Open Letter To The Seattle Music Scene
Last week among authors embarked on our first tour. There are a few goals we had in mind while booking the tour. A.) Is a band tour, in the modern music economy, actually worth it? B.) Are we able to figure out how to run a tour successfully? C.) Does among authors have something? Are we a band that has the potential to “make it?” Three days after our last show, and I believe it’s safe to speak for the entire band here when I say, YES. Yes to all three. Resoundingly so. Reflecting back on what we’ve just been through, it’s become evident that, while the Seattle music scene is beautiful, there is a lot of work that needs to be done before it becomes the beacon of musical hope that it so claims to be.
Let’s unpack this a bit.
In order to understand where I am coming from it is important to know, not just how we went along booking and playing this tour, but how our band works as a whole.
Late summer 2017, Ian, Jon, and I sat down to discuss our next steps as a band. We do this from time to time. More often than not at Roy Street Coffee & Tea in Capitol Hill. The purpose of these meetings is to find out where each of our heads are at, figure out what the positive things we did in the past were, and how we can change to better pursue and achieve our goals. Finding out where our heads are at isn’t always easy. We all have full time jobs, girlfriends, wives, house payments, some of us even have kids. While we would all love to throw caution to the wind and spend our short days on the road, it’s often not feasible. Vacation time being the least of our worries. However, during that meeting, we decided to go for it. We owed it to ourselves to push the album we had just worked tirelessly on. In 2015, during the summer, I honestly don’t think I saw the sun. Hunkered down in a basement, hemorrhaging over what dumb guitar tone worked for what background noise that nobody is going to notice… making an album isn’t easy. And when you say that, few people truly understand it.
The Cost of an Album… is it worth it?
The way most bands create an album is a ridiculous amount of work and a huge financial expense. A band works on the songs for an album for six to twelve months, jumps into a studio for a month paying producers and engineers $10,000 at a minimum. Then you get it mixed, figure $500 to $1000 per song. Then you get it mastered. If you’re lucky you can walk away spending only another $600 on the master. Then, you need to buy merch. T-shirts, stickers, vinyls, cds, and whatever else your creative heart can think of. Before you know it the band is $20,000 in debt and nobody buys cds anymore.
We did all that. Except more so. We created a studio in our basement. Ian mixed every song himself with the occasional input and help from Jon and I. We then spent $600 on a master. When we got it back the day before our digital release show, we decided that it just wasn’t good enough. The morning of our show, Aug 27, 2016, Ian sat in the basement remastering the album while the rest of the band hurried to pack for the show. When we finally released the digital album that night, there was an ocean of relief. I don’t know if it was just what I felt, but it seemed like the audience could feel that too. They were with us every step of the way.
Since then we’ve had some great radio play on 107.7 The End. They have been more than supportive of our music. I can’t thank them enough. On top of that we’ve had the chance to play a few really good gigs. That being said, there was no major label listening. Festivals denied us, KEXP thinks we’re too melodramatic (I mean… I kinda get it), and we still have most of the cds and vinyl we purchased with little expectation to make our money back. So in the summer of 2017, we were at a point of “what do we do now?” We owed it to ourselves to push it. We spent too many hours working on an album that we truly believe in to just let it sit by the way side, unheard. We had decided, as a band, to do a tour down the west coast to L.A. and back.
Booking The Tour
Ian started booking shows almost immediately (around October of 2017). The first show he booked was a weekday slot at the Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles. I lived in L.A. for a short period of my life and knowing that I could get a few people out to this show was exciting. However, that booking almost seemed too easy. A few months later and many emails to venues up and down the coast, Hotel Cafe remained the only show we had on the tour. Most venues didn’t even spend the time to write us back. Eventually we booked a show not far from Seattle at Real Art Tacoma. Our friends Dirty Dirty stepped up to play the show with us and helped make it a great kick-off to the tour. Now we have two shows. The emails and calls continue with no returns.
During this time it also became evident that our drummer TJ Grant couldn’t make the tour. We reached out to our friend James Graham of Arbor Towers, who also played on our album, to see if he could make it work. Unfortunately it was also a no. So here we are, one month out from our tour start date of February 23rd, two shows booked, no drummer. Although we all kept relatively positive minds, it was stressful to say the least. We started searching for drummers. Jaime-Paul Rizzo of The Blooms reached out but we ultimately couldn’t make it work. Then a young kid, Patrick Brockwell, reached out to us by way of craigslist. We brought him in a week later to run through a practice. When we audition drummers, we don’t mess around. We play our stuff and if they can’t keep up, then they are out. Especially so in this case considering the time restraints. Well, Patrick absolutely nailed it. He had spent the week prior workshopping the entire album and for the most part, learned every weird break and time signature change to a T.
