so it was basically things like that because I think the first like four day tour we did, there was a longer drive in between, if I remember correctly, we played in Pacifica that saturday and then we played in riverside the next day.

So that, that was the longest drive. And so the goal was cut down the drive time as much as we could play places that we had already played before or areas that would be a little bit easier for us to have people show up because they've already seen us or places we have friends in and then places that we've never played before. So that was, I think those were the main things that I was looking at. First of all right. The second part is really like waiting down the places that you can find shows that I realized in setting up what we actually ended up doing that.

That's really difficult. Some places don't have reliable promoters. It either have a scene, but they don't have like a major venue, especially post covid or during covid. However you wanna classify it. Right? It was really hard to solidify some of the places that we actually ended up doing. Like we ended up playing stan Jose even though we had just played the bay like four days before because we couldn't find anything in sacramento or reading or anything like that. You know for that for example we wanted to do something before the bay but after Portland's in California so it would be a little bit easier on our drive down the san Jose for example.

And we just ended up going straight to the bay from Washington essentially. Yeah, that's a long drive. But that was that was that off day. Yeah, yeah. Yeah that was an off day we took we had a day off which was lucky originally we weren't meant to have that but because of the drive time that was their own in there so it worked it worked better for us cause I don't think we would have been able to make it if we had that extra day. Yeah, that's a long drive from Seattle down to the bay has got to be just about 12 hours.

I recall. I know I did a drive from San Francisco to Vancouver Washington which is like right on the border with Portland Oregon and that was like 10 hours or something and that was brutal. Yeah we had we had all of us had to be road warriors. So Robert drove us from the bay to Portland. We did have some stops which was fun. But I mean he took that whole drive and then we all took shifts when we did Washington down to san Jose but Robert and I were both when I was driving I was, I was okay because it's a little bit earlier but I could definitely like okay when Robert was driving I was like, what did Dominic's brother say?

He said that our eyes were raisins that we got to our guitarist brother's house at like five in the morning and we were just now I said that I said our eyes were like crazy. Yeah. And they were and he loved that joke. He loved that joke so much. He said I'm going to use that next time. Well, so we, we ended up kicking it too long in Everett Washington with the guy from Evelyn's casket, David Merrill, I don't regret that at all. That was a good time.

We got fun. We got to just relax in the morning for once, you know, that was a good time. But because we left so late we got to the house we were staying at in san Jose so late the next day. I mean it worked out, but I guess those are things you have to take into consideration. Yeah. So was there an element of back scheduling where you would say, hey, we have to be here by this time so we have to leave by this time plus, you know, add in a buffer of this.

Yeah, so the main time for that was when we were playing in Pacifica, which was a sunday on monday we were going to have to be in Portland's by eight, I think. So I'm like, we have to wake up at like five in the morning to leave from here, which for me is awful because I'm just not a morning person. That's why we posted this to 10, you know, because I'm like, I don't want to wake up that early, but we did it. I'm actually really stoked and impressed that we all, we all were able to wake up and get all of our stuff in the van and because we, we unloaded into the apartment, so we had an empty van in the morning, we just loaded everything back in in the morning and then we're on our way adventures.

Yeah, I've definitely been there certain areas where you want to unload the van and not leave anything in it, and that adds like a good half hour to the day, at least at both ends. Yeah, yeah, totally. I think one of the things that was really fortunate for us and, and good and I guess the marketing plan for us was typically when we got to a venue Robert would go and set up the merch like almost immediately. And you have the other three of us, mainly the other two because I think they were, they were more on the Tetris game that I was unloading the van and getting things sort of situated a little bit while Robert was doing the merch, I think you had said this James to me when we were talking online is how important or how smart it is to have the singer B, the merch guy essentially, you know?

And I was thinking about it after you had said that, I'm like, that is true Roberts, the face of the band. He's the one that's going to be a little bit more informed to sell the product compared to maybe emerged person or any of us. Right? So I think that really worked out for us. Yeah. And also just because of the fact like if people see Robert on stage, they're like, oh, that's the singer, let me go talk to him. Yeah. You know how it is as a drummer, I'm sure like they can't even see you half the time behind the kit, depending on like if the stage is up here, then there's like symbols in front of your face or whatever though.

It does help that we're all color coordinated. The goal is I wear the most pink in my outfit, black and pink. And then the rest of the guys are wearing mostly black with touches of pink, pink ties, pink shoelaces, pink shirts, but like just like designs or whatever. So at least we're all matching. And then the tables mostly black and pink too. So that definitely does play a role. Yeah, absolutely. And so while we're on the topic of emerge, how much of your income from this tour was murch, If you have to give like a rough percent estimate.

