Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm not the kind of person that can do the same thing over and over and over, so that's why touring, playing in a different venue every night, in front of a different audience, is so rewarding, you know, because it always feels fresh.
My teachers encouraged me to audition for some professional work during our summer vacation. I landed my first job. It was for the National Theatre Company's Mimika Pantomime troupe. I ended up touring with them for the next two years.
We didn't realize there were that many boy bands until we started touring in Europe. I don't think we were ever affected by it since a lot of the groups in Europe didn't really sing live, but we did and would perform a cappella as well.
There are nights when you can feel stale because you've fallen into a pattern by touring too much, but it's easy to get out of it by deliberately getting in trouble and playing yourself into a corner to then see if you can get out of it.
I started touring a little bit in 1973 in support of a record I made for an independent label. In 1975, when I signed with Warner Bros., where I remained happily ensconced for the next 24 years, my touring activity increased considerably.
Bun E.'s a member of the band, but he's not touring, and he's not recording... We've had our differences, but we're all settled up now, and hopefully we can forget about that era. These decisions that Cheap Trick makes, Bun E. is part of.
Patrick and Joe were so young when we started the band. As slow as it was, with all the touring and crappy clubs we played, we still never had time to stop and reflect. When we took a break, it finally gave us time to reflect and grow up.
I mean, what's great about touring is that's what you do. You're in a constant state of motion and then you stop to do a show and you move onto the next city. All you have to do is do the show. That's the only responsibility that you have.
I've always said I've wanted to be around forever. I never wanted to be the latest, greatest thing. I want to be like Willie Nelson - touring when I'm 70. To do that, you can't be the latest, greatest thing because those things fizzle out.
With rock n' roll and touring comes a lot of good and bad decisions. These guys who are 21, they're out there, and they're not indestructible. The history of rock n' roll tells us, and so a lot of these guys are on this road to destruction.
A lot of the stuff I've accumulated over the last few years of touring I thought was really interesting. Like sounds, sound bites, and beats even, but they weren't good dance beats they weren't ones anyone would want to rap over or anything.
Some people get on the whole touring circuit for years and years and years on one record. What interests me is sitting down at a piano, writing songs, getting into a studio and exploring new sounds to come up with something I'm really proud of.
I felt frustrated by the limitations of rock and the lifestyle of touring around on a bus and playing the same songs over and over. So I went back to school to study music, and one of the things I got into was the Italian opera composer Puccini.
It's a really interesting situation, because when you make music at home all the energy goes into the process, and touring's all about the energy going outward. I had to learn how to do that transition, but once I figured that out it's so much fun.
My first tour I did was The Warped Tour, and I was likening myself to the bearded lady at the circus because not only was I an actor touring, doing rock n' roll, but I was also a female front person making really muscular, male-dominated rock music.
I used to get really sick. I would go to the doctor with all these ailments, and they would tell me I needed to be at home. I didn't even really understand what that meant because since I was a baby, I've always been moving, moving, and then touring.
After touring the first album, we went into the studio and started making music that was influenced by all the freaky folk music we'd been listening to. Lots of Canterbury scene stuff from the 1960s and '70s. Robert Wyatt, Soft Machine, Caravan, Gong.
I saw Mercury Prize-winners Alt-J for the first time recently, touring their debut album 'An Awesome Wave,' and I'm still riding the high: they're the most musically dynamic and exciting band to have poured tune into my lug holes live since Bellowhead.
I claimed identity as Jewish musicians for political reasons, because most of us were touring in Germany and, at this time, twelve years ago, there was a strong resurgence of Nazism in the places we were touring and part of that was on the music scene.
The Telephone Tour with Noname was a beautiful experience. Because this was only my second tour, I was not quite prepared for the small details that touring entails. I quickly realized how imperative it is to to sleep, eat healthily, and rest my voice.
It feels like it's just starting in America and the UK. It's great to have a loyal fanbase in Australia and New Zealand. People in America say how polished our band are, but that didn't happen overnight; that came from doing all this touring back home.
We were just touring Europe, and I noticed that we'd go to all these beautiful places, and everyone's just taking a picture of themselves. I don't understand that at all. And I feel like that extends to music. I think we've lost the script a little bit.
Ninety percent of touring is a logistical maneuver, moving your body and everyone else's from one city to the next. You're like a piece of gear. Then you jump out of the box, get onstage, and play. That sounds cynical, but it sucks to move around so much.
It was a big surprise when I started to get attention in Sweden, going from biochemistry studies to touring and living from music only. There were a couple of years while I went to university when I was OK with thinking of music as just a nice recreation.
Touring a segregated America - forever being stopped and harassed by white cops hurt you most 'cos you don't realise the damage. You hold it in. You feel empty, like someone reached in and pulled out your guts. You feel hurt and dirty, less than a person.
I'm scared of audiences. One show in Amsterdam I was so nervous, I escaped out the fire exit. I've thrown up a couple of times. Once in Brussels, I projectile vomited on someone. I just gotta bear it. But I don't like touring. I have anxiety attacks a lot.
