[00:00:00] James: welcome to episode 186 of the Bandhive Podcast. It is time for another episode of the Bandhive Podcast. My name is James Cross and I'm sitting here with Matt Hoos of Alive in Barcelona. How are you doing today, Matt?

[00:00:13] Matt: James, I am tired, but I am good. Yesterday was a nice long day in the sun, anybody that's ever spent a nice few hour stint in the sun knows how draining it can be. And especially if you decide that it's a good day to work in the sun for 12 hours, which is what I did yesterday. So, uh, today I feel.

[00:00:31] Matt: Like a redhead that spent 12 hours in the sun yesterday. So it's, uh,

[00:00:36] James: like a,

[00:00:36] Matt: be determined,

[00:00:37] James: you are a burnt potato chip, is what I'm

[00:00:40] Matt: On that, you know, or lobster or uh, pick your red, animal, and uh, you know, any, works.

[00:00:47] James: All of the above. Well, it's funny, Matt, I had this idea for an episode about summer touring and staying cool and staying safe and, not dying on summer tour. And before I pitched it to you, you told me about this [00:01:00] story of all the work you've been doing all week. I was like, oh, that's perfect.

[00:01:02] James: Like

[00:01:03] James: we're gonna give you all the flashbacks with this, but we're also gonna

[00:01:06] Matt: James.

[00:01:07] James: what you can do to uh, Not die in that uh, red summer sun.

[00:01:12] Matt: Oh yeah, there's, there's lots of good ways that you can beat the heat. Take it from a ginger.

[00:01:17] James: oh yes. we met under the summer sun

[00:01:19] Matt: That's right.

[00:01:20] James: like nine years ago, but I remember always hearing your pitches in line for Warp tour about sunglasses and sunblock and all that.

[00:01:28] Matt: all the terrible, terrible, horrible ones. Just to make people laugh.

[00:01:31] James: Yep. And it was effective. You were able to sell your wares.

[00:01:35] Matt: That's right. never a problem. something, uh, wonderful about selling a product that sells itself like sunglasses during the summertime. it's about as fun as selling ponchos in the rain,

[00:01:44] James: Oh yeah. Ponchos in the rain. That is something that it's an easy sell. They practically sell themselves, like you say.

[00:01:48] James: Anyway, when it comes to summer touring, we break it down into three maiden categories. We have shows, we have travel, and we have days off. And if you don't plan days off, [00:02:00] if you're one of those bands who says, oh, we can do 10 days in a row straight,

[00:02:03] Matt: you're wrong.

[00:02:03] James: sit down, go home. You're amateurs.

[00:02:06] Matt: Yep.

[00:02:06] James: I mean, warped Tour did 21 that was the year after I quit and I was just like, guys, You're literally insane. How can you do this and I'm sure it was one of those routing things we did 12, one of the years I was on, and that was bad enough. Usually it was five or six, to put it in perspective.

[00:02:22] James: 21 shows war tour was typically 40 to 45 shows. think when I was doing it was mainly around like 41, 42. So 21 shows is literally half of the tour. Without a day off,

[00:02:33] James: that is incredible. the fact that people could just play for that long every single day. I don't know why the team did that.

[00:02:43] James: I'm sure there was a reason a very good reason, but am so glad I wasn't on the tour that year.

[00:02:49] Matt: Yeah, I'll tell you what, if you can do 21 days of Warped tour in a row without batting an eye, then you can do anything There is no tour, more grueling than uh, Warped tour, and, and there is [00:03:00] no stint longer than 21 days on a tour that's, just, nearly unbearable.

[00:03:04] James: Yeah, just like 21 Guns by Green Day. Now I'm kidding. I, I literally, I love that song. I was listening to 21st Century Breakdown this morning. Like, I love that whole album. I had to drop that in there. I do not hate that song. It's not unbearable. At least not to me. So at, anyway, let's, go ahead and jump in, Matt, to our first section, which is playing shows during summer.

[00:03:27] James: You wanna take it away?

[00:03:28] Matt: Yeah, sure. So, you know, obviously there's two kinds of shows that you can play during summer, indoor or outdoor. It's a nice broad category. indoor shows are drastically different than outdoor shows. The demands for like, when you have to be at the venue are different. what you're gonna have access to?

[00:03:43] Matt: You know, it's like, warp Tour is nice because there's always food available. there's always water available. There's always tents available. you're sick and tired of seeing your band mates, there's a litany of other people that you can go and hang out with just would tend to say that Warp Tour is. Very hard on your mental health, [00:04:00] but it's also the best place to find a support circle for that. bands break up every year after Warp Tour, and. If you can be one of those people that develops good quality relationships along the tour, maybe one of the guys in your band is more introverted and, you know, a few of your guys are extroverted or whatever.

[00:04:17] Matt: And, and the extroverts like to go and be around people to recharge, and the introverts need time to themself. when you're out on a summer tour, that can kind of be brutal. if you're on an outdoor tour, then, then your safe spot is your van, And You don't run your van all day, every day for your air conditioner, otherwise you're gonna blow up your engine. It's gonna get too hot. if you're in a bus, you might be in a better situation because they have, uh, air conditioning units and whatnot.