Let me see at the sheet here. And I guess the other question, while you're looking that up is when you're booking the shows, where are you getting door splits, flat guarantees. Okay. Yeah, nothing. I think that's something that I want to work on for the next tour that we end up doing or the next. I mean, even just shows in general, right, My goal is to be a little bit smarter with that because I feel stupid saying it, but I didn't get most of that information up front.

The good shows were a little bit more D I Y. They were run by like pirate punks or any sort of promotional thing like that or they were run by just the bar, for example, in santa ana it was a certain percentage off of the door. And fortunately we just had a good amount of people show up and we made a decent amount that night, Right? I think one of them that was really impactful for me as a, as a positive was when we played in Everett, there was, there was a decent crowd, but it wasn't, they said, oh, if you guys come on a weekend, it'll be, you know, a huge show, right?

We were there on a Tuesday, but we got a good amount of door money and the owner of the bar really liked us. So he threw in an extra $100 from his pocket on top of merch sales. Right? So nothing was as planned as it probably should have been admittedly. But most of it worked in our favor again now knowing knowing what I know, I think next time we set up something, I'll have to say, hey, can we get a Doherty or can we get a guarantee? Again, it was sort of hard because some of these were like last minute like, okay, whatever we need to show this day, so let's figure out what we can do.

I think I would, I would say if anybody's planning a tour of a modest size like this or smaller, like you really got to ask yourself is the goal to make money or is it to get out there? Because I do think again, kind of like I mentioned earlier, I think the point of this tour was kind of to just tour and get out in a more places because Rikk to his credit, he is the one who's usually telling me, we need to ask for this amount of money if we're going to play a show or we need to ask about the guarantee or what the split is going to be like.

But since Rikk did book most of this tour, I think the thing at the front of his mind was booking the tour and making it happen and looking through my expenses just kind of like a rough thing. I think generally speaking at most shows, it was kind of 50, 50, like our profits from each night would have been half of it came from the door and the other half came from merch. There were a couple shows that were exceptional, like reno if we mentioned that already, that was one of the best shows period.

And not only did we get great door money from that show, we had a lot of people buying merch or just throwing extra money at us like I guess is a tip or keep the change kind of a thing we made since we're going to talk like actual numbers, we made like over $600 just at that one show and the door I believe was $200. That's how much they gave us. But then we got all kinds of other money and on top of that they gave a huge, they fed us, the promoter came in with like a full pizza for them and a vegan pizza for me and they found a spot for us to stay with some cool guys that were really close.

It was a great turnout for the entire experience, you know, that's huge. Do you have an idea of how many people were at that reno show? I'm curious what the per head for merch was. That's a good question. What do you think Rikk? I'm bad at that. It's funny because it probably looked like it was a lot more than it was. But I'd say to me it looks like it could have been like 50 people, but I'd say it was probably a little less than that, but it was, again, if we're all context, you know, it's like still everyone's getting used to, covid restrictions being gone, and this is a couple bands that either just started or have never played there before, so I think we, like, Robert was saying people were throwing like twenties into our tip jar for no reason, like they weren't buying anything, you know, Right?

So let's say it was 40 people and roughly $400 and merch sales, that's a $10 per head. That's insane. Normal per heads are anywhere from like 3 to $6. 07 is exceptional. And obviously normally tips, you know, on a larger tour, the merch person would take the tips. That would be their tips for a D. I. Y. Tour, you effectively had a $10 per head. That's legendary. Really? I don't think I've ever even come close to a $10 per head on any of the tours I've done. So that's really amazing. And I think that also shows that, you know, like you're saying Rikk with people being starved for art and they just want to go see a show.

The market has an influence on that as well, because reno who plays reno not anyone really like that's kind of the middle of nowhere and it's not a small city by any means, but it's not massive and it's not the first pick for pretty much any band. I don't see bands saying, oh we have to play reno, I'm guessing for you is probably we're going from here to here. Let's put a show in the middle, Right? Yeah. Yeah. It was it was we're playing Vegas and then we're playing we have something booked in the bay.

