TRANSCRIPT for EPISODE 6
Courtesy of Steph DiBona!
[music]
ERIC ANNICCHIARICO: This person said something, and I was like, “you’re young, aren’t you? Just wait a couple years.” And then in that moment I felt like that shitty old person. You know, I’d like to follow up with them and see how they’re feeling.
MIKE: You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become that shitty old person. I’m Mike Moschetto, this is Sellin’ Out.
[music: “I’m a casino that pays nothing when you win / Please put your money in”]
MIKE: Hello! How do you do? You’re listening to Sellin’ Out, I’m Mike Moschetto, thanks for joining me. Especially if you’re listening on Spotify where I’m pleased to announce this podcast is now available. I mean you’re not listening most likely because this is the first time I’ve made it public knowledge. But perhaps you’re a shrewd internet user and you found it anyway ‘cause you don’t need every link laid out for you like a baby. Or, more accurately like an octogenarian.
Speaking of having links laid out for you now, now that the show is on Spotify, I’ve got a running playlist of nearly all the tunes that have been featured on the show so far. Probably only with the exception of those that are on Bandcamp or whatever, not on Spotify, and probably a few from episodes that haven’t come out yet, so I don’t forget to do it. You can figure out who’s coming up in future episodes. That link is in the description for this episode.
Anyway I’m particularly excited about my guest today, because it was one of his posts on social media last year that gave me a bit more motivation to go through with doing this show because a similar sort of conversation was being encouraged. And we’ll get to that later in this conversation. But, my guest is Eric Annicchiarico. He plays in the post-rock band Au Revoir from New Jersey, but also from many places other than New Jersey and we’ll talk about that later as well. He also plays in a screamo band called What Of Us, who sadly we didn’t talk enough about but I recommend them highly.
So, when I caught up with Eric he was home for a brief spell between his band’s second and third European tours in less than a year’s time. So, we talked about that, about maintaining gig/life balance, about van politics, credit debt, bankruptcy, and so much more. This was a lot of fun, I love the guy, here’s my conversation with Eric.
[music]
MIKE: You hit the ground running like touring, pretty early.
ERIC: The point of the band was me to build a band that would tour because that was always something I wanted to do. Just, it was me living out, you know, my dreams.
MIKE: Sure.
ERIC: So right as like I got people that wanted to play and travel, I was like let’s fuckin’ do it and Have been, you know, trying to do it as much as possible since, I guess.
MIKE: So did you have any kind of foundational touring experience before that? Or you just kind of dove into it?
ERIC: Uh, just dove into it.
MIKE: Wow.
ERIC: In the MySpace days I was playing in like a-
MIKE: [laugh]
ERIC: [laugh] like a, like a indie rock band. And I was like I’m gonna book a tour! Something I always wanted to do. It was really hard to get them on board, but I started getting into it, or looking into it at least, and I was like how do I book shows on weekdays? I don’t get it.
MIKE: It’s funny ‘cause I went from being in like a, when I was in college I was in more of a pop-punky band that toured a little bit, and then I was in an indie band after college that I was like, oh let’s do a DIY tour! And it was like, oh, these bands don’t do this, like there’s no, there’s no network, no infrastructure, that’s like oh. You get on a blog and that’s like, you can hope for maybe a festival or something.
ERIC: I mean there are open mics on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at everyone’s local bar.
MIKE: Oh, that’s pretty much what we subsisted on.
ERIC: [laugh]
MIKE: Um, [laugh] yeah, so, let me actually jump back to, when we met, your line up and your home bae were almost completely different than they are now. And I normally wouldn’t dwell on kind of the mundane lineup change things like this, but-
ERIC: Sure, sure.
MIKE: -the details seem to kind of be really important to how you all function. ‘Cause when we all met it was you on guitar and Tyler on drums, but then it was Corey on bass and Dayn on guitar and you were all based in Jersey except for Tyler who would commute back and forth from here in Boston.
ERIC: Yeah, which he would do a lot, Tyler.
MIKE: Yeah, God bless him, you know? And now, it’s you and Tyler still, but he’s back in Jersey, you have Carl on bass, he’s in Richmond, Gregg also in Richmond on guitar.
ERIC: Just, wait, just moved back to Richmond.
MIKE: Yeah, right.
ERIC: So he, within a day or two is just back in Richmond from Champaign, Illinois.
MIKE: He’s been all over. And then Tyler, Tyler Mandich who seems to have lived all over as well-
ERIC: Mmhmm.
MIKE: -and, I mean, this kind of geographical spread for a band isn’t like totally unheard of, right? Like, I know Defeater for example has existed in that state for a while, but just help me understand how exactly you handle all the normal day-to-day band stuff when you’re all remote from each other.