[00:04:40] Matt: But can ask anybody that's ever been on a bus. You know, most people have a, a bus breaking down horror story. James, I even believe you have a air conditioner not working story, don't you?

[00:04:49] James: Yes.

[00:04:50] James: Multiple. In fact,

[00:04:51] Matt: of the story is don't get on a bus with James cuz he has bad luck when it comes to breaking down air conditioners.

[00:04:57] James: Hey, hey, hey, hey. Hold on, hold on. One of them [00:05:00] wasn't mine.

[00:05:00] James: the day after our bus blew up, or, no, actually, the day our bus blew up, we got put on another bus and we got to the hotel. near Phoenix, Arizona. the air conditioner just kept shutting off cuz it was so hot in the desert, it could not keep up. So then we're sitting in the bus, cause our hotel rooms aren't ready and it's like 90 degrees on the bus and we're just like, this is off. It was a black bus, so it's just soaking up those sun rays and eventually I was just like, you know what? I am just going to go sit in the hotel lobby. I don't care if they get upset.

[00:05:28] James: I cannot sit in here any longer. It was that bad.

[00:05:31] Matt: it is not an overstatement to say that the heat can kill you. So it, uh, very good idea to seek refuge like that. I have plenty of overheating stories. our engine exploded in Las Vegas during like the hottest day Las Vegas has ever seen, cuz our guitars went back to the van to turn it on and blast air conditioning in his face.

[00:05:50] Matt: And when Jesse and I walked back to the van, there was old faithful coming outta the radiator We were like, well, how do we fix this? We had to replace the transmission, and we were like, well, let's drive up the road. we got onto the highway and the [00:06:00] van died, you know, we had no ac, no AC on the side of a Vegas highway.

[00:06:03] Matt: Anybody that's ever been to Vegas in the summer knows it's already hot

[00:06:05] James: Shoes melting hot.

[00:06:06] Matt: not an exaggeration. Shoes melting hot. And what's better is that they don't have people who uh, come along and like patrol the highways or anything like that. It's actually all done by like three individuals who each patrol like 150 miles of road.

[00:06:21] Matt: And we were lucky that this nice bystander stopped and was like, oh, what are you guys doing? And we were like, well, we're trying to change this radiator on the side of the road. And it was so hot that. one of our band mates passed out in the van, and so we literally had to like wake him up to transfer all of our band mates into this guy's van who took them into, into Vegas to actually like go be by some mister.

[00:06:42] Matt: But it was so hot that when we set the tools down, That we were working on, we burned our hands, going to pick them back up. it was brutal. And that was Jesse and I like it always was everybody else bailed. And Jesse and I were there, left to do whatever we needed to do in the van, and we sent [00:07:00] everybody else off to make sure that they weren't dying.

[00:07:02] Matt: The outdoor heat, especially in certain places in this country, if you're not used to it can be so incredibly taxing. You know, if you live in a wet climate and you come to somewhere dry you're just not geared for dry heat. Now, in my opinion, dry heat s way better cuz you can just go in the shade and, it cools down 10 degrees.

[00:07:18] Matt: And if there's a light breeze, then that makes a world of difference. Versus like where it's hot, you're like, Kind of always trapped in a warm pile of yourself, and there's no escaping that unless you take a shower and even then you get outta the shower and you're wet again. But it's, a very, very serious thing to uh, be conscientious about. Your ways to like stay cool and to like keep your body temperature low. things like having sunglasses and sunblock, or just shade in general. Being able to pop a small tent so that you can feel the breeze without having to feel like you are uh, living inside of a, hot air dryer.

[00:07:52] Matt: Which in some of these places in this country, that's what it feels like. the first time we did Warped Tour, we did it in a Mitsubishi Lancer with no air conditioning. driving through Death Valley was [00:08:00] so hot that we stopped at a gas station to buy a bag of ice. And this is not an exaggeration at all.

[00:08:05] Matt: I had, I think it was a little styrofoam cup, I was holding the bag of ice, watching the ice from the bag melt and drip into the cup. And basically we would put a couple ice cubes in the cup and then let the melting ice drip into the, into the cup. And then before the last ice cube melted, we would just slam that water and repeat the process.

[00:08:24] Matt: And we did this. Basically driving through all of Death Valley, cuz it was like 117 degrees, no air conditioning, all the windows rolled down and it literally felt like we were just inside. Of a hot air dryer. It felt like we were living there ironically like, dude, we could have died. But, it was like that bag of ice literally that sustained us.

[00:08:43] Matt: It was like, oh, let's just get a bag of ice, like, put it on our laps and I'm gonna fill up these cups of water to stay hydrated. And then we were also sleeping the Mitsubishi as well. And so it was like, even at nighttime it was like, 95 degrees. just something so unbearable. And that was our first year on the [00:09:00] tour.

[00:09:00] Matt: So we were like, I don't know what to do. You know, we were out there wearing black clothes every day. You know, that may have even been so early on in the tour that we weren't even wearing tank tops by that point. it was just like, how do we escape this? how can we.

