Wanna Get Signed? Get In The Van! (9 Steps to Help You Plan Your Next Tour)

Your band has been around for a couple of years. You’ve got 1,132 Facebook “fans”, you’ve self recorded and released an EP or maybe a full-length, and you are regularly invited to play with national headliners who come through your town. Everything looks to be headed in the right direction, but you just can’t seem to get a label to help you put out your next record and get you on tour, no matter how many promo CDs and EPKs you send out. Why can’t you get even a nibble?

Probably, the reason is you suck.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

But seriously, there are lots and lots of sucky bands with label support, so why can’t you seem to get anyone interested in helping you out?

Hey Kid, Get in the Van. I’m a Friend of Your Mother’s.
If you haven’t already shown the ability and desire to work your ass off on the road, most labels won’t even consider signing you. Put yourself in their shoes: why should they invest several thousands of dollars and many hours of work to promote a band who only plays to the same fifty people once or twice a month? Even if they did spend the considerable time and money it would take to put you on the road, they would still probably lose their ass when your band breaks up after three months due to the stress of touring. Much as the guys who run the smaller labels do it for the love of the music, they still have to eat, put gas in the car, shoes on their kids’ feet, and have enough money left over to press a record now and then. Taking a gamble on a non-touring band simply makes no sense. If the band isn’t confident enough to invest in itself, why should a label?

Seriously, I’ve Got a  Puppy in the Van. Don’t You Want to Pet him?
Becoming a touring band takes a little risk and a lot of hard work, but the only way to not be just a local band is to not be just a local band. Leaving the comfortable womb of your local scene is the ONLY way to build a bigger fan base and convince a label or agency to help you out. Like the bank that will only qualify you for a loan if you don’t need it; labels will only work with you if you’ve proven you can do it without their help. So where does one start?

1. Start By Booking Your Band.
No, I’m not being a smart ass. The very first step to booking a tour is picking the start and end dates and getting commitments from your band mates so they can make arrangements with their spouses/work/parole officers to be gone at that time. You need to get everyone in the band on board before you can even think about booking the shows. It’s a major bumout to be halfway through booking a three week run and have the bass player inform you that he’s already planned a trip to Hawaii in the middle of it.

2. Pick a route.
Google Maps is indispensable with this part of the planning. As a rule, I try to keep drives shorter than eight hours. This keeps fuel costs down and limits wear-and-tear on the band. Even the most professional and seasoned road dogs start to get a little cranky after ten hours in the van with a bunch of stinky band mates. Unfortunately, if you’re a west coast band you are in for some long drives, but they don’t all have to be marathons if you plan carefully. I like to plan tours on a spreadsheet with the date in Column A, and with other columns for City, Venue, Drive time, Contact Info, and notes. This helps me keep everything straight, because my memory just isn’t what it used to be.

3. Walking in a Winter Wonderland.
If you’re touring in winter, be mindful that winter weather can turn a four hour cakewalk into a thirteen hour nightmare if your route takes you over a mountain pass or if you are unlucky enough to get stuck in a blizzard. Plan accordingly, or take your chances rolling the dice. If you decide to take your chances, invest in snow chains.

4. Be Specific.
Once you have the route sketched out, you can start sending out the emails and making the calls to book the shows. Now you see why you pick the route first? You are much more likely to get shows if you are asking for a specific date. As long as you started the booking process a few months in advance (you are starting at least two months in advance, right?), you should be able to more or less get the dates you want in the cities you want, and only have to make minor adjustments to the schedule as promoters and venues start getting back to you. No sweat.

5.Reach Out, Touch Face.
Searching for venues by Googling the city name plus “music venues” can be successful, but it is a slow and frustrating process. The job can be made much easier by reaching out to everyone you know for contacts and help. So what if you don’t know anybody in Amarillo? Someone else has probably already toured there, and you probably know them. Most punk rockers are more than happy to share the names of promoters, bands, and venues with you, and those people will share their contacts, and so on. You can build an extensive network in no time just by asking a few friends.

6. Don’t Be a Dick, Dick.
Personal recommendations always go much further than a cold-email to a random venue. The beauty of having such a small scene is that everyone knows everyone else, and nearly everyone wants to help smaller touring bands along the way. The downside is that if you piss someone off, then you have not only lost them as a contact but also all the people that they could have recommended to you. So don’t go punching women in the face (or anywhere else).

7. (Meanwhile) Find a Tour Vehicle.
You don’t have to run out and drop thousands on a van right away, especially if you aren’t sure how much touring your band will be doing. There are alternative options. You can borrow or rent a van on the cheap from a friend or another band, or you can take your own car. By arranging (way ahead of time) to borrow cabs and equipment from the other bands you’re playing with on the tour, and with some creative packing, you can get three or four guys plus guitars and heads and drum breakables into a small hatchback. I once played part of a European tour with an amazing Slovakian metal band. The three of them and their equipment were on an eight week tour in a 1980’s Skoda. They were one of the punkest bands I’ve ever seen, and they weren’t even a punk band.

Some bands love the extra room in the van that a trailer allows. Personally, I don’t think the added fuel consumption, hassle, and danger is worth the little extra comfort. I’m a small guy though so your preferences may be different.

Note: it’s almost always as expensive to take one gas-guzzling larger vehicle as two more fuel efficient vehicles.

8. Show up on time and never cancel.
You never know when a gig is going to be crap, or when it might be amazing. Just because it’s a Sunday in a suburb doesn’t mean it’s going to be terrible. Just because it’s a Saturday night in a city doesn’t mean it will be great. The only way to know is to show up on time and play the gig.

9. Have Fun (don’t complain).
At the end of the tour you will be sick of it. You will be more than ready to sleep in your own bed and have sex with your girlfriend. However, after two days of being back at work, you’ll be jonesing to be back in the van. Remember this towards the end of a long, hard tour before you start making broad pronouncements about quitting the band the next time someone farts in the van.

So go forth and book your tour, and good luck!

Jan Quixote books and plays in the The Shell Corporation.