Let's play reno because it's right in the middle. But now it's going to be, dude, we have to play reno. Exactly. And especially if you can get those 40 people back, that's going to be huge. Now, speaking of getting people back, did you take email list sign ups at the merch table or anywhere at the shows? We had a Q. R. Code for that. And I did mention it from stage most of the time, but I think maybe this falls on me, but I think I could have done more to push that, but we were attempting to actually do that this time because we hadn't really done the email list thing before, although I know that's pretty integral to your fan base these days.

Yeah, I think that's something that we Robert and I have been talking about aside from just a QR code, we just amidst everything. Didn't end up putting as much thought into it this time. But hopefully we'll get to do that because we do have a plan for what I think is a pretty cool email letter and things like that. So yeah, trying to get the ball rolling on that. What I would suggest if you guys are open to suggestions is for the next tour, take an ipad and uh just keep it on your email, sign up page and then offer people like a free wristband or a button or a stick or something like that in exchange for signing up.

You know, obviously you'll get people who sign up and then as soon as they get the first email they unsubscribe, But for the most part you'll get people who sign up and then stick to it. If you have them put in their zip code to, you can then filter by zip code and be like, Hey, you know, this zip code is within 30 miles of this city where we're playing a show. Let's email this group specifically and let them know we're going to be in the area. I've seen a few bands doing this and I think it would be really good if more bands did it.

The other thing that you can do is if you're using a stripe reader for point of sale, you can also ask people like, hey, is it okay if we add you to our email list, if you got your receipt email to you and then you can take that email as long as you have their permission and add them to your email list. And that's kind of a seamless thing too because they're already putting in their email to get that receipt. Yeah, I think because we have a square reader and I think Square offers the same kind of options with the newsletter.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. Square stripe is stripe, doesn't have a reader, but there's another payment processor. They just don't do the reader thing. Yeah, Square or Paypal here is the other, the little triangle thing that some people use. They all pretty much do the same thing, but they all have that functionality where you can collect an email and I think that's so important. As long as you get that consent to email them with updates, might as well use that because you already have that data.

So out of this tour, it seems like you did not expect reno to be as massive as it was. Were there other things that either positive or negative you didn't plan for? But there were surprises. You want to talk about the van, Right? I listen to the Lollapalooza episode you guys did, which that will be linked in the show notes at band. I've got rocks slash 105. If anybody wants to hear that interview with The Writhers from just about a week ago, well a month and a week ago by the time anyone is here in this episode.

Uh Yeah, I mean, I think that was probably the, as we said in the Palace appaloosa podcast. That was probably the low light only because it was just so much stress for, I think all of us, I know that it hit me first because I was the one getting the van. But I know even days later when we were already in like the bay Area are basis can was freaking out because of it too. So I think at all it affected all of us in different points.

It was a hard experience because with rental companies, they sort of scare you into getting their insurance. They tell you that if something happens and you're completely liable without their insurance, even if you have your own individual insurance and you're driving a 15 person van across different states. And it was just for me, it scared me. I have driven vance before, but I hadn't done it in a while and I was just worried because they didn't do a walk around, they didn't check that things were working properly.

Apparently one of the tires was pretty stripped and the brake sensor was going off and a knob flew off halfway through the tour and they were already dents and dings on the car. And we told them the day after picking it up after we played our first show, we took it to a budget in the Orange County area because that's where the first show was. And when we told them about this tire sensor, they just said, oh, don't worry about it. And that's what I tell myself when I don't have money to go get my car, looked at.

You know what I mean? My personal car that I drive like, you know, maybe an hour a day, not a van I'm paying for and I'm liable for, you know what I mean? Yeah. And like every time if even if we wanted to try to trade in our van, they had no extra vans. So they weren't even, they were like overbooked I guess. Right? At your location, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I'm not sure. It seems like what we had found out. So we actually tried to get a 12 cedar and were given a 15 cedar.

I think what may have happened was either things were recalled or for whatever reason the 12 cedars were booked everywhere. I mean that sounds a little sauce, but the big car, the 15 cedars were booked everywhere too. Like they were telling us, oh, we don't have any here at the Disneyland resort area, go to L. A. X. And then we called L. A X before we drove all the way over there because we weren't even going that direction. They didn't have any either. So who knows why everyone was taking a 15 cedar van that weekend.

The things that I learned from that situation is a, our guitarist is the one in charge of car stuff from now on because that was originally his job. And somehow I got pond to me. But ultimately it worked out because he went with me to return the van. He complained to them. We got $55 off because it was just such a ship show and you know, ended up being a little bit cheaper. We've got to profit a little bit more off of it. So not to say that we're going to do that again, but it was just, I think next time green vans, but I think us all being supportive of each other about it was really helpful.