[00:09:13] Matt: Stay alive. Now, we were young and we weren't thinking like, oh yeah, death Valley's gonna kill us. It's like, well, they call it Death Valley for a reason.

[00:09:20] James: Yeah.

[00:09:21] Matt: and it's not because it's nice and beautiful and cool, it's because it's brutally hot. And so, like having cold water, light snacks in the car, even just something as simple as like, can't remember if there were times when we stopped for like ice cream, but man, I tell you what, looking back, we should have just like gone to a Baskin Robbins or something like that, just gotten some ice cream because the, the sheer force of the sun is like, go spend a few hours in the sun, you're delirious by the end of the day.

[00:09:50] Matt: go spend. Are weak in the Sun at Warp Tour, and can barely tell which way is up. You know, it's the difference between getting back on the bus or going and [00:10:00] buying a plane ticket and going home. there are so many people that go home after the first few days of Warp Tour because they realize they cannot hang.

[00:10:08] James: saw that every year.

[00:10:09] Matt: Yep, exactly. Well, I mean, and, and people don't understand that when I say like, bands break up after Warped tour, it's like this is one of the most grueling tours ever and one of the biggest contributors to that fact is absolutely the heat. So, indoor is a little bit easier to escape the heat because you're already kind of natural, you know, club tours you're playing later on in the day.

[00:10:29] Matt: Maybe the sun is going down, but you're still kind of at the mercy of like whether or not the venue is hot. Sometimes you go into a venue and it's like they've got smoke machines going, it's been hot in there all day. It's like you go in, you feel like you're walking in a swamp cooler. There's not really much you can do about that.

[00:10:43] James: thing I'm so thankful for is that most Vietnamese now have LEDs instead of incandescent park cans. I remember I saw, real big fish in Streetlight Manifesto with a friend near Albany, New York at a venue called Northern Lights, which is now long gone. They had security taking [00:11:00] pocket knives and stabbing the cap of water bottles and just spraying the crowd.

[00:11:04] James: It was that hot and it, it felt so good, like it was ice water. They'd, they'd been in the fridge or something and just spray down the crowd with water bottles. And then they were literally just like tossing water bottles out and people were just passing around. No one cared. We're just like, we need water.

[00:11:18] James: Like, just pass it around. that's how bad it was.

[00:11:20] Matt: I think, I dare to remember when I saw them, and that was just at a club tour, but the, I mean, it was a big club tour and, there's a ton of people there they came out with super soakers. They literally

[00:11:29] James: Oh, I

[00:11:30] Matt: Super Soaker on stage and just, I mean, they were literally drenching people, but everybody was like, please, please.

[00:11:38] Matt: I do not want to pass out from heat exhaustion. all jokes aside, Homedale New Jersey, during Oh, Chelsea Grin, someone died. they had a heart condition. but then they died from heat exhaustion in the pit.

[00:11:50] James: That's terrible.

[00:11:51] Matt: Yeah. And then the worst part was, is that the hardcore metalhead crowd a really good job of alienating that scenario cuz they're like, oh, can you think of anything more metal than,[00:12:00] dying in Chelsea Green's pit? And it's like Shut up, dude.

[00:12:03] Matt: Like somebody's kid's not going home today. And it's, basically due to negligence. So, It's important to not be negligent you are a performer and so there's always, there's the natural exertion that is coming with the territory of being a performer.

[00:12:15] Matt: Plus, you don't control all these variables, like whether or not the venue's gonna be hot, whether or not they're using incandescent lights or LEDs, whether or not the venue has air conditioning, whether or not the venue is blasting a, smoke machine and making it even more. Wet in the room, you can't really control all of those inputs, so you have to control the other inputs. choosing the clothes that you wear, or like, sometimes layering up is the best idea, even if it's hot. I played a Vegas festival wearing long sleeve shirt. Why? Well, because the sun exposure on my skin is far more detrimental than me, like sweating a little bit more.

[00:12:51] Matt: I can replace my water, I can replace my sodium, I can replace my electrolytes that I'm sweating out. I. Cannot recover from [00:13:00] my skin being burnt to a crisp. know when you get sunburn and your skin dries

[00:13:03] James: Oh yeah, you don't wanna

[00:13:04] Matt: can't move, right?

[00:13:05] Matt: And you just wanna wet towel on you and go sit inside of like a movie theater where it's all dark and cold and damp and everybody leaves you alone. You can't escape that sunburn. And so like, you kind of have to pick and choose whether you're gonna wear an extra long layer over the top and sweat a little bit more, be a little bit hotter.

[00:13:21] Matt: Or are you going to say, I'm gonna take the sunburn. And I'll tell you what, it's the people that, cover up, those guys are in it for the long haul and they understand things I think that other people have kind of fundamentally missed.

[00:13:33] James: Yeah, absolutely man. I think you've hit almost every single one of our points here for shows. I just want to touch on two more. We've been talking about water a lot. You can't have too much water. This has happened to me. 2015 Phoenix, Arizona.

