Other Injuries, etc.

I’m starting to type this week’s entry while riding in the van on the way to Chicago.  Usually I’m sitting in a hotel room writing where it is quiet and there’s no motion from being in a vehicle, so I guess we’ll see if I’m able to focus enough on this while rolling down the highway.

A friend of mine was reading last week’s ‘journal entry’ about Josh’s hand injury and told me it reminded him of another injury to a band member several years ago.  We were laughing about it together remembering the story, and I joked that maybe I’d just have to tell that story on here too.  Then after thinking about it, I decided that yeah, it would be a great story to share with you from the past.  So here’s a band injury story from several years ago:

A little set up is needed here.  I think this was maybe 2006 (or somewhere around there) and I was living in Nashville at the time.  We got hooked up with WSM and ended up on the bill with Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson at the 2^nd Annual UFO Festival in Roswell, NM.  Lacy J. Dalton was also on that show – very cool woman, and amazingly talented; I hope to get to work with her again someday.  Back to the story though:  We flew out to Roswell for the show, performed our set, and then got to enjoy the rest of the bands that night.  One of my musicians (Chip) was also into photography and brought his camera with him to the show.  While Hag was on stage, Chip thought it would be cool to get some good close up shots from down front, so he was going to just crawl under the stage to the front where there was this little area blocked off where he could get some great photos.  But as he was crawling under the stage to get there he got caught up somehow on one of the cross bars and tripped and fell.  As he was falling he tried to catch himself and somehow ended up separating his shoulder – while under the stage.  What I don’t know is how he got out from under the stage.  What I do know is that someone came running up to me telling me that Chip injured himself and needed to go to the hospital.  Here’s the problem with being in my early 20’s and having my first taste of the big time: I was so young and excited to be in that moment that I didn’t care enough about the issue at hand.  And I don’t mean that I didn’t care that my band member was injured, but I was immature at that point and was so excited that I was sharing the stage with Merle and Willie that Chip’s injury wasn’t more of a priority than seeing them play.  Looking back I realize how selfish it was of me, and if something like that happened now I would like to think that I would immediately leave and go with my guy to the hospital.  But at the time, I wasn’t leaving the show.  The funny thing is no one else wanted to go with him either; we all looked at each other like, ‘I’m not going, are you going go?’  We were all looking forward to Willie coming on stage in just a bit, as well as enjoying the rest of Hag’s set.  I actually don’t remember who ended up going to the hospital with him, but I’m pretty sure someone finally did.  I just remember that the next morning as we left the hotel for the airport Chip was in a sling with a separated shoulder and lots of painkillers.  That trip back to Nashville had to be hell for him.  Wow, thinking about that day brings back all sorts of other memories too.  Maybe I’ll write about all the other experiences from that day on here sometime.  I used to refer to it as ‘my favorite music day of all time’. 

It is amazing how often we injure ourselves out on the road.  I thought this was supposed to be an easy job where we just got to play music and party.  Guess I was way off.  Thinking more about it now, injuries are pretty common (at least in this band).  Let’s see, we have Josh’s hand (which could have been a lot worse); last spring I smashed a finger and tore the nail completely out of the nail bed; Kevin pretty much broke his tailbone last year, just to name a few.  Mostly we get hand injuries, which sucks since our hands are the most important body part for playing our instruments.  I’m trying to think of other ones though.  Let’s see, I pulled a back muscle lifting gear improperly, dropped a speaker on my foot, oh and a couple weeks ago I hit myself in the face with my guitar and bled all over the place (that was me just being clumsy though).  Well, enough about injuries, I’m starting to hurt just thinking about all of them. 

So, I have a few notable comments from fans at some of our recent shows that I wanted to share:

1.       1. A guy told me, “you sing better than Michael Bolton”.  This one I must disagree with; although I really do appreciate that he enjoyed my singing that much.  It is a huge compliment.  I am very critical of the way I sing (and my limitations), and know I’m not one of the timeless singers out there.  But it was really cool for someone to take the time to compliment my singing.  But let me be the first one to say I do not think I sing better than, or anywhere close to Michael Bolton.

2.       2. “Thanks for the CD’s. I can’t wait to bump these in my tractor”.  No explanation needed here, that’s just bad ass and I wanted to share it.  Nothing wrong with some dude rockin’ out to some MDB out in the fields.