You know, at least for me that we kind of like, hey, it's going to be fine. It's gonna be okay. We're going to, you know, we have this kind of in place and all that sort of stuff. Making sure that if one person was worried, it didn't turn into everybody freaking out is like containing it. Right. That was definitely the low light hard part. But there were a lot of positives too. So I don't want to brush over any of those. Yeah. Was it in E 3 50 that they ended up giving you or what was the van?

To be honest. I don't remember our guitarist would no more was I just know it was like a, it was 1/15 cedar. We had to take out to the chairs, benches, benches. Yeah. I mean, it's basically your standard touring then, but obviously you don't want anything to be wrong with it when you pick it up, when you take it back, that's okay. It might cost you something, but if they're sending it out when it's already broken, that's not ideal in watching or listening to some of the podcast that you've done recently about, where you guys talked about, you said your co host name is matt about them buying a van for their band.

I'm like, are we ever gonna do enough tours to need to do that? Like, I'm thinking about in my head, I'm like, that would be smart. But how are we going to do that? You know what I mean? Well, here's one thing and obviously this depends on liability and all that kind of stuff. But one thing that I see artists do is they'll buy a van and then rent it to other artists when they're not using it, right? I was kind of thinking about something like that too.

I was talking to our guitarist like what if we get something With another band that we all we have like, coordinated tour schedules. If we were to continue touring a little bit more frequently. So I was like, Okay, well we have it here, you guys have it there. Yeah. And the other way to look at it is, I think you said you're paying about $100 a day for the van, is that correct? Yeah. I think it ended up being like 938 or something like that in total. Yeah. And that's you know, before fuel or any of that, just the event itself.

So let's say 9 30 divided by 11. So it's 85. Let me add in that $55 though. 9 39 85. So yeah, $90 a day. So if you were to do, let's say you get a 10 15 year old van for 10 grand. If you were to do 10 tours like this, that would already be 8954. So if you did 10 week and a half tours a year, which is a lot. But there are artists that do that, that's every four weeks, basically every, every five weeks, that's certainly achievable and that's going to quickly add up if you keep renting and of course, you know, for anyone listening, there is a very difficult line to cross there from worth it to not worth it and back, especially when you factor in the repair costs, the insurance, all that kind of stuff.

It adds up quickly, but if you're using it enough, it's probably worth it. But you also mentioned that there were some positive, unexpected things. Do you want to talk about those as well? Yeah, I think for me, one of them was just, I guess not realizing how much people were going to enjoy us and do for us. My old bass player, he had like, I want to say stock his fridge, but he got, he got food for us that when we got back from playing a show, there was food in his apartment specifically for us all to have.

I didn't anticipate people just throwing $20 tips at us because they liked us, you know, things like that. Like even though it was a home show, our San Diego show was massive. I did not anticipate that I'm feeling some emotions right now from just saying it because it was such a big deal, you know, and it was really cool to experience and I think as much as I know it was sort of a sarcastic comment going back to what I had said, that Robert had said right, like we got lucky and didn't need to get a bunch of things because we have awesome friends and at this point awesome fans, you know that we're really, they came through, we keep throwing the word being lucky around, but that just goes to show the importance of networking, which I know I need to work on that to Rikk's more, I mean I have my days but Rikk's more of the talking to random people in person.

But even what also goes just as far as just being nice, like staying for other bands when people talk or to you or ask questions, like being nice, being willing to loan like an amP or something because that really comes back in the future. I mean, I know that's kind of what the venue did, but the fact that the venue was cool with letting us use their little apartment upstairs. It's kind of hard to quantify, but like that stuff builds up over time and we've been playing for coming up on four years now and I'm always trying to stay for all the bands help where we can and that stuff comes back to help you out in the future. Yeah.

I think that that goes into something that I had told you James a couple days ago. Is that really being genuine with people and that's important. You can, you can talk to all the people that you want, trying to really salesman them and get them to buy stuff, but that's not necessarily what's going to keep them around. They may love your T shirt, right? But like if they didn't have a good experience talking to you, then it might not matter as much as you think it does. Yeah.

I mean, it could even go the other way. It could be that they love the t shirt, but they don't like the band anymore. If the merch person or the singer, whoever was a jerk to them, they say this is a cool shirt, but I'm never going to wear it. I don't like the band anymore. And that's risky, I mean look at what is happening with all time low right now, all the the people coming forward saying, hey, like this is not good and the community as a whole is backing that up and saying, okay all time low, not messing with you anymore.