ERIC: Bless the group chat, you know?
MIKE: That’s right.
ERIC: [laugh] It really, it keeps us connected in that way, but a lot of the business-end stuff will be, I’ll take care of it.
MIKE: Yeah, it has to, it has to fall on one person, and that person I presume is you.
ERIC: Yeah, yeah.
MIKE: But like, when you wanna go on tour, well actually, let’s go, let’s break it down even further. When you want to write, do you hall have to be in the same room? Or how do you, do you kind of bounce, like recorded demos around? What’s the process?
ERIC: Uh, the remote thing has never quite worked for us.
MIKE: Oh, okay.
ERIC: Uh, where in the past like I have sent demos or something, uh, and it really just didn’t matter until we were in a room together.
MIKE: Got it.
ERIC: Which, you know, with the distance has made things very slow, and hard, for output.
MIKE: Do you think that the fact that you can’t get together super often contributes to maybe the length of the tours? So like, if I’m gonna travel all the way to New Jersey to practice, or Richmond, or whatever, that I’m gonna make it worth my while and we’re gonna go out for five weeks as opposed to like, oh I don’t wanna uproot my life for like ten days.
ERIC: [laugh] I think we, we have a group that generally doesn’t give a shit. So...
MIKE: Yeah, yup.
ERIC: You know, like, when we played dunk!USA, Gregg and Tyler drove from Champaign which was like 16 hours to Burlington, Vermont-
MIKE: Oh my God.
ERIC: -just for that one show. Like yeah it was a good opportunity-
MIKE: Oh yeah.
ERIC: -but still, like, it was, you know, it was one fucking show.
MIKE: That’s insane. I thought you toured up and down from it.
ERIC: Nope. [laugh]
MIKE: No, why do that?
ERIC: A lot of it comes down to time. So, as, you know, we’re all older, or whatever, you know, we, things like money become more of an importance for stability, and you know we can’t live in our parents’ basements forever, I guess. I don’t know.
MIKE: Right, definitely.
ERIC: Whatever, yeah, whatever you’re, it’s on you for your quality of life. It’s, you know, your choice.
MIKE: That’s a good way of looking at it. Now when you guys have to meet up from your, you know, different corners of the country, is everyone totally on their own as far as getting themselves where they need to go? Or do you kind of subsidize each other’s travel, or band money allocated toward it, or anything like that?
ERIC: Uh, because we’re not a band that really makes money, generally it is on whichever person to get to that spot. A couple of the tours, well, I guess most of the tours we have started from New Jersey.
MIKE: Mmhmm.
ERIC: There have been times where I think from, from the dunk! show in Burlington I was able to give Tyler and Gregg like $100 of some, like you know, to, here’s something.
MIKE: Yeah, yeah I mean, 16 hours.
ERIC: Yeah [laughs]
MIKE: I mean you might as well, yeah. [laughs]
ERIC: Here’s a tank of gas.
MIKE: [laughs] Maybe, yeah.
ERIC: Yeah.
MIKE: Now, speaking of dunk!, let’s talk a little bit about touring overseas. What makes Europe such an appealing venture?
ERIC: It’s a new market, uh, of just new experiences and culturally it’s awesome.
MIKE: This is a big difference, is you booked your own European tour.
ERIC: Yes.
MIKE: Hat’s off to you.
ERIC: [laugh]
MIKE: But you still got all the hospitality.
ERIC: Yeah, yeah, so we still got all the hospitality, nothing was different there. I was, just this past tour that we were on, heard from some like, you know, old heads that are still kind of doing stuff over there. And they were like you know, the old days of bands coming over here and having super successful tours are over. So, what I feel like what I’m experiencing, and maybe what you guys experienced over there was like it can be an expensive trip-
MIKE: For sure.
ERIC: -but it is definitely still worth it. But, you can’t go into it thinking like, yo it’s Europe, fuckin’ everybody loves American bands and music and shit like that, because it’s still a DIY tour and you’re still gonna get basically the same experience.
MIKE: That is literally what I heard. It’s like, oh people just eat shit up, you can go over there with a demo and you’ll be good. And, you know, we did have like a really good experience, I think you know it’s the normal thing when we tour the US, if we spent like 30 days on the road and we had 25 shows, like five would be really, really great and then the rest would be like middling to bad. And then when we go over there, it’s like 20 are amazing, and then five are okay. And, yeah, and just the level of care. Did you guys do the UK at all when you were there or just mainland Europe?
ERIC: Just mainland. Because we heard UK wasn’t that great.
MIKE: It’s kind of like being home, in the sense that like everyone speaks English and you’re on your own.
ERIC: And no one gives a shit.
MIKE: Yeah, yeah.
ERIC: [laughs]
MIKE: It’s a cool country, but it’s, I don’t know that I would wanna tour there again.