3.       3. “The four songs I’ve heard you do so far off your album are the best songs I’ve heard you play all night”.  This one is my favorite, and easily meant the most to me.  I always have a dilemma at live shows, especially if it is not a place where we are established and well known – do I play all the music off of our albums and just throw it out there, or do I play less original music to make sure I keep people there?  The reason it is a dilemma is this: some people are interested and want to hear the music we’ve created, while others just want to hear what they know.  It is always a struggle to be able to accurately read the crowd and know what I’m able to get away with.  I have seen dance floors empty b/c people don’t recognize the song that we’re playing.  So do I try to just keep them happy with stuff they know, or do I push our music on them and hope they like it enough to stick around?  The answer is this: the only reason I’m on the road touring is to further my career and play my music – so if I’m not playing music off our albums I’m wasting my time.  And I hate to be so blunt about it, but that’s the truth.  A million people can play an Eric Church song for you, but only I will play an MDB tune.  And if people have been honest with us so far about the songs off of this new album, then the feedback suggests we should take the chance and play our music.  So that’s what we’re going to continue to do I guess: play more of our music.  If we lose some people in the process, that’s okay.  I won’t be happy to lose people, but that happens with art sometimes – not everyone likes every piece of art out there, so I expect some people to not want to hear our music.  But if there are others that enjoy our music and want to hear more of it, then it is worth it to continue performing our songs each night throughout the show.  So that is why that person’s comment meant so much; it was kind of like validation for what we’re trying to do out here on the road.

For those of you that have been following this, for the past several weeks I have been adding the lyrics to each song off the new album at the end of the entry.  This week the lyrics are for the song “Just A Drink”.  This song is different because it is the first song I’ve ever recorded that I didn’t write (or at least co-write).  I say that and then immediately take it back: I reworked and recorded an old Merle Haggard song for a demo I did when I was working with his manager, but this is the first time I’ve recorded someone else’s song for an album I’ve released to the public.  Rarely have I listened to another independent artist’s music and liked a song so much that I even thought about recording it.  But when I was listening to Eldon Huff’s album and heard this song, I instantly fell in love with it.  I was blown away by the content and writing.  You really need to listen to the song a few times to catch everything going on throughout.  I know I had to listen to it several times to understand everything and get the full meaning.  I listen to a lot of other artists’ music, and there is a lot of amazing stuff out there, but this song really hit home for me.  Alcoholism in general has directly impacted my life (no, not me being an alcoholic or anything like that), and more specifically drunk driving fatalities have completely scarred me personally (as referenced in a line from ‘The Memory’).  I’m sure almost all of us have felt the negative effects of alcohol and alcoholism somehow in our lives or with our families or friends.    That is why this song is so important for me, and why I wanted to record it.  The message is universal, and so well stated throughout the lyric content of this song.  I appreciate that Eldon was cool with me cutting the song.  Even knowing that we are a small time touring band and that he wasn’t going to get major radio exposure or any other substantial benefits from it, he still allowed us to record the song.  So let this be my public forum to say ‘thank you’ to Eldon Huff for allowing me to share his great song with our fan base.  I encourage everyone reading this to look him up and check out his music.  You will not be disappointed with what you find.

So, I finished this entry Thursday as we were entering Chicago, and planned on posting it that evening.  At this point I finished the writing by talking about having some big shows coming up, and enjoying getting to play in Chicago where I had some old college friends who were coming out to see the show.  I wrote about how I was really looking forward to seeing them, but how it also makes me nervous to perform in front of my old friends that have known me for so long.  Then we pulled up to the venue right as another band was pulling up.  We both had been booked to play the same venue on the same night, which presents a huge problem.  We call it getting double booked; unfortunately it happens, but not very often.  Obviously our contract says we’re supposed to be there that night, and theirs does too.  We’ve been out here touring a long time; we understand that things like this sometimes do happen.  It sucks for someone when it does though.  So, being the old road dogs, we stepped back and told them to take the show.  As much as we were looking forward to playing in Chicago that night, we understood that mistakes happen, and in the grand scheme of things it is not really that big of a deal.  So we let them have the show and we headed up to the next stop on our tour.  The cool thing here is that the venue realized that they made a mistake, and completely owned up to it and were very apologetic about the entire thing.  They even honored the contract, which was very impressive.  For me, accountability is a huge deal.  You make a mistake, be accountable for it.  I respect that so much.  And this venue was accountable.  That goes a long way with me. 

So, all is well I guess.  And we are scheduled to be back in Chicago in July, which we are all looking forward to. 

As always, I will wrap this up with my usual self-promotion.   If you don't already receive email notification for these 'journal entries', go back up to the top of the page and submit your email address and you will get an email each week as soon as this is posted. Make sure you check out our website www.themichaeldband.com for news and a list of all our upcoming shows.  If you’re not already, make sure you ‘Like’ our FACEBOOK page, and be sure to ‘Follow’ us on TWITTER.  If you don’t have our latest album “Back In Town” make sure you go pick it up on I-TUNES.  Here are the lyrics for Eldon Huff’s Song “Just A Drink”. 