Like we're backing off. It sucks for them, right? Because right now it seems like they're all time Low is a band that I never assumed was a big band, even when they were popular in like the Myspace days. And now, for some reason, everyone's nostalgic about them. And so it's really weird because I feel like they've hit like a peak that they didn't have before. And if their behavior is making it hard for them to continue that, then they just shot themselves in the foot. Absolutely. Which to be totally honest, that's any band who does sketchy or illegal things like that.

They're absolutely shooting themselves in the foot and they should know better. Like in my opinion, there's no excuse for any band that mistreats anyone, but especially their fans like that, whether it's just being mean or, you know, coming to sexual abuse or things like that, there's just no excuse for. It's like, these are people who look up to you if you don't have time, there's a nice way to say, hey, I'm so sorry, I need some space right now. I'm dealing with something. Like I'm sorry, like I can't do this right now rather than just being a jerk about it.

So that's a whole rabbit hole we could go down, but I was just going to kind of double up on what I was saying. I mean that more than just being a band, but like on a personal level because most everywhere we stayed with were like old friends of Rikk. What if Rikk was, this is almost impossible. What if work was an asshole? Like we wouldn't have those connections. One person we stayed with was a family member of our guitarist. That's a family connection. I mean the fact that they let strangers into their house is very kind of them to, but it was a family connection, but then they were like two non friend or family places.

We stayed, correct Rikk. Yeah, the little Pacifica apartment and the one pirate punk house. Yeah. But then everyone else was like friends and like if you could know somebody in a town that you want to tour in, but if they don't like you that much, that's not an option for help. We ended up staying at chili's brother's house a second night, but we almost stayed at Emilio from Stellar Corpses place when we played in san Jose and I think the fact that that's probably both to speak Emilio just being a nice guy, right?

But our experience with him in the past, having played with stellar a handful of times that we were nice enough to him and he was nice enough to us that he was willing to allow us to stay there. So I think, again, that just adds, that adds to it. Don't be an asshole, basically, right? And I think it's something that I told Robert recently was that for me a lot of the marketing, a lot of the networking stuff is just kind of, I'm already doing that is not, yes.

There's a goal of helping the band, but it's things that I already, I like doing podcasts because we're just noting out talking about music and talking about music related things. Right? For example, I do that with people anyway, so it's, it's not anything out of the ordinary for me. That's what I like talking about and doing. So if that's going to help us brad, right? If it doesn't, Okay, I'm still doing it anyway. Yeah, exactly. And that's, this is not relevant to the podcast. I keep side tracking here, but I used to do videos for Bandhive and I hated it and now that I'm doing the podcast, I just get to nerd out with people about the music business.

I love it. Like, it's so much easier. It takes way more time. But I love it. It's great. It's totally worth it. Anyway, Emilio. Yeah, Great dude, his new band, Dark Ride is also really epic. It's good stuff. But since we're circling back to the topic of lodging, why don't we go through just like the overall categories of what you budgeted for in advance of the tour to give listeners an idea of what you highlighted as important. Like, hey, we're going to have to pay for this.

So other artists know what they might have to budget for. Well, I mean, I don't think we can really help out in this department because I think like me personally, I'm kind of on a tight budget as it is, like just on a personal level. So like the weekender we did in to Vegas and Glendale during the summer, we paid for that with the little weekender with the one like two years ago that was like a four day thing. We paid for that with the tour. So I was just heavily banking on the fact that, hey, I'm prepared to sleep in the van.

I'm prepared to maybe shower once we'll pay for this tour with the tour. And I don't know, Rikk did you have anything budgeted? To be honest. I think it was sort of the same for me. My goal for anything band wise is be sustainable. I don't care. I would love profit. Right? That'd be great. But the goal is sustainability, right? And so for a tour, it was pay for the van. If we have to crash anywhere that's not a friend's house or in the van be able to pay for that.

My goal was to not spend a whole lot of money on food. So we all did a Costco run beforehand. We had a cooler with it, We had a hot plate thing that we didn't end up using, but you know, we had that with us just in case we're going to need it. And the goal was, I think I wanted to keep my food spending under five meals during the entire tour and I think I did, I think it was like I only ate food from not my stash or the food that they would give us when we played or at a friend's house four times I kept it under that.