ERIC: Sure.
MIKE: But speaking of going there again, like, you know maybe our circumstances were a lot less certain, but the idea of going back in such short order is like cuckoo bananas to me.
ERIC: [laughs]
MIKE: Like did you, did you have a long term plan of following up on that first run? You know, the way that you would domestically try to cultivate an audience in different markets or whatever.
ERIC: Yeah.
MIKE: Or was it just a matter of getting the right offer and going for it?
ERIC: When we were in talks with dunk! About playing dunk!USA one of the owners of dunk! Records kind of backhandedly was, he said like well if this year doesn’t work out then there’s always Europe next year.
MIKE: Hah.
ERIC: So...
MIKE: And you were like hmm, okay, see you there.
ERIC: [laughs] It was, it was more like that plant, anytime something like that is like, it plants a seed in my head and it grows and grows and sprouts and it’s like, like a virus or something, ‘cause I’m like oh we’re gonna fuckin do it.
MIKE: Yeah.
ERIC: We’re gonna do it. Cause we already started booking for our European tour before we were even in the running for dunk!USA, and we already bought plane tickets. So it was like this first European trip was a go ahead no matter what. And then we played dunk!USA and they were into it, and then shortly after they were like it might be cool to have you guys over, but we’ll, we’ll talk about it. While we were on tour in Europe we were doing a session at their headquarters.
MIKE: Oh!
ERIC: A live session. So I was like yo guys, uh, there is a very real possibility we could go back very soon. Uh, and they were like it kind of sucks, like financially, but let’s see how it goes. Let’s see how this trip goes and let’s see how the meeting with like, the live session goes, whatever. And then we kinda ended our trip on a high.
MIKE: Yeah.
ERIC: Where the last four shows were in France and they were all like pretty phenomenal. Even though at one of them we ended up having the van get broken into.
MIKE: Oh, that’s right. Fuck, I forgot about that.
ERIC: Yeah, but none of the gear was stolen, we weren’t like, responsible for anything that wasn’t ours getting stolen.
MIKE: Yeah, that’s huge.
ERIC: It was all our own personal shit. So, even though that happened we still ended the trip and we were like, feeling pretty good. And then we did the session and the guys were awesome, and it went really well. And by the end of that they were like, well you could leave your merch here for, with us if you guys are coming back.
MIKE: [laughs] That’s how, that’s how they got you.
ERIC: [laughs] Yeah, and then, and then we were like, alright so, here’s the merch. [laughs] And like slowly we were just like trying to figure out how we could do another European run so soon.
MIKE: Yeah.
ERIC: I will say that our, our solution was to do American shows before that to hopefully help with any costs we run into with like rentals over there.
MIKE: Let me piggyback off that, because-
ERIC: Yeah.
MIKE: -aside from obviously lost working hours, right that we could have been home making money-
ERIC: Yeah, correct.
MIKE: -and you know, personal cost and food and whatever, we basically, aside from the plane tickets broke even. Like, the rental,-
ERIC: Okay.
MIKE: -the van rental was paid for, the gear rental was paid for, the merch was all paid for, and it probably would have, we probably would have been covered on the plane tickets honestly if we hadn’t run out of vinyl like, less than 1/3 of the way into the tour with no ability to restock.
ERIC: Right.
MIKE: So, did you guys take a really huge loss?
ERIC: Uh-
MIKE: I mean you don’t have to go into the numbers obviously, but-
ERIC: -uh, I can, I can, because it, I don’t care, it doesn’t matter.
MIKE: Fuck yeah, juicy.
ERIC: [laughs] We, at the, the last day of the trip going to drop off the van that had the, uh, we dropped off the van and the gear, um, we had to out-of-pocket pay, I think, €1800.
MIKE: Okay.
ERIC: So we all had to run to, uh, an ATM and take out equal parts, like, 1800 divided by five.
MIKE: Sure.
ERIC: Um, to pay for...
MIKE: The balance on it.
ERIC: Yeah, the balance, yeah, correct. So, our total losses were the plane tickets and that amount of money.
MIKE: And when you booked this stuff, like how was the process of kind of negotiating a guarantee?
ERIC: Okay, yeah, yeah. So, the difference would be when they’re not dealing with a booking agent, is they’re more likely to be, in typical DIY fashion, uh we can do a door deal.
MIKE: Okay, yeah.
ERIC: So it’s less like, I know that you’re saying you need €200 to cover your rentals, but I can maybe guarantee €100, but mostly I can just guarantee a door deal. And that’s, that’s how that goes.
MIKE: Right, yeah, yeah. That’s...
ERIC: But, you know, obviously, sleeping accommodation and uh, meals are never an issue.