Be safe out there, and have a great weekend!

“Just A Drink”

Everybody knows that I’m no good for you

But you run to me when you’re running from the truth

What makes me drive you crazy, what makes you have to crave me

What makes you want me more than her

Cause I’m just a drink, but man she’s your world

Can you live with the choice you’re making

Cause that’s a hell of a heart your breaking

It’s way more than a sip you’re taking your chances every time

Pushing her right across that line out the door

I’m just a drink, but man she’s your world

All she’s ever got for giving you her love

Is just a front row view for helping you self destruct

Oh you treat me like I’m your best friend but I’m where your problems start and end

And I’ll wreck what’s left of you if you lose her

Cause I’m just a drink, but man she’s your world

Can you live with the choice you’re making

Cause that’s a hell of a heart your breaking

It’s way more than a sip you’re taking you chances every time

Pushing her right across that line out the door

I’m just a drink, but man she’s your world

You’re gonna crash and burn

And this life you got will be a pile of ashes by the time you learn

Can you live with the choice you’re making

Cause that’s a hell of a heart you’re breaking

It’s way more than a sip you’re taking your chances every time

Pushing her right across that line out the door

I’m just a drink, but man she’s your world

Oh I’m just a drink, but man she’s your world

She’s your world

Everybody knows that I’m no good for you

But still you run to me when you’re running from the truth

A Trip To The ER

Okay, let’s get right down to the trip to the hospital that happened this week.  Here’s the story: We played a St. Patrick’s Day show Monday night, and went back to the club on Tuesday to tear down our gear.  After we got our stuff out of there, we helped the staff move some pool tables.   We had two diagonal legs propped up on wheels to make them easier to move – not the most sturdy way to do it, but it gets the job done.  Anyway, the pool table was up on the wheels and Josh was screwing back in one of the feet into the leg.  Somehow one of the wheels slipped out from under the table and the opposite leg came crashing down on Josh’s hand, smashing it under the weight of the entire pool table.  Miraculously he was able to quickly pull it out, but the damage was done.  Although I was standing right next to him, I didn’t see the leg smash his hand; I heard the crash and scream and then turned around to see Josh lying flat on his back holding his arm.  I think I screamed louder than he did.  It scared the hell out of me.  And what we couldn’t see were his fingers; he had them hidden as he was holding them.  I’m pretty sure a few of us would have passed out if a few of his digits were still under the leg of the pool table.  I would have been the first one.  But as it turns out (and quite luckily for Josh) all his fingers were still attached to his hand.  Now we just needed to determine how bad the injury was.  He couldn’t move some fingers, or even feel some of them.  Not a good sign.  So we got him some ice and tried to get him to sit down and relax for a minute.  We finally got back to the hotel, dropped the other guys off, and I took Josh up to the hospital, which is where the fun begins (because by this point, he’s calmed down enough and it is time to have fun with this thing). 

We get checked in at the ER and are immediately sent to a room where a nurse is waiting for us.  At this point in the story I would like to pause and say the care at this hospital was pretty damn good.  It was a small county hospital in northwestern Nebraska and we might have been the only patients there, but the staff were very attentive and gave great care. Our nurse was great, the doctor was great; but the x-ray tech wouldn’t let me go back with them – so she was not so great.  We did snag a copy of the x-rays of his hand though, so that makes up for it.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, at the hospital.  Anyway, as Josh is explaining what happened to him, it comes out that we’re in a band, blah blah blah.  Josh has them look us up on FACEBOOK (see, we had to be the only patients in the entire hospital) I tell the nurse that we’re close to 2100 ‘Likes’, and if she goes around the hospital getting people to ‘like’ our page, then we’ll give her a free CD.  Well not even ten minutes later she came back and told me we had the 2100 ‘likes’ now.  In her defense, we were at 2096 when we got there.  We only needed 4 more.  But nevertheless, she fulfilled her end of the deal so I ran out to the van and got her our “Back In Town” album.  Oh, she also brought us rice crispy treats too while we were there, but wouldn’t give up any of her chocolate (and for those that really know me, that one hurt).  Hmm, I wonder if she actually listened to the CD, and what she thought?  If we are ever in need of emergency care in northwest Nebraska in the future maybe we can find out if she liked it.  But back to Josh and his hand: after the doctor exam and x-rays, we learned that no bones were broken and no tendons were severed, that he would just be very sore for a while.  They didn’t even give him a prescription for some good pain killers or anything; just told him to ice it, take Ibuprofen, and keep it elevated.  None of which he has been doing since.  He’s been practicing on his new bass guitar all day.  That is what happened to Josh.  So don’t be giving him too much sympathy; there wasn’t even any blood. 