[00:13:45] James: Over half the people on my team ended up in the medical tent with heat exhaustion, heat stroke. I didn't. I was fine until the next day when we were in New Mexico and I had drank so much water and then it was another hot day [00:14:00] and I drank more and more water that I got really lightheaded, really dizzy, and I had to go to the med tent that day. And it was low electrolytes, so sure that if it's really hot, get Gatorade or something, don't do what the medics at the tent told me, which was to drink Monster. That is the worst thing you could do in that situation, like literally as soon as they said that, I was like, you want me to what now?

[00:14:23] Matt: They want you to dehydrate yourself worse. Yeah.

[00:14:26] James: so I uh, went back and thankfully somebody on the bus had a Gatorade that they let me take, and I had that and I started to feel better immediately.

[00:14:34] Matt: For those of you who don't know, the most important mineral for your body for hydration is sodium. And so if you are feeling. Dehydrated. Adding a little bit of salt to your water can really, really help because while you might have enough water in your body, sodium is the mineral that transports that around your body and actually hydrates you.

[00:14:55] Matt: So water without sodium is totally useless. Your body needs the sodium in order to [00:15:00] uh, Open the highways for your hydration to work. So that's why Gatorade worked for James. You know, if you don't have access to Gatorade, even just a salt packet. A lot of high performance athletes will actually take sodium packets like while they're running marathons. And that's because the water is not as, of a concern to replace because they kind of naturally will, and your body does a really good job of regulating that.

[00:15:21] Matt: But, They absolutely use these little sodium packets, and that's what keeps their joints from tensing up and allows their body to transport that water to the necessary muscles and ligaments and all the, tendons and everything. feeling bad. Yeah. Banana. Yeah. Potassium. That's another absolutely fantastic one.

[00:15:37] Matt: Potassium is also really good for after you play a show it's great for your joints. same with magnesium, magnesium and potassium. If you take that after a show, will wake up the next day being like, what show? I didn't play a show yesterday. Um, it's pretty crazy to see the difference between the people that really take care of themselves, In terms of. They're minerals, health is always really important, but that mineral ingestion absolutely can, take [00:16:00] you from, walking back to running again.

[00:16:02] James: definitely. Yeah, so there's that. The next one is, this is for indoor and outdoor shows, all of the stuff I'm saying right now, don't eat hot meals, if it's summer and it's really hot. Don't go get a hot meal, get something cool, have like a salad or something, or some kind of light snack. A granola bar works, but ideally, you know, a salad, if it's chilled properly, that's gonna be so refreshing.

[00:16:21] James: And if you do want ice cream after you're set, not before is mainly because it's dairy. You don't want a ton of dairy before a set. But even if you're a vegan like me, wearing my vegan straighted shirt today. I'm a vegan. I gotta tell the world that's how it is.

[00:16:33] James: Even if it's non-dairy, like I still would not eat non-dairy ice cream before a set, just cuz I feel it's so heavy and so bloated afterwards. It's delicious. But like, I don't want to eat ice cream and then play a set. That's not a thing. And then Matt, you already mentioned not wearing black. Sorry, elder Emos.

[00:16:49] James: Just if you're gonna be out in the sun for an outdoor show, don't wear all black. have done this for a warp tour and I was always much cooler when I was wearing white shirts. and then I [00:17:00] had like a purple shirt or something, or like a navy blue, something like that.

[00:17:02] James: And those were really nice and some other people on my team would wear black shirts and I'm like, just like, I cannot do that. That is not gonna happen in this weather. One other thing when it comes to shows is gear considerations. If you're using laptops or other electronics, those can overheat really easily, especially if they're outside in the sun.

[00:17:20] James: So if you're using tracks, have a plan B, maybe that's being able to play without the tracks. Maybe that's some kind of backup system you can switch to quickly. Something like, Hey, I have the tracks on my phone. The left channel is the tracks, and the right channel is the click.

[00:17:35] James: It's only mono. Instead of, you know, having multiple different breakouts from our pro tools or Ableton or whatever session, but at least we have tracks of some sort. The engineer's gonna have to deal with it, and ideally if, you're using tracks and you're on tour, you should probably have your own engineer.

[00:17:51] James: And that way you can work out this plan with them and they can give you feedback on what goes into that stereo track mix or rather mono, mono,[00:18:00] left tracks, right click, or vice versa. Just so you can keep playing that set. And you just have the di box for your phone right there.

[00:18:06] James: So you can instantly, if, your laptop dies, plug in your phone, cue up the right song and go. This should be like a 32nd delay tops, and maybe you do that for one song and the laptop comes back up. Maybe you do that for the rest of the set. A few years ago there was a big festival, I believe it was in Vegas, I can't remember where the mix engineers board overheated, Thankfully they had an ether con snake, so it was all networked rather than like a traditional snake. They put his board in a hallway inside of the production office or something, and set up studio monitors for him to mix. And I'm like, that's great. And they were talking about how they can do all this, and it's amazing.