MIKE: Yeah, at least like one meal a day is covered, if not two.
ERIC: Yeah, yeah. And we kind of looked at it like, that amount of money that we paid at the end of the tour was probably what we would have spent in food anyway.
MIKE: Yeah, or like, if you were just on a regular old vacation.
ERIC: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So like, it was like €360 each, I think, and then, which came out to a little over $400, maybe $500 American.
MIKE: Yeah, something like that, yep.
ERIC: So it’s like, you know, we paid for, we got the flights pretty sleep, and then that, so, you know, to play music for three weeks for probably a little over $1000?
MIKE: Oh my God, yeah.
ERIC: Wasn’t so bad.
[music]
MIKE: I’m still like so, and not to be like condescending, I’m like very impressed that you fuckin’, you booked a Euro tour, like a totally foreign continent, literally foreign-
ERIC: Yeah
MIKE: -by yourself. And like, for a band that operates in such a, I guess, decentralized way, you guys have been grinding it out for so long, on such an impressive level by really anyone’s standards. And...
ERIC: Well, I appreciate that.
MIKE: Yeah, well, and you, you deserve all of it too.
ERIC: I, honestly, uh, appreciate those comments so much, it is really nice to know that like, not only we know what we’re doing, you know, and every so often I’ll like get a text from a friend saying like, keep up whatever you’re doing! Like it, a couple people have been like yeah, it’s an inspiration. And like, and it means a lot. It really does mean a lot. Like it, it is awesome to know that the work that all five of us are putting in is like, going somewhere. You know?
MIKE: Yeah. Literally, I mean, it’s taken you all over, and that’s, that’s super cool.
ERIC: Yeah.
MIKE: And like, I know what you mean, like I’ve, we’ve gotten the same thing, and I always felt like we were doing as much as we could, but it didn’t, I don’t, just enough to make it look like we were really busy and active all the time and kind of space it out in a way that worked for us but also projected a sense of like, uh we’re on the grind! We’re really like self-starters, you know?
ERIC: Yeah, yeah.
MIKE: But how, you know, I’m sure we have a similar story, but how has all of this taken a toll on your quote-on-quote normal life? Like, so give me a bird’s-eye view of your work situation, your living situation, et cetera.
ERIC: When I started touring, in 2012, I was living with an ex-girlfriend. Uh, and then, the touring really didn’t sit well with her. It just like, it wasn’t something that we started the relationship on, like, I wasn’t touring before we started dating, so for something like that to happen was like a bit, uh, confusing, and I was, you know I was young at the time and I didn’t really understand or I was more selfish. And I was like well I’m just gonna do it anyway! You know, that led us to split.
MIKE: Yeah.
ERIC: And then I moved home. Uh, so I’ve always held a job with a catering company.
MIKE: Okay.
ERIC: Uh, and my boss and I are really, really close. At this point I’ve been at the company for ten years.
MIKE: Wow. So like catering, you can kind of make your own schedule almost, right?
ERIC: Kind of, yeah, yeah. Well, it’s also event catering, like concert catering.
MIKE: Oh, okay.
ERIC: So, in some sort of way, my boss would understand what was happening.
MIKE: Yeah.
ERIC: Not necessarily on the level of playing, like, basements and like, DIY venues, but understood like the travelling musician lifestyle. So when, in 2013 we did a summer, a full US tour. And that was the last full US that I would ever want to do in the summer.
MIKE: Oh God, yeah.
ERIC: You know, one because it’s the summer, two because every band is on tour during the summer.
MIKE: Oh yeah.
ERIC: And three because that was the time where I would make the most money with my job.
MIKE: Yup.
ERIC: Like literally, for like the rest of the year, to be able to go on tour. So, I was like why am I so fucking poor, [laughs] and then the solution was to not go on tour during the summer and work. So that’s kind of like how that panned out. Uh, so in like 2014, well late 2013, I was like ok I’m gonna try and rethink the way that we do things as a band or whatever. So I put more emphasis on trying to tour during, you know, the semesters, because none of us were in school anymore, and work more. Uh, and then it ended up helping, a lot, I would say, you know? And what ended up happening is I would put so much financial shit off, and health stuff off-
MIKE: Oh yeah.
ERIC: -just to like, you know. And everyone knows this, everyone in the band understands because they, they are probably doing the same thing.
MIKE: Right.
ERIC: We recorded in 2015, I was still living at home with my mom. 2016 came, we put out the, we put out Veles, we did the full US, uh, and then a couple other tours. And then I moved in with my girlfriend Carly, uh, to Jersey City. And at that point I picked up a second job.
MIKE: Okay.