So that’s what happened after the St. Patrick’s Day party, but now I’d like to talk about getting there.  The St. Patrick’s Day party at Feik’s 120 Bar in Chadron, NE has kind of been an annual thing for us the past 4 years.  So even though it fell on a Monday this year, they wanted us to be there and we naturally said yes.  The problem was that the weekend prior to that we were already booked to play in Mississippi, nowhere near Nebraska.  But hey, this is what we do; we don’t usually turn down gigs solely based on distance, especially when the club has been good to us in the past.  So we took the gig knowing it was going to be hell trying to get there.  And it was.  We played Saturday night until about 3 in the morning, and had to tear down and be on the road by 9am Sunday at the latest.  To get to our destination in enough time to set up and be ready to play by Monday night, we had to get most of the drive done Sunday.  18 ½ hours later we made it to our stopping point in central Nebraska, where we were able to get into the hotel and get a long nap in before getting back in the van and driving the final 6 hours to the show.  Getting into the hotel at 3:30am was a challenge in itself, but I’ll get to that.  Kevin somehow drove the first 15 hours of the trip on Sunday, all after no more than 3 ½ hours of sleep.  I have no idea how he is able to sit behind the wheel for so long and be able to focus, but he does it.  Finally somewhere on I-29 in Northwestern Missouri he gave up the driver’s seat and let me take over for the final three hours.  Oh yeah, so we finally get to the hotel to check in (remember, its 3:30am and we’ve been in the van for 18 ½ hours; we’re a little tired at this point) and there is no one at the front desk to let us in the door or check us in.  After about 5 minutes she finally pulls up.  Yes, that’s right, she wasn’t even in the building; she was out driving around somewhere.  Really??? She finally gets there in the office (where I presume she was supposed to be) and then takes nearly a half an hour to check us in.  I was pretty tired, but I don’t think I’m exaggerating too much on the time here.  It took her forever to get us keys to some rooms.  First she couldn’t get the amount right.  Then she wanted to just talk and joke around for a while – come on lady, we’re TIRED!!!! But, we eventually got into the rooms and were able to get a couple hours of sleep before we had to be back on the road. 

I guess the point of that story is this: we are blessed to get to play music for a living; if someone wants us to travel that far to come play a show on a Monday night, we’re going to do it.  If a place specifically requests to have us there because we’re the band they want, we’re going to do what we can to make it happen.  It means that much to us.  We are honored that people want us to come to their town, or to their bar, to hear us play our music.  It would have been nice though to have those bunks and a bathroom in the van like I talked about in the last journal entry.  But hopefully we’ll get there eventually.

So the other day I was thinking about my ability to ‘flip the switch’.  I mean two things by this: 1. Going from being at home to being on the road.  2. Going from hanging out off stage to going up on stage and immediately getting into the ‘performance mode’.  I caught myself wondering how I’m able to do it.  I’ll start with the second one.  I noticed at a recent show that I was standing off stage talking with some people and the conversation had nothing to do with music; just a normal conversation.  And in the 10 seconds it took me to walk on stage and for the lights to come up, I had transformed into performer and was in my ‘stage mode’, blocking out whatever I was just doing and getting lost in the music we were playing.  How is it that easy for me to go back and forth?  It was like two different people, and kind of freaked me out a little that it happened like that.  But as I thought about it, I guess I do that a lot more than I realized.  Maybe it is not all that uncommon.  Does it happen for other people too?  I’m sure it does.  But to that extreme?  It just struck me as odd I guess, and surprised me that I was able to basically have two different personalities like that in the span of seconds. 