[00:18:42] James: I'm like, the studio monitors are going to sound entirely different than what you're hearing out on the pa. what they should have done in that situation. Because this was a capable digital board. Set that up, plug in a router and go outside with an iPad and mix on the iPad. And for that, you know what, [00:19:00] the iPad's probably gonna overheat too, but you can get your rough mix going and then you can go inside and just say, Hey, I know what this sounds like.

[00:19:07] James: can do the rest of the mix here. This is my reference now. And I just need to know like, oh hey. This is the part with the delay and I hit the delay but I have to keep this rough sound that I hear on this mix. So to me, right now, the drums sound totally quiet, but outside they're plenty loud because you can actually hear the drums.

[00:19:25] James: that matters so much. The other thing is be prepared for rain if you're playing outside, ideally. The venues have some kind of covering over the stage. If they don't, then rain just means you're not gonna play. But even if they do, rain can come in sideways. Matt, we've all seen this, you're at an amphitheater on Warped tour and then rain is coming in sideways under the roof of the amphitheater, still getting on the stage.

[00:19:49] James: It's blowing like 50 feet in from where the roof is cuz the roof's a hundred feet up. You know, like these huge structures, a little bit of wind can do a lot. So, Be prepared to have a plan to [00:20:00] dry your gear if it gets wet. Have the critical things covered. a lot of times at Warped Tour, even if the venue had a roof, you'd see a pop-up tent over the monitor world because it was so important to keep that dry.

[00:20:13] James: that was, you Either for sun or for rain, depending on the situation. Sometimes you'd see like, oh, the sun's coming in, so they put a popup tent on its side blocking the sun, you can do that as well. But any kind of stuff like this, if you're playing smaller shows, the production's probably gonna be pretty sketchy and it's on you to figure out how you can make it happen in any weather elements that the festival organizers are allowing.

[00:20:37] James: That said, one other thing I wanna say here is, If at any point it seems unsafe, don't be afraid to walk away. Even if the festival or show organizer, the promoter, whatever, hasn't said, Hey, we're calling this

[00:20:50] James: cuz ultimately it's up to you. If you say, this is not safe, I'm sorry we're not playing this. That's the right choice.

[00:20:56] James: It's always better to say, Hey, we don't feel comfortable with this. [00:21:00] We're gonna bail than trying to play, and somebody gets electrocuted

[00:21:03] Matt: play in a lightning storm.

[00:21:06] James: Yeah. Don't be Brian Marquis. That oh, I, I, I may have told this story in the podcast before.

[00:21:12] James: Backstory. Brian Marques was the stage manager of the acoustic basement stage on Warped Tour. And a year or two before I was on the tour, he actually got struck by Lightning at one of the Florida dates. it was bad, he went to the hospital and everything and thankfully he was okay. And then a couple years later when I was on the tour, we had a huge lightning storm in uh, was Orlando.

[00:21:33] James: Tinker Field. Tinker Field, Orlando. And so we had to put our tent down cuz of the wind. And then we didn't have time to evacuate anymore, so they just told us to get in the back of a box truck. And all of a sudden I remember somebody going, Brian don't, you know, lightning strikes twice? And he's like, running around outside. They're like, get in here.

[00:21:54] Matt: Oh,

[00:21:55] James: And I was like, oh man. poor guy and I, I think he still didn't get in the truck, at least not [00:22:00] our truck. Maybe he got in a different truck, but it's like, geez, that dude just does not learn his lesson.

[00:22:04] Matt: That's terrifying.

[00:22:05] James: Super nice guy. I have nothing against him.

[00:22:07] James: Like, I don't know what his reasoning was for being out there. I, I shouldn't say he doesn't learn his lesson. I'm sure he did not want to get hit by lightning again. But whoever yelled that I, we all cracked up we're just like, that was well played.

[00:22:20] Matt: Yeah, that's savage. That being said, you know, rain can also create for a really fun environment. can go and, uh, watch some awesome videos. I believe, I believe it was every time I die in like Pennsylvania or somewhere. we had some gnarly rain and which actually closed off a bunch of the side stages because of how much rain we had.

[00:22:37] Matt: But main stage was in a pavilion, so it was like totally fine, but there was so much rain, it turned the entire. all of the grass into a giant mudslide and I would encourage everybody to go and watch these videos because they're all over YouTube, but just Google, every time I die.

[00:22:53] Matt: Mudslide, warp tour, uh,

[00:22:54] James: sure that was Brios Town.

[00:22:55] Matt: okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you're right.

[00:22:57] James: Which is Pittsburgh.

[00:22:58] Matt: It was [00:23:00] absolutely insane. I mean, it was incredible. people were going at the top of the hill and just s sliding on their bellies all the way down this hill, I mean, it was a giant mud fight.

[00:23:08] Matt: And obviously, it made every time I dies, crowded like 10 times bigger cuz all the other, stages were closed. And at that point everybody was soaked, so they were like, Hey, you know what, let's make the most of this. And as they were, like the band that was inside the pavilion, they were able to keep playing and.

[00:23:23] Matt: Honestly, I bet you every kid that went to that war tour, Reem will remember that forever. I don't even know how they got home. I'm sure if, if I showed up to a concert and my son like just showed up completely muddy, I'd be like, nah, you're gonna wait in the rain until you're, clean.