The thing people don't understand is that touring or travelling or whatever you do in my position means you go to all these cool places all over the world, but you see everything from a car window. You don't get to see much of the city or meet people at all.
When I was a kid, I worked in the circus. It was a touring circus that was owned by a man named Terrell Jacobs. It was just one big tent, and he was a lion tamer. He didn't have any kids, but the bit was that I would dress up as his son in an identical outfit.
After my touring life, I'd love to be more involved with charity. It gives me a lot of fulfillment, you know? I would love to get people who are into my music more active in charity work. In the future, when I have more time, I'd love to do spend more time on that.
My dad's family were political and he was always a theatrical creature, whereas my mum is really musical and her father was the touring pianist with Nat King Cole. My family was an explosive mixture of politics, religion and music - no wonder I turned out how I did.
The equipment you've got really dictates what you're going to do. When I started touring, there were no monitors, so I had to take the sound from the hall, and of course it was on a delay, so I would sing, and then I would hear it back, but later. It was very weird.
I have never made money selling records. I have never really made money touring, either, or with merchandise, surprisingly. But I do make money by just having my songs in the background of television shows or in commercials or movie trailers. That's been really good.
When I was three, I lived in Florida, and my mom took me to see the touring production of 'Cats.' And I was, like, absolutely silent - which for a 3-year-old never happens - and I turned to her and said, 'I need to do this.' That's when I started my performer journey.
I've done that I was touring a couple of years ago with R. Kelly and the Lillith Fair, I would do the late night underground gigs as well because it's always around those times that there was a hot song, either on the radio or in the clubs, it would just be simultaneous.
I first came to Brazil in the Sixties. Then I started coming back every year since touring most of the country. I grew to love it, the people, the music. I thought this is where I belong. I've been living in Brazil for the past 23 years. I call it my stress-free country.
I'm no spring chicken. The same arthritis that ate up my left hip that finally got replaced hasn't stopped there... And touring is a lot of work. I'm impressed when I see people like Eric Clapton out there. Gee whiz, Eric, give me a break! I know it's gotta hurt somewhere.
I had a really successful 2013, '14, '15. Touring, just doing my thing. Super - I mean, can't complain about nothing. And my road manager got killed. And it ruined everything. Now, I tell people - I don't know if this is a word. But I tell people that that re-sensitized me.
I guess something that I've noticed from American acts who had success in touring is more of an explanation as to their music. Which is I think quite funny. I think British acts might like to leave more to the imagination - maybe a bit more obscure perhaps - a bit more shy.
Before I realized what was happening, everything blew up. I made 'Animals' when I was in high school, and literally, from that moment, I've been living a different life. I've been touring a lot, traveling a lot, doing great shows. I've been in the studio with my biggest idols.
It was actually drumming that gave me the stamina to get into sports later. I started playing drums at 13, and when I got to the international touring level... I got interested in cross-country skiing, long-distance swimming, bicycling... things that require stamina, not finesse.
I don't mind traveling that much when I can go somewhere and stay there for a while, but touring is different. You rarely see anything. You get there early in the morning and you're resting all day, and you go in and do a sound check, and you do the show, and then bam you're gone.
I'm most proud of my career as a touring comedian and musician. I love doing television, I love selling records, but when I'm at these venues with hundreds of people, and they're all sitting listening to my music and my jokes, I feel like I could die that day, and I would be happy.
I didn't know what to expect when we first started touring behind 'Southeastern' because you don't want to lull anybody to sleep or lose their attention. But it's really been incredible how the crowds seem to be just as excited for the slow, sad songs as they are for the old rockers.
I wish that we all would have slowed down and savored the moment, loved what was happening and then appreciate it. It was going by so fast. Whatever the record told us to do, we'd do. We were just constantly touring, and then MTV happened and that kicked things up a notch for everybody.
When I was a kid, while touring East Berlin - back when there was an East Berlin - I got my left foot stuck in an escalator in Alexanderplatz. A few hours later, thanks to blowtorches and chainsaws and East German soldiers and the U.S. Embassy, my foot was released, and I along with it.
I think touring is an important part of the life of an orchestra. Not only sharing with other audiences, but bringing that sense of family that you get back home. The sense of growing deeper into the music, of making it all sound like chamber music - that comes from being together on tour.
When I was 13 or 14, I took seven months off from touring. I did a lot of weekend gigs in Louisiana. We have fairs and festivals every weekend. But I took seven months off. That's when I really started digging deep. I wrote a couple songs that year that I still play every now and then for people.
The part you don't expect when you start out is all the people who come into your life wanting a piece of you, not caring about your wellbeing. The insane schedule is very difficult. Touring looks very glamourous but it's hard and gruelling - the travelling, the meet-and-greets - it was too crazy.
Over the last couple of years, I've really worked toward balancing my life out more, having a little bit more time with friends, family and my boyfriend. There was a period of time when they were way down the list. It was all about music and touring and if everything fell by the wayside, so be it.
Touring is tough. You're almost in a haze because you don't really know where you are half the time: You're in a hotel room one moment, and the next thing you know, you're onstage performing for 60,000 people, then you're back on an airplane. It's very hectic and I couldn't do it without my family.