Then I thought about the duality of my life.  Which takes me back to number one: going from being at home to being on the road.  I feel like I am two completely different people.  It is not just like forgetting about work when I go home at the end of the day, or forget about things at home while I’m at the office.  It really is like two different people.  When I’m on the road and we’re playing shows I am out in bars all the time, I am super social, I drink and party, I sleep in, I don’t care as much about my diet, I drink a ton of Coke, I sleep late, etc. But when I’m home, it is completely the opposite: I never go out to bars when I’m home, I never crack a beer or do shots (and rarely might have a glass of wine), I enjoy the solace of sometimes being alone during the day, I am rarely up past 10pm and get up way too early, I plan and cook healthy meals, allow myself one Coke a day, stuff like that.  It amazes me how different of a person I am.  When we’re out on the road I love being in social settings and getting the attention and everything that goes with it.  At home you couldn’t pay me to go out and party.  I just want to relax and enjoy good food and read a book in bed.  It just seems like such an extreme difference.  And the switch happens so often because of our schedule; we’ll be out for three weeks or something and then home for 8 days.  Back and forth, back and forth.  I don’t know how my body doesn’t just shut down and yell at me to pick one way of life and stick with it.  But here’s the thing, I love them both.  I can’t imagine my life without being on the road and partying and being in the spotlight and playing music. But I also can’t imagine taking away the sanctity of my home life either.  When I’m on the road, I throw myself completely into being a musician and making this band whatever it is.  And when I’m home, I love everything about it and never want to leave.  Again, I just find it odd.  I thought I would share the crazy and sometimes illogical thoughts that run through my head.  If writing this blog has taught me anything about myself, it is that my thought process is definitely a little bit off center. 

Well that’s it for this entry.  As always, make sure you check out our website www.themichaeldband.com to see our schedule and find out when we’re going to be back around.  If you don’t ‘Like’ us on FACEBOOK yet, make sure you go do that; and if you do, then share our page with all your friends and get them to ‘Like’ us too.  And for all the tweeters out there, go ‘follow’ us on TWITTER.  Don’t forget that our new album “Back In Town” is on I-TUNES as well.  And lastly, below are more lyrics from the album.  Be safe out there!

“Moonshine At Midnight”

I met a man the other day, he told me a story about the way things used to be

About a still out in the woods where some good ol’ boys would brew illegally

That gave me an idea, I called some friends and told them what he had to say

So come on over here tonight, let’s bring back the good old days

So bring your cousin and your sister and your neighbor and your granddaddy too

I’ll bring a big ol’ jug of lightening, and we’ll all howl at the moon

We’ll sit beneath the stars with mason jars and old guitars and pick our favorite tunes

And drink some moonshine at midnight just like they used to do

They all showed up at nine in their trucks and I made sure the fire was lit

Grandpa Jones beneath the tree was showing everybody how to take a hit

Well someone made a toast to all of those still running today

And my buzz is kicking in so let’s begin to fly away

So bring your cousin and your sister and your neighbor and your granddaddy too

I’ll bring a big ol’ jug of lightening and we’ll all howl a the moon

We’ll sit beneath the stars with mason jars and old guitars and pick our favorite tunes

And drink some moonshine at midnight just like they used to do

Yeah we’ll gather ‘round when the sun goes down pass it around and take a sip or two

And drink some moonshine at midnight just like they used to do

The Extended Entry

There is a lot of stuff for me to talk about this week, including answering some questions that our fans have submitted, so this is going to be a pretty long entry.  I hope you’ve got some time to just sit and read; this is going to take a while. 

I’ll start with some really cool news for Josh.  Josh has just been unofficially endorsed by Bergstok Guitars.  They are a custom guitar company out of Wisconsin.  They actually designed and built Josh a 5 string bass guitar they are calling the “Watson” (yes, they are calling it that after Josh b/c his last name is Watson.  Pretty cool, right?).  So, Josh worked with them to describe exactly what he wanted, all the way down to the custom paint job.  The “Watson” bass was finally ready and delivered this past tour.  After Josh spent some time practicing in hotel rooms to get comfortable with it, he brought it out on stage for the last show of the tour.  Let me tell you, it sounds incredible.  The low end that he got out of the new bass guitar sounds fantastic.  Josh is extremely happy with it.  Oh, and Bergstok is actually also in the process of making Kevin his own custom guitar too.   The paint job was not completed, but they brought it out to our last show for Kevin to try out.  I will say this about Kevin: he knows his stuff when it comes to guitars.  He is very knowledgeable, and knows exactly what he likes and doesn’t like when playing different guitars.  He is picky, to say the least.  I have seen him pick up hundreds of guitars over the years and try them out.  So I was actually kind of surprised when he immediately fell in love with the new custom guitar they brought him to try out.  I can’t remember the last time he seemed so pleased with everything about a guitar; but he loved it.  Kevin actually ended up playing it the entire show, and it sounded great.  So pretty soon I guess you’ll see half of our band playing Bergstok Guitars on stage.  Does that mean the band is kind of endorsed by Bergstok?  And if so, when do I get mine?  Ha.  It is actually really cool that a custom guitar company has taken an interest in our band, and likes what we do enough to want us to play their guitars.  For the musicians out there, if you come check out our show sometime soon, make sure you talk to Kevin or Josh about their new instruments.  And if you like them, I’m sure Bergstok would be happy to customize one for you as well.  Here, go check out the BERGSTOK MUSIC FACEBOOK PAGE.  ‘Like’ their page, and be sure to tell them we sent you.  So, congratulations to Josh, who now has a bass guitar named after him.  That’s impressive!

