This is the longest tour I’ve ever done at 4 weeks and it was honestly such a special and cool experience. But it also pushed me to enduring functioning on minimal sleep and maximum social battery. Obviously the cool stuff is what everyone expects, traveling to new cities, eating amazing food, playing music almost every night and getting paid to do so. I wouldn’t discount any of this. But tour is not like it’s presented in books and film. Maybe if we were a bunch of dudes it would be, idk. The reality is most days are driving all day, and your lucky if you get to a new town with enough time to check into the hotel and get ready, but a lot of it is driving straight to a venue, doing sound check, setting up merch, going to get food to go because there isn’t enough time to eat before playing and you hate playing on a full stomach, finish the set, work the merch table while trying to pack and socialize, getting back to the hotel room after turning down offers to party because we have to drive 7 hours the next day, shoveling cold food into your face, using the last bit of energy you have left to wash off make up and brush your teeth, put in noise canceling headphones and hope to get at least 7 hours of sleep. Rinse, repeat. That is how it’s done when you don’t have drivers and a tour van to sleep in all day. Not that I think that’s any easier, but it is a job that is also really cool and fun.
There are many misconceptions on what it means to be a touring musician, glamorized by documentaries and movies. On a smaller level like ours, where there are nightly interactions with people who came to the show, it is totally socially draining. And you have to be on all the time or people will think you’re ungrateful or an asshole. I mostly really enjoy meeting new people and talking and hearing their stories. There are exceptions however, especially in a genre that lends itself to an older male fan base. There’s the men who always ask “whose your favorite drummer/guitarist/bassist?” which I know is a way to bond, but it’s really fucking annoying. I don’t have a favorite anything because I don’t absorb media to make check lists on whose best and worst. I enjoy listening and playing music, I don’t need to know everything about it. I appreciate the folk who do operate that way, but man is it wild to have a man ask who your fav drummer is and you say “Karen Carpenter” and he responds with “oh wow, she isn’t even the top 10 drummer of all time”. Like what? You asked MY favorite drummer. So as a goof we started making up musicians and as an experiment used these fake names in response to see how many men would act like they knew who we were talking about. Is it a bit mean? Probably. I acknowledge this.
Then there were the men who had to neg us before giving us a compliment, and they did the same to The Surfragettes. I do not understand how men still communicate like this. It’s a choice guys, no women the entire tour EVER did that, but many men did. I get it, you like to razz your buddies, that’s just how men socialize, yadda yadda yadda. Well guess what? You actually don’t have to do that. I’ve dated men who like to do this, but if you give it back they get so upset. What if we actually just said kind, genuine things to each other? I want to live in that world. And I don’t mean to get all “I hate men” because I don’t, truly, I love so many of them. But being on tour with 2 bands, all femme, really showed how we all have universal experiences with shitty, awful, abusive men. Every single one of us had stories that were the same, and outcomes that were the same. Listening to women justify being abused by their partner is the saddest shit in the world; like an addict who can only get clean if they really want too, you can only help someone in an abusive relationship so much as they want to help themselves. I encourage anyone in an abusive relationship to love themselves enough to leave.
Of course it appears I’m bitching about the negative things, and maybe I am, so what? It’s just the reality of being women on tour. However this was on the best experiences I’ve had in my life. To be able to be flexible and adaptable to being on the road is key. I felt at home everywhere we went, and I cherish every single memory, even the hard ones, because it’s so cool I was given this opportunity. It often felt like summer camp, bonding with these women over being silly little goofy guys and what a wild way to live this is! I really love all these women so much and am endlessly grateful for every moment this month gave us.