ERIC: And then 2017, working the second job and, it just kind of like naturally happened where we were all like kind of burnt out at the same time, and needed like a bit of a break. So we didn’t play any shows aside from the European tour in 2017. And, not taking that time off to tour, I was able to save up a bit of money and some personal stuff, I filed for bankruptcy because when I was younger I spent a lot of money on credit cards, and...
MIKE: Oh, wow.
ERIC: So just like you know, whatever debt I was like eh, like, I finally had the opportunity to take care of it. And then I had like, because I haven't had insurance, like health insurance, uh I was going to the dentist a ton because I, like finally all of the, even though, I spend like I don’t know probably 20 minutes a day brushing my teeth and I still have, uh, issues.
MIKE: Oh, man.
ERIC: [laughs] It’s like, anyone, you can ask anyone that has seen me brush my teeth, they were probably like you definitely do that for too long.
MIKE: [laughs] Yeah. The bankruptcy thing is crazy to me, so it’s just, it’s just kind of from like credit card debt?
ERIC: Well, okay. On a, on a very personal level what happened was I was young and my father took out a ton of uh, credit cards in my name to help me build... Ok. So [laughs] when he was younger, and my parents were younger, they put all their money into this restaurant down the Jersey Shore, and it went uh south very quickly, so they went bankrupt. And then my, I was born at the time so my dad put a bunch of credit cards in my name, so that he could have some money, but also build my credit. And then by the time I was a little older I had credit cards. And then I was like ahh I want clothes and stuff, and I-
MIKE: Oh, shit.
ERIC: -I spent, I spent like too much money on those credit cards. And then, uh, my father passed away in 2011..? 2011.
MIKE: Wow.
ERIC: And so I was like, fuck. What do I do with all this, this like debt. Because I wasn’t sure what might have been his and what was mine at that point. So it was like, just like all mixed up.
MIKE: Wow, that’s craz- that's a tangled web.
ERIC: Yeah, yeah. So, and it took six years, but finally I was like, the only solution really is to file for bankruptcy, ‘cause I'm never gonna pay this off and it’s best to just start back at zero.
MIKE: Did you ever have like trouble related to doing band shit because of your credit? Like, like I know that when we bought our, when we bought our second van, the first one we bought was just cash that we had all saved up for two grand, and we see how well that went. And then we bought like a nice one, and because I had the best credit rating I put it on my, you know, I put it on my line of credit. Um, did you have any kind of like, stumbling blocks with all that? Or...
ERIC: Well the stumbling blocks are that we needed to save up money. But-
MIKE: Well.
ERIC: So [laughs] real, cold, hard cash.
MIKE: [laughs]
ERIC: What it was, was, in 2012, before we met, and I was-
MIKE: The Dark Ages.
ERIC: The Dark Ages, and I was looking for a new car. And it was right around the time I was like I wanna start touring. So I ended up looking for a conversion van.
MIKE: Yep.
ERIC: Um, so the, the one that I found was on like a fuckin’ Long Island gear exchange page on Facebook, this kid posted it up. This crazy, like, six degrees of separation story, um, I ended up buying this kid’s van, his name is Jeff Ramirez. Jeff was in, is in a band called Sleep Bellum Sonno. Uh, he also played bass in The Saddest Landscape for a little bit of time.
MIKE: Who hasn’t.
ERIC: Yeah, right. [laughs] That’s hard, so now I’m in a band with Eric Mauro, who was in The Saddest Landscape, and I pretty sure he may have toured in that van.
MIKE: I love stuff like that.
ERIC: So that van I bought, uh, for $1500, and immediately had to put $3000 worth of work into it, but that went on to one of the credit cards that would eventually get filed for bankruptcy.
MIKE: Yeah.
ERIC: Since then, though, I have not had a credit card. So, the current van that we tour in is Gregg’s van, and Gregg, Gregg has pretty good credit and he financed that van. So, at uh, the point we were about to do the full US for Veles, I was like if we’re gonna do a full US, like we probably can’t do it in my van.
MIKE: Right.
ERIC: So we can, we should get like a band van, and everyone should chip in. Uh, and everyone was cool, but Gregg was like, actually I’m gonna buy a van for Shy, Low so I can’t afford to like, chip in on a band for us. Uh, and that van became Gregg’s daily driver, and uh on tours we kinda treated it with him as if we were renting it.
MIKE: Yeah, okay.
ERIC: Which is not something that we did with my van, but it was like, you know, as a collective group moving forward, we were like working these things out together. Um, so we were like you know when we use the van for a tour, we’ll cover the insurance, and we’ll cover the, whatever the payment is that you have for the month.
MIKE: Yeah, yeah.
ERIC: Yeah, so.
MIKE: And your van, your conversion van was your daily driver for a bit, wasn’t it?
ERIC: It was, yeah, it was my daily driver until February of 2017, where I got the piece of shit that I’m driving now.