So, I’ve already started working on songs for the next album.  And I caught myself wondering, ‘is that weird’?  Shouldn’t I be taking a break and just enjoying that this album is out and doing well for us?  But that is just not me.  Like most other things in my life, I don’t allow myself to be satisfied; I always want to move forward and go bigger and get better.  So the other day I was in a hotel room with the guitar and a notebook working on some songs for the next album.  I have a few chord progressions and rhythms that I’m really into, and a couple of ideas for songs that I really like right now.  So we will see where those go.  But I was even more excited about some songs that we were working on for our latest album, some that just didn’t make it to the final cut for one reason or another.  Actually, a couple of the songs that didn’t make this album would have been my favorite ones on this CD.  There’s one called ‘Girls in Cowboy Hats’ that has this really driving rocking groove; very heavy on guitar, but modern sounding as well.  Then there  is another one called ‘No Sleep Tonight’ that I absolutely love.  We started laying down tracks for it last summer as we were working on the album, but just couldn’t seem to get the feel of the song right.  It just wasn’t coming out as I heard it in my head, so we shelved it and moved on to some other material.  Definitely look for those two to be on the next album.  I had almost forgotten about them until I was going through my old notebook and found the lyrics.  Then there’s another song I wrote last fall that I love; it is in ¾ time, which I’ve not worked with much (and I have never recorded a song in 3/4).  I can’t wait to lay some tracks down for this one.  Actually, as I’m sitting here writing and getting excited about this song, I just had an idea: maybe we could record just this one song sometime this spring and release it as a single.  Maybe even just release it to I-tunes or something, who knows.  I’ll see if the other guys are interested, and then maybe we’ll get something in the works this spring if we can find some time during one of our breaks. 

I’m sure a lot of you have heard me mention the band Wayland before.  Well they have a new song called “Get A Little” that is just incredible.  I would love to record it for our next album as well.  The only issue I have with that is finding the key to work for my voice.  Their singer has a much higher range than I do, so re-working the song to work for me might be a challenge.  But I have always admired their music and writing, and have wanted to cut one of their songs for a long time.  Maybe this is the right song and the right time.  I’ll link a YOUTUBE video of the song here.  Tell me if you think it would be a good one for us. 

Random Side note: Speaking of new songs, have you all heard the latest Kasey Musgraves song “Follow Your Arrow”?  A friend of mine had me listen to that song a few weeks ago.  I love the message it gives: do what makes you happy, who cares what anyone else thinks.  I feel like we don’t hear that enough.  And I subscribe to that philosophy anyway: do what you want, not what other people think you should do – live for right now.  As long as you are happy with your actions, does it really matter what other people think?  Anyway, I was just thinking about that song and thought I’d share that.  If you haven’t heard it, go check it out.  And how awesome of her to have the guts to sing something that is non-p.c. 

I wanted to tell you a little bit about our friend Brandon that we were able to hang out with last week a couple times.  He lives in Superior, WI and was able to come out to a few of our shows this past tour.  Some of you may have seen a few pictures I posted on our FACEBOOK page of Brandon on stage with us.  Brandon has been a fan of ours for several years now, and anytime we’re in town he comes out to the show.  He is actually a huge fan of country music in general, and knows the words to almost all country songs on the radio.  It is pretty impressive.

Here is what I love about Brandon though, and what I appreciate the most when he comes out to our shows: He is only there because he genuinely likes the music we play.  For him, it really is all about the music.  He’s not just going to the bar with all his friends and partying; he’s not there to pick up women; he doesn’t have some fascination with a member of the band; or anything else.  His sole reason for coming out to our show is to hear the music we play.  That is the truest definition of what it means to be a fan.  And we love him for that. 

We don’t really like when people come up on our stage, and hardly ever invite anyone up.  But we’ll always let Brandon come sing with us, because we know how much joy the music is bringing him.  He doesn’t want to come up on stage to impress someone out in the crowd – he just wants to be part of the music.  But what I don’t think he knows is just how much joy he brings me when he is there, or how good it feels for me to see him happy; to know that he really had fun and enjoyed being at our show.  We don’t see that kind of authentic enthusiasm very often.  So while people may think we’re just being nice to the kid with Down Syndrome, what they don’t realize is that in those moments I’m actually having more fun and enjoying it more than Brandon ever will.  So this is my public thank you from our band to him: thank you for just genuinely liking the music we play, and for coming to see us.   We appreciate you!   