[00:23:36] James: Yeah. Wash off. this is where the Hitch Checkers guide to the Galaxy comes in handy. Always carry a towel. Just put it in the back of your car. You're all muddy. Put it down in your seat. Done.

[00:23:46] Matt: Good

[00:23:46] Matt: A dry towel is, clutched. Don't be afraid to go to a Walmart and buy yourself a cheap towel just to use it, just to throw it away, that's okay. sometimes it's worth it. Also, the other thing is towels have this tendency to, once they get used, they get wet and then you like stick them in a [00:24:00] laundry bag and they get disgusting.

[00:24:01] Matt: And so they can be a curse too. Or they just stay wet and you like put 'em on the floor of your trailer and then then you're water logging your trailer would, and there's definitely some bad things about towels, but. A dry towel and like a dry pair of socks. there's very few things that are so integral.

[00:24:19] Matt: It's like, it's like the perfect tool for the perfect thing. It's like you don't ever need a poncho until it's pouring. And when it's pouring, you're like, oh man, I'm so happy I had this poncho. Like, this is the best thing ever. So having a little, a little like emergency kit, a Tupperware container that.

[00:24:34] Matt: Is in your van underneath a bottom bunk that nobody ever goes into. It's like, oh yeah, there's a few towels in here, a few ponchos, a few maybe hand warmers, a few random things that will uh, change the course of your poor evening from pour to great. Also, if it's raining. Don't be afraid to capitalize on like, oh, I haven't showered in a few days.

[00:24:55] Matt: If it's pouring rain, throw some shampoo in your hair and get outside and wash your hair in the street. I've done that in [00:25:00] Florida a few times.

[00:25:00] James: I remember, oh, this, this was Park. Is that St. Petersburg?

[00:25:04] Matt: Ooh,

[00:25:05] James: Pete, right? It's Tampa area. It's the Tampa Show of Warped

[00:25:08] Matt: Vannoy. I, I think Vannoy is,

[00:25:09] James: It's, it's definitely Veno Park. I just can't remember which city it

[00:25:12] Matt: I think that's the west Palm stop.

[00:25:15] James: West Palm was an amphitheater, wasn't it?

[00:25:17] Matt: I could have swung that the West Palm was the one, one of the, one of them is right on the water. There's, there's a, there's a pier where there's dolphins that swim up and it's awesome.

[00:25:25] Matt: right on the water is incredible. The dudes for today, went out and I literally watched him like, pick a shark up out of the, outta the water. Little baby shark. Yeah. He just, he's like, oh dude, there's just a little shark here. And he just like picks it up and like, squirms away and lets it go.

[00:25:37] Matt: It's like, like a three foot shark. It's like, you people are crazy, man.

[00:25:41] James: That's amazing. So, anyway, that stop. First of all, I think you ask anybody who their top three or where their top three warp tour stops are, Vannoy Park is gonna be one of them. For better or for worse, like every time I was there, it was wicked, muddy in the morning. Just cuz the buses are parked on grass and they've like torn everything up and all that and it's a [00:26:00] mess.

[00:26:00] James: But it's just such a beautiful day down the beach there are beach showers. you wait for the, the shower shuttle to go to a hotel like half an hour away and then you wait in line blah, blah, blah. Or he just, Put on some flip flops, walk down the beach, go find the beach, shower and wash your hair, wash your pits, you're good.

[00:26:16] James: And the second time was, there was actually, everybody had caught on like, cuz more people learned about it every year. It's that second year it was actually, so many people had showered there, the drain was clogged and it was just in this pool, like a 20 foot wide pool of water. that was pretty nasty.

[00:26:29] James: But I still showered. It was, I had

[00:26:31] Matt: I was gonna 20 people's sweat Water is still better than what you experience on Warped Tour.

[00:26:37] James: Yeah, and I mean, it was, it was all filled with soap, so whatever,

[00:26:41] James: I took advantage of that shower every year. That was such a nice

[00:26:45] Matt: I think I think I only used that shower one time and I think it was like the only time I've ever actually like went to the beach while we were there. Cuz most of the time it was like either selling or just jumping straight off the pier into the water or just sitting there watching dolphins, which was really cool.

[00:26:58] Matt: But that is actually the venue [00:27:00] that I specifically remember the rain pouring down and me being like, well, I'm dirty. I was just, Threw some shampoo in my hair, sued up real quick and went outside and people were giving me the weirdest looks ever. I was like, what? I'm on tour. everybody talks about they want to go on tour, but nobody wants to shampoo their hair on the sidewalk, huh?

[00:27:16] Matt: Yeah,

[00:27:17] James: oh yeah. That's funny. I remember uh, going back to Phoenix when we had our bus explosion and the other bus had no uh, AC and all that. I don't know why exactly, but I missed the shower shuttle because Warped tours started really late that day. They pushed doors from like 11 to two or something, so we worked until almost nine or 10 instead of like six or seven. but for some reason we were extra late and I missed the shower shuttles. And so then I went over and there was a hose and I was gonna to wash off with a hose. And I just remember the people had like a kiddie pool, like a blow up kiddie pool set up, and they're like, yeah, I mean, we're done. Like if you wanna just like take a bath in the kiddie pool, I'm just like, so you don't care if I get like shampoo and soap in here?