MIKE & ERIC: [laugh]
MIKE: From one piece of shit to another.
ERIC: But yeah, it was my daily driver and now I have uh, like an SUV, I guess.
MIKE: I think having one van before the one we ended up with taught us how to like really take, ‘cause it just failed in such a catastrophic spectacular way.
ERIC: Did you guys break down with it?
MIKE: We had three or four days left of a tour, but we were leaking transmission fluid.
ERIC: Okay.
MIKE: And we brought it to a transmission specialist and he was like yeah this thing is not safe to drive. And so we drove it, we drove it home. And like every time we stopped for gas, like transmission fluid would just come pouring out of it. So we ended up having to refill the thing like twice.
ERIC: [laughs] Okay.
MIKE: Uh, went through like several quarts of it on like the 14 hours from Ft. Wayne back to Boston. And then we-
ERIC: I do think I remember that.
MIKE: I think we probably had to cancel a show with you guys or something like that. And like, I think we were supposed to go Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Montclair, home. And then, um-
ERIC: Yeah!
MIKE: And then um, yeah something like that. And then, the van we got after that we were like very, I babied it, partially because it was registered, insured, in my name, parked at my house and all that. But we just like treated it so much better, and I’m so glad I never ended up using it as my daily driver just because it was like a, it wasn’t like a conversion van where I could you know, maybe justify it because you see people doing that but like-
ERIC: Yeah, yeah.
MIKE: A big ass passenger thing, holy shit.
ERIC: That guy owns a airport transport company.
MIKE: [laughs] Yeah. I thought about like driving for like, Uber XL but like XXXL.
ERIC: [laughs] Triple XL.
[music]
MIKE: As you mentioned, you’re 30, I’m coming right up on it. I went digging back for a Facebook post that you made, uh, in which you said “does DIY touring have a lifespan? I feel like I’ve gotten pretty jaded and I’m wondering if that’s just age or the general vibe of friends in touring bands right now. I have internalized where's the payoff, is this the natural way of what can be considered a DIY career to just be in multiple bands and play locally into your 40s.” Now are you any closer to any answers to that, almost a year after you posted it?
ERIC: I, I guess, yeah? And that, that post was a lot of just like, trying to get things, talk things out publicly, even though I feel like I may have already known some of the answers and I think at, at some point when your band, something that you love, uh, and you love to do, you’ve put so much time and effort into, doesn't go the way of like, uh, like Radiohead, you know like, like having a successful career. ‘Cause I, I think a lot of us are fairly realistic in, in where we would end up. But, being able to not have a job at home, aside from writing and playing music, I think is the general goal.
MIKE: Yeah, I think so.
ERIC: For most people.
MIKE: I think it’s also a circumstance of what age we are and when we grew up. Like you know, kind of when we were in our formative years, it was still kind of possible to play music and sell enough records and make a living off of it.
ERIC: Right.
MIKE: And that has gone away.
ERIC: Yeah. But, for me, it comes down to like, forgetting everything we’ve learned. Like, the societal pressures that are put on it, like what we’re taught, like what happiness is. And just being like, this is what I want out of life, and if I can do all of these things then I don’t need more than that.
MIKE: Is this a conversation that has taken place within your own band about like, how willing you are to kinda put yourself on the ropes for it for so long? Like I’ve seen Mandich kind of post to the same effect, like, if I ever stop doing this I’m gonna be committed to a fuckin mental ward, you know.
ERIC: Right, yeah. I mean Mandich is extremely vocal about this is the only thing he wants to do. I think the other guys are general- I think we’re all generally in the same boat of like, this is what we want to do, as long as we can do it and continue to do it, that we’re not going to die.
MIKE & ERIC: [laugh]
ERIC: In a way that won’t kill us.
MIKE: Yeah, yeah.
ERIC: It’s never been something that we’ve like, how do we all feel about this certain thing. And like let’s put a time frame on it. You know, if something hasn’t happened by this point then whatever, then we might as well just quit. It’s, I think at this point, we’re all just like you know, whatever happens, happens. And if opportunities present themselves, like, like dunk!fest, you know, if something like that presents itself then let’s do it.
MIKE: Oh, yeah.
ERIC: And there hasn’t been, granted I am, Mandich is the second oldest, in the band. Uh, I think he’s 28? And the other guys are like 25 and 26, maybe about to be 27, I forget.
MIKE: Well either way, either way it doesn’t sound like much, but there is a lot of daylight between...
ERIC: Absolutely. I am a completely different person than I was at 26.
MIKE: yeah.
ERIC: So a lot of things that I find important now are, are probably different than what I found important then. And we haven’t had a conversation, and it, I’ve never gotten a vibe where like, I need to have the conversation. Of like, what are we doing or where are we going, and this and that. Because as much as I want to do, it suffices for the rest of the guys, you know?