Well, I have received several emails that people have sent in over the past few weeks with questions they’d like me to respond to through this journal, so I’d like to address some of them now.  I’ll pick a few out here.

Q: To what band or musician would you credit the majority of your musical inspiration?

A: I won’t speak for the other guys here (mostly b/c they’re not sitting here with me to ask them about it), but I think my inspiration is a little bit different than most other musicians.  I didn’t really grow up on country music.  Sure, my mom had Kenny Rogers and Reba McEntire on the radio, but that wasn’t what really got me going as a kid though.  (Okay, I must admit, when John Anderson’s “Swinging” came out, my aunt and I used to sing it together in the car)  I was more influenced as a child by 80’s rock.  And more than that, I was influenced by my uncle’s rock band.  When I was really young, my mother and I lived with my grandparents.  Her younger brother was still in H.S. then and lived there too, and his rock band would practice in my grandparents’ basement.  I remember sitting on the bottom step leading down to the basement when I was 4 or 5 years old listening to them practice at night.  Thinking back about it now, I remember how loud it was, how much fun they were having, and how much it pissed my grandpa off.  But I also remember there being something different about what my uncle was doing at the time.  He was the rebellious one; the one with the long hair.  I even remember the day he came home with his first tattoo and showed me, but made me promise not to tell anyone about it.  The point is, for me he was doing something cool that no one else was doing.  And he was enjoying it. They all were.  He even did the whole ‘move to LA’ thing for a while too.  But I remember that being my first true exposure to music – listening to them play loud hair metal music in the basement.  Most people ask the question about our musical influences.  That story doesn’t apply then; but I like that this question was about inspiration.  And that’s where I was first inspired by people playing music. 

Q: if you could add an amenity to your van, what would it be?

A: Changing it to a tour bus!!! Okay, besides that. For those reading this that don’t know, we drive a Freightliner Sprinter cargo van; one of the tall white vans you see more and more of now.  It has the two front seats, a bench seat behind that, and just open cargo space behind that where we store some of the gear.   I’ll say two things that would be equally nice to have in the van: a bed (or a couple bunks) and a toilet.  The beds would be nice b/c sometimes we drive overnight; or really early in the morning.  It would benefit us to have somewhere comfortable to lay down and get some sleep while still heading down the road.  We sometimes create a makeshift bed in the back on top of the speakers with sleeping bags and blankets; but it is not the most comfortable thing to sleep on.  And while I have learned to sleep sitting up, it is most definitely a restless sleep at best.  So yeah, beds would be a nice addition to the van.  Now for the toilet: you have no idea how much it sucks having to stop every time someone needs to pee.  I make sure that I hit the bathroom every time we stop, just so I won’t be the guy 20 miles down the road needing to stop again.   But still, it would be nice to not have to stop so often.  It turns into a 10 – 15 minute detour every time.  Once I even thought if we just had a funnel with a hose that somehow ran out of the bottom of the van, that would work.  I know it wouldn’t be sanitary though; more disgusting than anything else.  So for those reasons, the two things I’d most like to see added to our van would be some beds and a toilet of some sort. 

We could skip this entire question if someone out there would just donate a ton of money so we could buy an old tour bus or something.  Then the sleeping and bathroom problems would be solved!

Q: Favorite movies? 

A: If you read my entry from a few weeks ago, I talked about not really having a favorite song, but having songs that were my favorite at different times in my life.  I think that might be true for movies too.  I have some movies that I’ve loved over the years; or that I’ve just seen a thousand times and know all the words too.  But I don’t know that I have a favorite, or even a couple favorites.  Here are a few that I’ve seen a million times and know every word by heart: Tombstone (b/c I’m a guy, and all guys have seen and know all the lines like I do), and Dazed and Confused (which probably says way too much about me from when I was younger).  There are probably dozens more that I know by heart, and that I thought were my favorite movies at some point.   

Here are a few movies that I think all bands should have in their collection: ‘Walk Hard – the Dewey Cox Story’, and ‘This is Spinal Tap’.  We quote these movies all the time.  ‘Walk Hard’ is a hilarious parody of ‘Walk the Line’, the movie about Johnny Cash.  Every band or musician has to see this movie.  I used to carry around a copy with me every tour.  And ‘Spinal Tap’ is just a classic band comedy. 

Maybe some of you out there can help me think of other great or classic band/musician movies.  Let me know which ones you love.  EMAIL me your lists. 

Q: What is the best prank you guys have ever pulled on each other?