A sign of light and a few emails later, Ian booked a few more shows. The Silver Orange in Sacramento, and The Make-Out room in San Francisco in support of our new friends in The Kevin Conness band. Side-note, the musicianship in that band is unreal. Things were starting to come together. We had a drummer and we had a tour, even if it was only four shows. It’s our first tour, let’s do this, and let’s learn from it.
Van Troubles
One show in and our alternator dies. This is basically a band’s rite of passage. It wouldn’t be a proper band tour without some van troubles. Our first thought was to replace the battery. That only worked for a small period of time and we ended up rolling up on our second show at the Silver Orange with no headlights and a consistently stalling vehicle. The people at the Silver Orange were amazing. We spent the night sleeping in their parking-lot after playing the tail end to an all-ages open mic. Spending a few hours with kids and listening to their music was a great pick-me-up for what had been a stressful start to the tour.
The next day was spent underneath the van in an AutoZone parking-lot. We had decided to change the alternator ourselves. Honestly? It wasn’t even that hard. None of us had done the job before but it really only took a solid four hours of problem solving and wrenching. After we replaced the alternator the van started up like a dream. We all jumped inside and drove to San Francisco for our next show, that night, at the Make-Out room. Although the crowd didn’t love us at first, we eventually won them over. It turned out to be a pretty good show.
On to L.A.
After meeting up with our friends in Ever So Android, who graciously let us sleep on their couch, we made our way over to Hotel Cafe. February 28th was the show date. Although we had booked the show with our friend Elia and our new friend Daniel Crook, Hotel Cafe runs things a little bit differently. They almost run it as a festival. There were five bands on the bill in total, two of which we knew nothing about. This didn’t affect us at all, and honestly it’s kind of a cool way to run a venue. Bands are expected to be in and out. Play your 45 minute set and then get off the stage as quick as possible. You can always tell the level of professionalism in a band by watching how quickly they load and unload their gear.
It is easy for me to say that this show was amazing, as I had many friends from L.A., whom I have not seen for quite some time, there to support us. It was great seeing everyone and my head was scrambled, buzzing around to each self-contained group. Luckily, this sentiment was shared by the entire band. The buzz in the air was more than palpable. Multiple people came up to us after the show, feverishly showing their appreciation. We made more personal and industry contacts in the two hours at that show than we ever had in the four years this band has been together and the many years prior in other music ventures. To say the L.A. show was a success would be an absolute understatement. If we were to have driven 20 hours straight and 20 hours back just to play that show, it would have been worth it.
The next day, our friend Trevor started contacting venues. He, along with many other people, just wanted us to stay down there and play one last show. After a few hours he had already lined up a gig for us at the Whisky A Go Go on Friday night! Thanks to Devon for throwing us on the bill last minute. It was amazing to play such an iconic stage and a great way to cap off the tour. The bookers, however, didn’t let us cap the tour off just yet. Heather Zide, another booker at the Whisky A Go Go, needed one last addition to a small show at The Vampire Lounge the next day. Although playing this show would severely cut-in to the time we had to drive back, we decided to take it. When in Rome, I suppose. Ian ended up playing that show solo as it was a small venue. In a way, it was a “thank you” to the bookers at the Whisky A Go Go for being so easy to work with.
Immediately after the show we started on our long journey back. No stops. Each one of us took a turn or two driving while another member slept in the back of the van. We returned to Seattle on Sunday, March 3rd, at 11:00am. I then proceeded to sleep from about 12:00pm to 6:45am the next morning. Exhausted doesn’t do it justice.
Step Up Your Game (Us Included)
Although this is an account of our tour, this is also an open letter. This is an open letter to Seattle, an open letter to the venues, the bookers, the musicians. Most importantly, this is an open letter to ourselves. Our scene ain’t shit. I say this out of love. We could be so much more. We need to step up our game. Step up our hustle. Seattle likes to think of itself as the next best thing in music. At this point, it’s a has-been. We have a hell of a lot more work to do. Bands, be more professional. Learn how to get your gear off stage in under 5 minutes. Stop relying on studios to make your music sound good before you’ve done as much work as you can yourself. There is no magic button. Stop relying on radio-stations to play your latest creation. Don’t rely on festivals to get your name out there because you probably won’t get chosen to play them, and honestly it’s probably not your crowd anyway. Among Authors is not owed a spot at Bumbershoot or Sasquatch. No band or artist is. There are always more dues to be paid. Don’t rely on your friends to show up at every show just because they are your friends. Give them something to love. Give the festivals, and fans, and radio-stations, and venue bookers, and music licensers something they can’t deny. Become undeniable.