After touring with David Bowie last year, I was inspired to look at what I wanted to do as an artist, and I realized I wanted to go back to the music I fell in love with when I was eight years old.

I've talked to some drummers who seem to have a very hard time staying in shape on the road, including some drummers touring with high-profile acts that don't have to live on fast food every night.

The real test of a musician is live performance. It's one thing to spend a long time learning how to play well in the studio, but to do it in front of people is what keeps me coming back to touring.

I did a lot of touring in my youth, and I learnt very quickly that giving is what it's all about. It's about the gift of making an audience feel great and forget their cares, if only for a few hours.

They are the only people in the world who I can truly trust and rely on. Touring gets really lonely. I guess I have friends around me but when you're paying them can they ever really be true friends?

I can't speak for other artists; every group has a different approach. For us, it will always be important to keep working hard, dancing better, writing better songs, touring, and setting an example.

Challenge America grants go to the towns and hamlets of this sprawling country, where big touring companies will rarely go, and major actors, actresses, writers and artists may never appear in person.

I don't know why comedians moan about touring; you get driven to a town, stay in a hotel, work for an hour and a half with nice people, and eat fatty service station food. There's nothing not to like.

I spent two years making music in San Francisco for my first mixtape. Initially, I was not at all doing this to be a professional rapper, a touring rapper. I didn't think I had that talent level in me.

When you're out on the road touring and touring and then making records, you're just constantly looking forward, constantly working. You don't really stop to look at where you are or where you've been.

I can still make a living with touring. And maybe you buy a t-shirt. And I would rather 10 million people get my record and listen to it for free than 500,000 that I coerced to pay $15 for it, you know?

When you're recording in the midst of touring, you get a different sense about you. Things are more rocking, darker, heavier and louder. You're thinking about the audience that you're seeing every night.

I remember reading an interview with Adele, where she said that touring was the loneliest thing in the world. All of her band are hired, so, really, it's just her. I can't imagine what that must be like.

Being in a rock band is about touring. It's about writing songs and it's about making records but it's also about taking a wonderful smile onto that stage and making the people feel good about themselves.

I got my group together when I was about thirteen. We had a local radio show, and then we started touring for the principal of the high school - he was in the Lions Club, and so we were the entertainment.

Sleeping on people's floors when you're 22 is fine. But when you get your life in order and have a family you want to keep and a certain level of health, touring bigger means you can keep going for longer.

Touring is not easy, as you always have a certain yearning for home no matter how beautiful the location you are in, but I have pushed myself to the limits and am certainly more aware of myself as a result.

Because of our excessive touring and not giving up, it wasn't until 'Toys' came out that 'Dream On' really caught on. And then, of course, 'Walk This Way' crept up after that. Things went our way after that.

I have been performing and touring and doing shows all over the world. But it's really something special to get back on the U.S. cast of 'Stars on Ice.' It's something I let go because of family commitments.

Madonna would not have done a 360 deal with us just because of our touring capability. We had to prove to her and others that we have been working on and built a very good execution capacity at Artist Nation.

I'm very particular about everything. That goes along with the artwork, and how it's laid out, and every lyric. So it's pretty much all in my hands, which is crazy to be touring and doing that at the same time.

I've spent the last 10 years constantly touring and haven't had much reason to stick around anywhere. I'm 34 now, and I've got a girlfriend and a house and two cats. I don't want to run away; I like where I'm at.

There are certainly other female comics who are moms, but I don't know any who are actively touring with their kids. But there are more and more becoming moms, and it's awesome. I feel we're in a super sisterhood.

Success came to me in my late 20s. I started touring when I was a teenager, so I had already seen the good, the bad, and the ugly side of the music business. Plus, setting up my own record company taught me a lot.

For years, I survived as an artist on grants and touring as a dancer with dance companies, and I was living underground like so many artists, hand-to-mouth and so forth. And I never had the power to make decisions.

360 deals are the new things of the industry. It's not about selling records; it's about selling T-shirts, getting a piece of your publishing, getting a piece of your touring, and all these other kind of properties.

I'm hopefully touring with Colin Baker next year in Perfect Strangers. I have performed with Sylvia Simms in poetry and music evenings. I would love to do those for the rest of my career - they are so fun and witty.