It's not really money, but that is the one thing you could say I like planned for was I brought provisions to feed myself for the whole tour and it was a lot of dry stuff. It wasn't like the most flavorful, best food, but it was diverse enough to beat somewhat healthy and to feed me the whole time, but I think I only ate half of my food because people were so generous, at least with our experience, since we weren't really budgeting beforehand, This kind of, is like what I said earlier about, are you going out to tour just to get out there, Are you going out there to make money?

You have to know what you're getting into, you have to be prepared to not eat like expensive, take out all the time or to sleep in the van or whatever. Like if you're okay with that and you're mentally prepared for that. That's cool. But don't just jump into it with or without a budget expecting things to go a certain dream, like idealistic way because that's not realistic. Yeah, absolutely. I'm a big fan of budgeting for the worst case scenario. That's always better than budgeting and going way over when you mentioned the food and the Costco run was that you each paid for it personally or did the band cover that cost?

And it was paid back by the income from shows and merch. Actually let me see because I wrote down everything that we considered a band expense. I don't think it was not. Food wasn't the only food item I have as a band expense was that big bag of candy you had me by because we had like a bucket of free candy at our merch table and I put that on the expenses because I wasn't planning on buying that and I was like, you want me to buy a big Costco bag of candy?

Okay, that's going on the spreadsheet, Halloween inside. You know, I think at the end, if I remember correctly, you gave us some like 20 bucks or a couple. You gave us something from profit as like us getting paid and I think that is probably what went towards the band Costco run. Yeah, I don't think it covered. Like obviously everything, but it was like a little something I know Chewie specifically asked for like some gas money the night of our last show and stuff and you know that more than happy to do that.

But like again, we were definitely focused on paying for gas, which I was earlier. I kind of expected you to ask how much we spent on gas. So I was getting that number ready since I have it right here. We spent like 1000 $18 on gas California gas prices. And well that's the funny thing too is I think we had consecutive days where we didn't buy gas in California Rikk. Would you agree? I don't think when we came from reno and went through the bay and up north I don't think we bought gas in California.

No, we got it in reno and then we got to the bay and then we didn't have to buy it again until Oregon know until like weed California. Right? Or maybe it was all the way in Oregon. Yeah. I don't think we bought gas again because the reason I brought that up is because when we got back to California are I think 10 minutes past the border into California were like, we need to get guests and this was on our way back to the bay area and oh my God, I was like damn it.

I forgot how much this was going to cost because I had at that point like every day just to kind of get like a target number of like all right, as long as we make this much more money about this much more each show to cover the rest of the guests will be good. And I was estimating based on like just averaging out everything we had spent on gas so far and the number was under what filling up the tank in California would cost. So it kind of caught me off guard.

Obviously it all worked out, but it was like, I can just give you an example here. I think the last gas up before California was probably in the Washington area and I guess this wasn't a full tank because this does not look like a full tank, but it was like $61, something like that. The one before that was 90. So we'll just say it was about 90 to fill up in Washington. First one in California was like 130 bucks. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, oh my God, definitely don't forget about gas guys.

That's going to be important to budget for. I think I appreciated a lot every day, Roberts saying something like that. Hey, if the rest of these nights based on what we have and the gas amount that we assume we're going to have to pay for, right, we need this much each night to break even basically that helped with, you know, it was typically like, I don't know, a little bit over 100 or a little, it was like maybe 200 each night halfway through and then once we got closer, it was like 101 120 probably like reno happened, it was like all we need is $100 every night now, you know?

And then um like I said SAn Diego, we made a profit and like a good profit and didn't have to worry anymore, you know? The other thing that worked out, probably one of the most disappointing shows was our Glendale show. We kind of just felt bad about that whole thing because It was a place we had played before the headliner I guess you could say is a pretty big horror punk band, the order of the fly and they had to drive out from riverside for that, but we only made $120 that night, which is good, but it was less than we were expecting thankfully, even though it was a disappointing night, I think that was the point we broke even.

So with SAn Diego, everything from SAn Diego was profit. Just the fact that we've managed to break even at a disappointing show and then the next show being such a banger and lucrative was very encouraging. Yeah, that's huge. I mean there's the small positive note of hey this show wasn't great, but we broke even and then it's just massive that the next show ended up being that much of a high point for the tour, What a way to close out a tour. Oh yeah, definitely. Again, like, we were kind of taken aback about like how great that san Diego show was.