MIKE: Yeah, yeah. Are there people who are younger than you that kind of have this view of like oh, it’s changed just in the few years that I've been doing it. Like it’s not the same as it was when I was 26 versus when I was 22. Like, or is it, has that been reflected in a way? I mean, I, the people that I’ve spoken to about it have all been kind of like, in the vicinity of my age.
ERIC: Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly what I was gonna say.
MIKE: And like, the, the people who are, the people who display any amount of optimism, I’m like, you’re a little younger than me around you.
ERIC: [laughs] Yeah, yeah. No, I think that is literally exactly it. Where, most of the people I would talk to about it, they’re my age, they’re more serious about what they’re doing, their time means more to them, where they, the things that they're doing, if they’re touring, it has to make sense for them at the moment. And this is also just the people that I know. You know? I’m sure that there are 35-year-olds out there recklessly, uh, or just like, that give less of a shit, and they’re like this is what I’m doing and I’m doing it, and I’m gonna keep doing this and go as much as I possibly can.
MIKE: Sure.
ERIC: And aren’t jaded at all, you know?
MIKE: Yeah.
ERIC: I do remember specifically, at a show probably a year or two ago, um, this person said something, and I was like, you’re young aren’t you, how old are you. And then they told me they were like 22, and I was like just wait a cople years.
MIKE: [laughs]
ERIC: And in that moment I felt like that shitty old person.
MIKE: Yeah, well you were. You were that shitty old person.
ERIC: But like, you know, I’d like to follow up with them and see how they’re feeling.
MIKE: Yeah. No, I mean the tour that Aviator did last summer with like all fill-ins. The drummer that we had was like 22, and it was his first tour.
ERIC: The other band, What Of Us, we just did a tour of mostly Germany, we like, we dipped into Poland and Austria. The band we were with, there was a member that was 27, a member was 21, another person was 19.
MIKE: Oh my God.
ERIC: But like, the, the one dude in the band who was 27, he was like always the first one to go to sleep every night. And I was like dude, we fuckin’ love you. Because-
MIKE & ERIC: [laughs]
ERIC: -like we’re so ready for bed right now. And he was so unapologetically like, ok I’m going to sleep.
MIKE: Yeah, yeah, no partying... One thing you mentioned was that you got burnt out on the thought of booking another US tour, at least compared to like booking Europe. Like, if there was one thing you could kind of wave a magic wand and have it be more favorable to touring here, what would it be? Would it be like the hospitality, that there's a meal provided? Would it be like something other than a door deal? Would it be just like interest and attendance and like, how would you..?
ERIC: The magic wand wouldn’t cover the hospitality. Like, I can, I can, like, I’ll sleep on a floor, sleep in the van, have to get a hotel, whatever. But I think moreso-
MIKE: Bootstraps.
ERIC: I’m pullin’ myself up by them. I don’t have boots, but I’m pullin’ myself up by then.
MIKE: My Doc Marten bootstraps.
ERIC: [laughs] I think it does come down to, like, just, a general interest in bands and music and shows and having more successful shows on a 40-day string of shows where you’re playing a total of five “wow this was amazing!” and like 20 “ok, why are we doing this” and then like ten “I kind of want to be home right now.”
MIKE: Definitely.
ERIC: Yeah.
MIKE: Like so one example that I’ve brought up, I don’t know if I’ve brought it up on the podcast before but, I remember, I got an invite to a show that wasn’t like a, it was a livestream of a show. It was like people playing in somebody's basement, and there were mics on it, but it was a Facebook live stream and like no one was actually in the room. And I was like if this is the future, then I’m out, like that’s it. You know what I mean?
ERIC: [laughs] I’ve seen multiple bands do that, and I-
MIKE: It’s crazy to me.
ERIC: Like, I die a lot inside.
MIKE: But I bet somebody who’s like 18 and listening to this, is saying like I was at something, at, I was at something like that last night.
ERIC: At. [laughs] I was a part of something.
MIKE: Yeah, but I don’t know, I want to, I want heads through the door and I want to play to a big packed room.
ERIC: Yeah.
MIKE: I think a lot about like, um, bold and daring innovative classical music, like the Rites of Spring for example, right? Shit that would like cause riots on its premiere. And now like we can stand in a room and listen to someone literally screaming their heads off and like bashing drums like, just as loud as beyond the threshold of comfort and we’re just kind of standing there like thumbing through Twitter, you know?
ERIC: Right, yeah, yes.
MIKE: I don’t, I don’t know who to describe it. I sound like a million years old saying that, too, that’s the worst part of it.