The touring comic is a lonely soul, sometimes dabbling into conversation with a colleague in the green room, but on the whole, we just stand around and try to cope with the random diversity that comes with the 'job.'

When you're touring, you only see the auditorium and the hotel room. You can't go out because you get mobbed. You're tired, edgy and under pressure. The fun had gone out of it, so we decided to walk away from it all.

After touring an album, you have this strange void that follows it, where you feel slightly displaced, like you've just finished with the circus and you've got to find a new job. You think, OK, what shall we do next.

Today, I am a touring standup comic who cannot stand up. Within three minutes, I begin to wilt, lose my balance, and topple over. I can tap dance and run in heels, but I need to use a wheelchair to navigate airports.

When we try and blend the two together, the songwriting and the touring like we did before, it doesn't really work. We tend to become very focused on what we are doing. And we tend to be a little bit one-track-minded.

It's good to be playing one and a half hour again. In the States we played like an hour and when you got onstage it felt like all of a sudden you are already done your set. But now, it feels like we are touring again.

When we're touring America or Europe, we use our own plane and a great advantage of that is it cuts out an awful lot of time checking in. You literally drive up to the plane, get on and then drive off at the other end.

A Hawk and a Hacksaw may be from America, but the band's music sure isn't: Since the beginning, Eastern Europe has been an unwavering source of musical inspiration, not to mention fertile touring ground, for the group.

My calendar was empty. Touring the way we did and having a schedule like we did institutionalizes you in a way where you don't know anything else. I think I went through the darkest depression I've ever felt in my life.

We've always enjoyed touring, which is fortunate because we're always on the road. The most difficult part is that time passes by so quickly. It's hard to pay attention to your normal life because shows are all-encompassing.

Touring is very routine. You get to the city, you go to the hotel, you got to be at the hotel by a certain time - it's very routine. I'm not a very structured person, so when I get some structure, it's cool; it's good for me.

I'm touring right now and you'd be surprised to see all of the kids that come to the concerts just to see Rita Marley because it's Bob Marley's wife. I might do three or four of Bob's songs in my repertoire and they go crazy.

I think comics in New York are interested in being comics. And there're comics in L.A. who are touring comics, who are certainly more interested in stand-up, but a lot of L.A. stand-ups are really looking to do something else.

Back in the days of the Smiths, when we first started touring England - this is, like, 1984 - there were these two girls. They were literally vicar's daughters, and they used to follow us to every gig, no matter where we went.

As a touring musician over the last 15 years, before streaming and iPods, you had to listen to terrestrial radio wherever you were. That's always been my way of connecting to a location. Turn on the radio, search through the dial.

I still love touring rock clubs around the world, and that's something that's really a part of me. I love making albums, and I'm a wedding singer on the side; that's my parallel career. So I love all those aspects of making music.

I am planning my one woman show. It will be a showcase of my life. It starts at the beginning and ends where I am today. It will have every single inch of my life - as much as you can get into an hour. I will be touring everywhere.

I won't complain about touring, because I really do believe that a public-figure musician complaining about being a public-figure musician is just absurd. Like, 'Boo hoo hoo! I have to stand on stage and people pay attention to me!'

My folks met at the University of Oklahoma, in the theater department in the 1940s. They were married touring the country in 'Cinderella' and 'Snow White.' My mother was married in Cinderella's costume; the dwarves were the best men.

I'm extremely introverted. I used to think it was shyness, but I got over that, so it must be door No. 2. It's still hard for me to be away from home much, and I have to make sure I get lots of time alone in my room when I'm touring.

After I quit my band, I definitely was so full, like I'm so full I could never eat again. I had that kind of feeling where the elements, like the touring stuff, were harder for me and I definitely felt fine not experiencing it again.

I was required by Capital to release one every six months and the fastest I could do with all my touring was every nine months, and it would spook me every time because I never had what I needed and I really didn't want to do covers.

I never, ever wanted to be the Rolling Stones. Bless their hearts, but I don't necessarily want to go on doing the same old thing for the next 10, 20 years... I could see how easy it is to get into that rut, the whole touring mindset.

Share This Page