A: Two things immediately come to mind with this question.  The first is a prank within the band, and the second is something I did to another band.

 1: A prank Kevin pulled on Aaron (for those of you who don’t know who Aaron is, he played bass guitar in this band for the 5 years prior to Josh joining us): We were all walking into a hotel room one evening and as Aaron (without looking) shut the door, Kevin put his hand up to the door making it appear that his fingers had been shut in the door, screaming out in pain.  Aaron just stood there for a second stunned and not able to move – like “oh my God, oh my God, what happened?”, and then rushed for the door to try to open it to free Kevin’s fingers.  At that point Kevin opened up his hand showing that his fingers were not actually smashed and that he was fine.  I thought Aaron was going to have a heart attack.  We thought it was hilarious, but Aaron was fuming.  I think to this day Aaron still vows to get his revenge.  (I was going to send you to a Youtube clip where Kevin describes the prank, but I cannot seem to find the video online anymore.  I’ll have to dig a little deeper and see if I can find it for you.  Kevin tells the story much better in the video than I do writing it down.)

2. Mike writes a Parody to Third Gear’s song “Breaking my Own Heart”: (Here's something you should know about me: i enjoy messing with newer bands that are just getting started out on the road.  I consider us the old men of the road circuit by now, so if newer bands have questions or need advice about the road, they should feel like they are able to come to us.  That also means if I think I can get away with it, I'm going to mess with the new bands some)  Anyway, Third Gear is, uh, was a rock band out of Wisconsin.  They were a newer band with some younger members, and kind of looked up to us old road dogs a little bit.  Both bands would give each other shit, but out of mutual respect and all in good fun.  I would send fans out to their show wearing our band shirt (things like that).  Well they pulled this one prank on me that was actually pretty good, but went pretty far too.  I won’t get into the details, but it demanded appropriate retaliation.  At the time they had an acoustic song that was pretty popular with their fans, so one night I wrote a parody of it, just making fun of the band and their music.  The parody was called “Being in Third Gear”.  Not only did I write the parody, but I recorded a bad quality audio version of it and made a funny video as well.  Then I posted the video on the band’s Facebook page for all their fans to see.  I will try to LINK THE VIDEO HERE.  If I can’t, just go to Youtube and type in ‘Being in Third Gear’.  It should be the first video to pop up.  The great thing was that they couldn’t top what I had done.  Trust me, I’m sure they tried to come up with something.  The song was so good at trashing them that they even had people asking them why I hated them so much.  That band broke up a few months ago, and separately all the members have told me that they blame me and my parody song for the break up.  Ah, the ultimate prank: destroy a band!

Well, I think that is enough answering questions for one ‘journal entry’.  And I’m sure you’re getting sick of reading by now too.  If you don’t already ‘like’ our FACEBOOK page, now is the time. I have posted several ‘retro pics’ this past week from some old pictures I found, and will post a few more next week as well.  I found some old photos from early in this band’s history, with some with different members most of you don’t know. 

Also, make sure you ‘follow’ us on TWITTER.  I have a feeling I will continue to use Twitter more and more very soon.  Make sure you check out www.themichaeldband.com for tour dates, etc.  And if for some crazy reason you don’t already have either of our 2 albums yet, go to I-TUNES right now and pick them up.  We hope you’ll love them. 

Lastly, like I have been doing per your suggestion, below are lyrics to another song off of our current album.  I hope they help.  Thanks for reading this ‘extended’ version of “The Road Is My Needle”.  And don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page to receive email notification when I post each entry.

“Friends Like These”

I’ve spent all these years out on the road

From town to town and show to show

But the one thing you can’t get back is time

I’ve got a wife at home I never see

Hope she don’t end up leaving me

But if she does I guess the blame’s all mine

I’ve lost touch with my best friend

It’d sure be nice to spend some time with him again

But when the lights come up and I hit the stage

It all just seems to fade away

For a little while I can finally be free

when you sing along to the songs I write

you want an encore at the end of the night

I’m glad I get to be with friends like these

Another sleepless night on the interstate

Don’t know where we are anyway

Is that Omaha, or am I north of Tennessee

I’d give anything for my own bed

Or a home cooked meal but like that song said

“I’m right where I need to be”

Guess it’s part of paying your dues

At least I get to share these moments with you

So when the lights come up and I hit the stage

It all just seems to fade away

For a little while I can finally be free

when you sing along to the songs I write

you want an encore at the end of the night

I’m glad I get to be with friends like these

So just sing along to the songs I write

You’ll get an encore at the end of the night

Yeah I’m so proud to be with friends like these

Friends like these