We were even getting worried at the beginning of it because there was like an okay crowd at the beginning, but they all seemed like they were there for the first band and we were like, oh, how is this going to pan out? But this is kind of unrelated but also related. When we got back, we found out someone vandalized my car where I left it. I don't know if this was related to the vandalism or just a big coincidence, but as I was trying to drive home after getting my stuff out of the van right before getting on the highway, my tire got flat.

So I had a terrible morning before our last show back home, I guess that just kind of set the mood like, I don't know how this show is going to go, but it ended up going so well that it helped cover like that. Even even though that was our profit, some of it helped myself, everyone agreed to that. So I didn't just take that because I mean, your car wouldn't have been sitting there for a week and a half if you weren't on the road with the band.

Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm glad it's all kind of worked out in the end with the show going so well, it sounds like gas was your biggest expense than the van, were there other expense? Let's just say like broad categories that you had to pay for from the band budget. Just like little things we kind of threw on there because again, the main things we were tracking as band expenses were gas in the van. Other things I have on here, we made tour posters and we made that a band expense.

Although I kind of wish either we didn't or we didn't make as many because people didn't really want tour posters, which well, I think we went about it the wrong way and this was kind of figured out halfway through. We probably should have just been giving them out. So to give context to that James, we did tour posters and download codes for Halloween inside. And so the goal was, if you buy a poster, you get download, what we should have done was either you buy anything or you come over.

Maybe that could have been a good sign up for our newsletter, you get a poster and you get a download, you know, by the end, you're giving them out again, something we know now for next time that those things could go with merch sales online, you know, now we just have posters and things to give out as freebies. I think another thing we're able to use the tour income was we hired a photographer friend for our san Diego show to come take pictures and that wasn't planned beforehand, that was like, oh things are going well, you know, a couple of days before san Diego while we're still out on the road, let's contact the photographer and see if he's down to show up and take some pictures and we'll pay him.

So that was cool. And again, that's it. But in the future I think I would like to try to keep track of or have people keep track of like their food at least for reference. And if we're able to comp it comp it. Yeah, I mean that's one of the things that makes a massive difference in any touring budget is if you're paying for food it's at least $20 a day per person. So with a four person band, you're looking at $80 a day, that's 880 over an 11 day tour, it adds up really quickly.

So on that note, before we wrap this up, do you want to just shout out the numbers of your total income, your total expenses and your net income after expenses. Just to give people an idea of what's achievable as a D. I. Y. Band. Yeah, for sure. It's funny. I don't actually have the net written down, but I can just subtract. So let me punch those in and oh yeah have a calculator right here by the way, I'll send you guys, I have a tour management and budgeting sheet that I've been selling.

I'll send you each a free copy if you want to use it for uh future tours. And that way you can like break everything down into different categories. See reports, that kind of stuff, awesome. Thank you. Yeah, I'd like to see how you like to split it up because it's funny because obviously me and Rikk were both thinking, oh, we'll keep track on our phones, just like in notes or something. But our basis was like, I'll start a spreadsheet so we can keep track of gas and income.

And I'm like, oh cool, yeah, do that. But then he basically just made what basic gas thing we were gonna do on notes, but in a spreadsheet and I was like, oh well if we're doing the effort for a spreadsheet, I want to see how much we made from the door, how much we made for merch, blah blah blah. And he's like, oh okay. It was kind of funny. But yeah, thank you. I'd like to see that, what you got there. Yeah, Laurie's, I'll send that over right now while you're looking up the numbers.

Do you want me to start with income or expenses? Let's go for income first. So income obviously from merch From the door from tips are grand total was $2,730 and our tour expenses again, we were mainly focused on reimbursing gas and the van, but we also have some things like that. Halloween candy, the tour posters and our photographer friend Rikk Ward. Our total expenses were $2324. Nice. That gives you a net profit of 406 exactly. We walked away with 406 technically more because again Rikk wasn't planned, but then we put them on there.

Just the fact that we made more than $100. The fact that we walked away with, you know, in the green was great. But I think I would write Rikk like if you're going to expect anything, it would be like 50 100 bucks. Yeah, we're doing great. We're doing great. Like I said, I think it was, it was what you said about the Glendale show. It's like, yeah, we broke even. Exactly. But the fact that it's like not just 100 not just 200 but a couple $100. That was pretty amazing that we achieved that.

Yeah, absolutely. That's incredible. So Rikk, if somebody was planning a tour, what would be your biggest piece of advice? Like the main thing you would want someone to think about? I would say, I guess my biggest piece of advice is book with some reliable promoters shout out to the pirate punks. They're pretty much everywhere. So you could probably find some helpful people through that. If not, I would say go through helpful channels on facebook or instagram or wherever your social media is to be able to find a local promoter who people recommend for particular cities.