[00:27:57] James: Like, no. Yeah, that's totally fine. I'm like, [00:28:00] sick, I'm doing, I just like jumped in this pool, like rolled around, soaked up, lathered up, and then grabbed the hose and rinsed myself off. And they were just all like there. And I remember the next day I ran into one of 'em and was like, yeah, so how was the show last night? And he was like, that was honestly like one of the funniest things I've seen. I'm like, yep, well I missed a shower shuttle. What else should I do?

[00:28:18] Matt: right. sometimes you just have to make due with what you have.

[00:28:21] James: taking a bath in a kiddie pool.

[00:28:22] Matt: There's sometimes, you know, you're not always in, in San Antonio where you can just go like, jump in the Guadalupe. You know what I mean? It's a, you're sometimes, you're not on the coast where you can just go get in the water.

[00:28:32] Matt: Sometimes you're in this like landlock place like Orlando and you're like, oh wow, that's a hundred degrees and. I just need water. those are the times when a solar shower really comes in handy too. Cuz like you can be super miserable, but luckily you filled up this bag with water two days ago and now you've just got it sitting out on your trailer.

[00:28:49] Matt: And now you can just throw on some swim trunks, hose yourself off, it's like, okay, I'm ready to go for another few days. every single year I was out on Warp Tour, I, I'd told people, I was like, look, [00:29:00] you are going to hit a point.

[00:29:01] Matt: and the people, you're out here that are working for you are going to hit a point where if you continue to push past that point, you will sever relationships. and I told this to people who like that they were. All that in a bag of chips. You know, it's like I talked to some real champions out there and I was like, look man, I've been out here for five years and I'll tell you right now, if you keep pushing your crew this hard, a bunch of them are gonna leave.

[00:29:21] Matt: And I literally had people tell me, oh, that's not, that's not gonna happen, blah, blah, blah. I literally had one guy's little brother leave him, the last person that he expected. And he didn't even tell him. He just literally the morning of was like, oh yeah, I bought a plane ticket a few days ago, I'm leaving.

[00:29:34] Matt: I was like, wow. And. This was like two days after I had told this person. I was like, just, hey, like, hey, you're making a lot of money. You should take your guys out for like a nice meal or like take 'em to a movie or something. Get them away from the warp tour scene and let them unplug, let them recharge, get them out of the heat.

[00:29:50] Matt: And he's like, no, no, no, man. They're all good. They're doing great. They're getting paid good money, blah, blah, blah. This, two days later, his little brother gone we can't overstate the importance of like, Simple [00:30:00] little tools, simple little pieces of technology that alleviate the mental and physical stress of heat, of exhaustion, of fatigue, of mental fatigue, of fan fatigue as well.

[00:30:10] Matt: A song lyric always pops into my head from Hopson the Rapper. And in one of his lines, he's basically talking about how much he hates his manager. one line that says Meet and greets every day is torture. and then he goes on to say like, you know, when you have us doing this stuff all the day, how can you expect us to like then be good performers?

[00:30:28] Matt: You know? And then he says, meet and greets every day is torture. And it's so true because like, extroverts have no problem being in those social circles all the time. But the introverts, especially, man, they really need time to just like decompress and unplug from everyone. So don't overestimate those tools keeping everybody sane.

[00:30:45] James: Yeah. Yeah, just having those days off is so important. And you know, I remember there was one day in specific, which we were talking about, Before the show, Matt, but I went to a movie with some of the folks on my team and we had a great time. It was ant Man the original back in like 2015. And we went to the movies.[00:31:00] [00:31:00] James: I remember like half of it cuz I slept.

[00:31:02] James:

[00:31:02] James: I was that exhausted. We just, it was day off, it was dark, it was cool. even though there's like this loud action movie in front of me, I slept and it was amazing. Like, and, and don't get me wrong, like I slept really well on the bus. I love sleeping on the bus. It was like a little cocoon.

[00:31:18] James: That bunk was so nice. I wish I had a bunk like that. I probably have a photo of my bunk somewhere that I can uh, I'll put up in the show notes so anybody who's not been on a tour bus can see how tiny that space actually is. Like, minuscule, but.

[00:31:30] James: It was so nice, I'm not sure I've ever slept better anywhere else than in that bunk, but that all said, Days off. Don't do something insane. Don't go skydiving. Don't go whitewater or white. Yeah, whitewater rafting. Don't do any of that stuff. Like you can if you want, but you're just gonna be even more tired then it might be really fun, but that's a lot.