ERIC: But I think, so one of the hardest parts of booking a European tour by yourself is, um-
MIKE: Is how many yellow shirts you have to order?
ERIC: Yeah, exactly.
MIKE: Do you have this in neon green?
ERIC: [laughs]
MIKE: Sorry.
ERIC: Um, it’s, or, what about safety yellow?
MIKE & ERIC: [laughs]
ERIC: One thing that you’ll find is amazing in Europe is you’ll look around and you’re the only piece of shit staring at your phone.
MIKE: Yep.
ERIC: [laughs] Uh, but, here, yeah, there’s totally that, maybe it’s that we’re spoiled, stubborn, whatever, I think there’s a number of factors that culturally we just give less of a shit. And not that I’m not guilty of it-
MIKE: Oh, we all are.
ERIC: Totally, and I also don’t want to sound like a whiny baby, about, oh I want more people at our shows, uh-
MIKE: Well, who doesn’t though.
ERIC: You know, yeah, who doesn’t, but it is again subjective to what is popular at the moment, and what type of music you’re playing, and if your band actually sucks, or if it is decent, whatever, you know, so like you can whine and cry all day, whatever.
MIKE: Well there’s, that’s, I mean that’s another thing too though, is that like, there’s, compared to even when you and I maybe started touring, there are a lot more bands trying to do it, kind of going through the meat grinder, and-
ERIC: Sure.
MIKE: -and I feel like a broken record saying this, but I don’t like framing it as competition but, there are limited ears and eyes, you know? And if people have just gone to a show every night of the week, and if they’ve seen their friends’ band, and you’re kind of this non-entity, then like, what can you expect, but kind of, uh, indifference? And I don’t know how to compete with that, either. Especially when like, doing what you do as best as you can, isn’t always enough.
ERIC: Yeah. I, I don’t know.
MIKE: Now that’s being a whiny baby.
ERIC: Right, okay! [laughs] Um, and continuing with being a whiny baby, I, maybe you have the same experience, but I remember when I was growing up, between the ages of 13 and like 18 or 19, in my town there was a VFW hall that would hold shows.
MIKE: Yep.
ERIC: And throughout middle school and high school it didn’t matter like who was playing, whoever from school would just go. Ok, I’ll see you on Saturday at the show.
MIKE: Yeah.
ERIC: And that’s just kind of how it was. And I’ll talk to a lot of people, and that same experience is not what people are having now.
MIKE: It’s another rosy glasses thing, ‘cause I’m sure they weren’t all, like they weren’t all bangers but, that’s kind of how I remember it too. Like, there’s a show at the Knights of Columbus hall, it’s like, everyone’s there, the ceiling tiles are all getting ripped down, we’ll do it again next week. Basically, things used to be sick and now they’re fuckin’ awful.
MIKE & ERIC: [laughs]
ERIC: Um, no, I kind of blame it on like an oversaturation, you know?
MIKE: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Like, the democratization of all of this stuff, like the ability to tour, and the resources, and the attention, and the ways to get music out, it’s a blessing and a curse, and it’s proven that many times over by now.
ERIC: Yeah.
MIKE: But I don’t know how I would, you know, you can’t really put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak, but I don’t know how I would change that without, you know, fundamentally undermining that. Because, you know, I want people to be able to express themselves and try and do it, ‘cause I think it’s a really amazing learning experience that I would credit a lot of who I am to.
ERIC: Honestly, the touring thing has shaped who I am today.
MIKE: oh, yeah.
ERIC: Where you connect with people, you learn shit and I, I-
MIKE: And maybe it’s a matter of like, uh, expectations changing over time, too.
ERIC: Sure.
MIKE: So like, maybe when you go out on tour now, like, you go out expecting five people, and you’re like, oh sick! This is awesome!
ERIC: [laughs] Oh, there’s 20 people here, this is fucking great!
[music]
MIKE: As always, if you like what you heard here today, I urge you to support Eric and his projects to the extent you can. Links and info are in the description of the show. You can find a transcript of this and every episode on my blog at sellinout.tumblr.com. If you want to support the show and get exclusive bonus content you can find out how to do that at patreon.com/sellinoutpodcast. You can follow the show on Twitter @sellinoutAD. Leave a nice rating and review on Apple Podcasts or whatever podcatcher allows for that kind of feedback, it helps other people find the show. Or you can pop a sticker for Sellin’ Out on the bumper of your van, although then people will probably deduce that you have gear in there and it isn’t anything fancy but it’s all you got! That’s just a joke, I don’t have stickers, that would be crazy. Unless you don’t think it’s crazy, write in and let me know at [email protected]. Our theme song is “No Cab Fare” by Such Gold, photography by Nick DiNatale. I’m Mike Moschetto, this is Sellin’ Out.