I think that that's probably one of the biggest take aways that I've gotten in organizing the things. The other thing is, I guess adversely to that, make sure you're organizing it within a good amount of time because Murphy's law dictates that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. There will be shows that you'll come to find out we're not booked and um you're gonna have to scramble so get a backup for your backup if you can a little earlier. I think that would probably be a good call right on.

I feel like my biggest thing I've said it like two or three times already is just you have to decide are you making money or are you just trying to get out there whether your budget or not, you have to know what you're getting into, especially if you're not really going into it with money for like, hotel rooms and stuff like that. You have to accept the D. I. Y. Tour life, not even D. I. Y. The tiny small town band Tour life, which is basically being homeless.

Go against what I don't remember what band it was James that you guys were talking about, but don't spend thousands of dollars on hotel rooms because yeah, that won't help you in the long run. No. Yeah, Pompeo Moose, which is Jack Conte, the founder of Patreon is half of that band. And if anybody hasn't heard that yet, it's number 98 losing $11,000 on tour. What not to do? You can find it at band. I've got rocks slash 98. Yeah, This was like seven years ago or so. Yeah. 2014. They had income of, I want to say 135,000 or so and they spent 146,000.

And it was just like, I'm still of the belief that it was a marketing stunt so he could publish this article and then like, link to patreon and all that. I would not be surprised at all if he were to say yeah, but this was just marketing. Nonetheless. It's losing that amount of money. Like there's investing in a tour and then there's just not being able to budget for a tour and that's why I made the tour. She, it's basically the sheet that I've used for the past almost a decade.

Made a little prettier. So people don't hate looking at it. So I just sent that over to both of you. I hope you have success with it. If you have questions, just let me know, shoot me a DM But aside from that, thank you so much both for coming on the show today, I'm just going to hand over the floor and say, hey, anything you want to say about The Writhers where people should go to follow you all that kind of stuff, Go ahead and shout it out and then we'll have any links you give in our show notes at band, I've got rocks slash 105 some.

Well if you go to the Risers dot com, you can pretty much find your way to anything from there. We're about to take like a two month end of the year break. So just follow, we'll still be posting things. We have a group on facebook now, which if you're on facebook, that's definitely a fun way to interact with us. It's just like a super loose hang out basically where everyone's sharing things because as you know, you talked about how much you like the branding that I do for the band.

I like things to look pretty. So sometimes I'm not posting right away cause I'm waiting for it to be pretty or I don't post certain things because I wanted to look pretty. So the fun thing with the, it's on facebook, The Writhers Ghoul gang. It's a group. So search groups and asked to join because it's a private group, but we share a lot of like behind the scenes kind of things and I'll just come across random things on my phone. Like, oh, that was like a work in progress drawing from like the album art for in one Gulp.

Let me drop it on the group. So there's a lot of fun things there. So I definitely recommend if you're on facebook and you're even half interested in the band, Like check us out on that and have a good time. Sounds good. Like I said, we'll have all those in the show notes and I hope that you will all check out not only Halloween inside, but also The Writhers on social media and the ghoul gang group on facebook Robert Rikk, Thanks again for coming on the show.

I really appreciate it. And I hope you have an awesome rest of your day. Thank you. You too. Thanks for having us. Thanks a lot, James. Oh, my pleasure. Mhm mm. That does it for this episode of the Bandhive podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening. Of course. Big thanks to Rikk and Robert from The Writhers for coming on the show and discussing their tours. So openly talking about what they learned what they expected, what they didn't expect, what went wrong, what went really well and sharing the numbers for their tour.

It is really amazing to see D I. Y. Bands like The Writhers break even on a tour or even make a profit. It's not nearly common enough to see that, and it's very difficult to do, but they pulled it off. So, I hope that this episode is helpful for all of you if you're interested in learning more about tour management. Give me a shout James at band, I've got rocks, or if you just want to get started with budgeting the tour sheet that I mentioned, I was sending to the band.

You can get your own copy at Bandhive dot Rocks slash tour budget. So head on over there for a copy of that budget. Or if you want to learn more, email me James at Bandhive dot rocks. Thanks again for listening. I really appreciate it. We'll be back next Tuesday at six a.m. Eastern time, right here in your favorite podcast app. Until then, I hope you have a great week, Stay safe. And of course, as always, key for rock and