Previously published in SLUBS magazine, Brisbane Australia in 2012. 

This is an excerpt from a conversation I had with Alex Zhang Hungtai from Dirty Beaches. I did an actual interview with him via email but I decided to take from our previous conversations - It is a rich insight for young touring artists and one-man-bands on the road.

This email was in response to me, a then high schooler asking Alex what it is like being on the road alone for such long amounts of time.

Dirty Beaches: I recommend finishing high school first, but there are people out there like the dudes from black lips who never finished high school and just went on touring forever and it's amazing. After meeting them I realized it was only made

possible because they're like a band of brothers that supported each other through out thick and thin. You wouldn't have your brothers there to back you up if you're alone.

There are a lot of one man bands I've met over the years like US GIRLS from philly, John Maus, and countless other experimental one man acts, but touring by yourself is hard, man. Every person I've met said the same thing. I wouldn't recommend it.

You have to give consideration about the logistics too. Do you own a vehicle? Do you have a driver's license? Can you fix a car if it dies on the road? Are you willing to drive ten plus hours at a time just to get to the next show? Not only is it dangerous, but extremely tiresome. That's why you hear stories of musicians taking speed to drive late nights on tour, coz it helps you get to where you need to go on time.

I'd recommend finishing high school first. Then try and team up with other one man bands, or your friend's bands, and tour together and share the bill together. Not only will it help you cover costs and expenses, gas, food, lodging, but also protection against shitty people that you run into occasionally on the road. I'm not sure if you read Black Flag's "Get In The Van" tour book, we are already really lucky in comparison to their generation. No cell phones, no GPS, no internet, which makes things extremely hard. But still, it provides a realistic view of life on the road. Most famous bands you see and hear have tour managers, nannies that take care of them when they are on the road, which is what I'm trying to get on my tours, to have someone help you drive, stick up for you if you run into racists, or shitty promoters that try to rip you off with show money. If you tour alone, you would have to endure all that, and if you get sick, you're fucked dude.

There's no one to help you and you have a fever, and your voice is shot, and you gotta load in all the gear and drive ten hours to the next town with nowhere to sleep other than your car on a fucking cold night.

I'm saying this not to discourage you, because I went through this on my own, and if anyone can prevent that kind of experience, I'd recommend avoiding it. It's not worth it and it didn't make me a better person either. It just made me more sympathetic when I see bands touring that way and if I can help them in any way I can, I try to do so. On the last tour I ran into some friends of mine from the band Tonstartssbandht and RunDMT, they were train hopping illegally from Baltimore to Chicago but were caught half way, they had no money and hitch hiked their

way and eventually made it to Chicago in one piece. But when I saw them they were extremely fatigued and hadn't showered in weeks. I gave them a ride because I was heading east and dropped them off in Baltimore. 

I know that when I was in their situation I wished someone would help me, and I met a lot of people who did feed me and gave me five or twenty dollars to get more gas, etc but a lot of the time you're on your own when you tour alone.