[00:31:51] James: Do something like go into the movies. Go to a museum. We're, you know what, We're all millennials, right? Go to a mall. relive those Mara days, the elder [00:32:00] Emos, find a hot topic, go in and be like, yo, can we play a couple songs you never know. They might just say, yeah,

[00:32:05] Matt: Sometimes buying a hotel room. And just letting a few people decompress in there just so everybody can have a shower. Maybe you can use laundry, maybe you can have access to an ice machine or a pool. are Yep. Indoor Exactly. Cuz it's like, when you've been outside for like e, just two weeks straight.

[00:32:22] Matt: Outside every day, two weeks straight. By the time you get to the end of that two weeks, you're just like, dude, give me a kitty pool and I will show you the greatest day in history. You know, cuz when you're facing big problems, when you're facing big challenges, things are the things that carry you to new heights.

[00:32:40] Matt: It really is crazy what. A cold bottle of water can do, or what brushing your teeth can do, or, I know I always say this word, putting on a brand new pair of socks. They are the difference between murdering your band mates or buying a plane ticket home or quitting your band [00:33:00] altogether. maybe even something more, more serious than that may, you know, maybe these are things that are ultimately going to.

[00:33:05] Matt: Bring detriment into your relationships with people, and you should avoid those at all, all costs. So, we like to harp on building systems that work for you and making sure to have like a little bit of play in those systems, so, so that you can adapt. But the biggest thing that you can do is plan and know what you're going into, if you're going out on a summer tour, You're gonna be spending 40 plus days in hot, hot heat depending on how long your tour is.

[00:33:28] Matt: That is, and if you know that you're gonna be spending, you know, it's like, we're doing a, club tour that leads to festival dates. Well, okay then, you've got a little bit of diversity in there and, and you can make things kind of work to your benefit. But if you're like out there on, A full summer music festival tour, the tortoise, not the hair. You have to be slow and steady. You have to be conscientious. You have to be willing to say no to somebody when they're like, yo, dude, you want to go next door to the waterpark? Or do you want to go like, it's like, okay, while I do, I also know that spending another eight hours in the [00:34:00] sun, I'm probably gonna forget to put on sunscreen.

[00:34:01] Matt: Like, oh, I'm definitely not gonna be drinking water. It's gonna be really hot and it might be really fun, but you will feel it the next day. A day of fun generally results in a day of exhaustion. And if your day off is used, purely for exhaustion, well then that, carries over to your next week.

[00:34:18] Matt: And now you're running on, a full week of fatigue rather than six days of fatigue in one day of rest. So just be conscientious of what's going on around you, what your schedule is, how long your drives are. You don't wanna go spend a day in the sun and then have to drive. Five, six hours. That sounds awful.

[00:34:31] Matt: it's always best to take care of your responsibilities before fun. But it's a good thing to sit and talk as a band and isolate what's important. The band, AIA always did something which I admired. would always want to get driving done, so he would drive to the next city that night.

[00:34:46] Matt: They would sleep there in the next city and they would wake up in the morning and as a band, they would all go and get coffee together. they would kind of start their day off with a calm environment and they got their coffee. So they, you know, started to feel nice [00:35:00] and energized throughout the day.

[00:35:01] Matt: And then they would go and take care of their responsibilities. You know, that's something that will always stick out to me because not only did they have this nice fraternal connection while they were having coffee, but also it eliminated the need for like, oh, there's not gonna be any sleepy drivers tonight.

[00:35:14] Matt: as soon as they were done and ready to go, they would do it. And then it created for a much less hectic morning because they were already prepared and ready to rock and roll. And then on top of that, they had a venue away from other people where they could actually talk about things that might be important to them as individuals.

[00:35:30] Matt: So it's like, hey, if somebody, somebody needs to take the day off and they, they want to go spend the day at the gym to feel like they have some sense of normalcy. Yeah. that's cool too. So always, the important thing is to identify everybody's strengths and weaknesses.

[00:35:43] Matt: What's important to everybody, what people really, really need, like, When you're on these long tours, everybody needs a day off from time to time. So, keep open communication, be positive with each other, because I am positive that everybody will need a break from time to time.

[00:35:56] James: absolutely. And I think. One of the things you said, they're so important. [00:36:00] Just like with the guy whose little brother left, just checking in with people asking, Hey, how are you doing? because people sometimes don't want to admit that they need a break that is a personality type.

[00:36:09] James: A lot of musicians like, no, we're, we're just gonna keep pushing. you can straight up say, Hey, you know what, how are you? And if they say, oh, I'm fine. Say, do you want a day off?

[00:36:17] James: If you want a day off, please take it. I've noticed that you seem really exhausted and I don't want you to hurt yourself or get fed up.

[00:36:26] James: go ahead and take that today. we will not be upset if you take a break, they will, maybe they won't, but at least you gave them that offer and they know that you gave them that offer. that's what matters more than anything because they know that you have their back.

[00:36:38] James: If they ever do, say, Hey, you know what? I can't do this today.

[00:36:40] Matt: There's nothing more important than being there for your crew because there's gonna come a time when you need your crew to be there for you. So build that symbiotic relationship. Retain open communication, look out for each other. Health is the most important thing. Friendship is much more important than business.

[00:36:56] Matt: a lot easier to break a single stick than it is to break a bundle of sticks. So [00:37:00] be the bundle.