It’s hard to be on your game all the time, and I won’t lie to you; sometimes I just don’t feel like doing my best. Sometimes I’m too tired or distracted to put my full attention into my playing. Maybe this applies more or less to people who play music “full-time” for a living, but quite often I find myself just going through the motions when I don’t feel like I need to give it 100%. Let me explain.

Obviously I’m not talking about doing this during a performance, because you owe it to your audience to do your best ALWAYS. I couldn’t imagine doing this to a fan who drove [fill in the blank] miles and paid [fill in the blank] money and spent [fill in the blank] hours waiting in line to hear me play. That’s just wrong.

No, I’d like to think that when the show starts I need to be in the “zone” and give it 100% (maybe 110% if I have it that night!).

What I’m really referring to is all of the other time that you spend not on the gig: line-check, sound-check, production meetings… Even rehearsals; these are all times that I start to lose focus and drift away in my need to be at attention. Here’s why – I’ve currently been on the road for the past 4 weeks, doing the same show night after night, and I’m REALLY tired of line and sound checks right now. We know the material, the cues, when to go up, what to do, what to play, where to go and what to wear (yes, in show-biz it ALL matters). Please believe me when I say that I AM NOT COMPLAINING at all about this. I love my job and am honored that I get to do this. And I truly understand why we have to do it all night after night; different FOH and monitoring engineers, different house LD’s, different lighting and sound systems… Everything needs to line up and we need to run through it all to make sure that there are no hiccups during the performance. I get it.

But I can’t ignore the fact that even though this may be the stage-hand’s first night with us, it’s not mine. Yet another unexpected drag to show-biz is the repetition of everything. EVERYTHING. And it kinda wears on you after a bit. In fact, in order to deal with the monotony an idleness of touring, in the past I have resulted to multi-tasking during these sound-checks. On my iPhone I’ll pull up a game of Sudoku (something that I am madly addicted to) and begin working on the puzzle WHILE we’re still playing the song. On the one hand I just like to see if I can do it, but I also like practicing splitting my brain in half. I DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING THIS unless you’re really comfortable with the material. I don’t wanna get you fired 🙂

Sometimes I try out new riffs or turnarounds, or pedal/bass/tone combinations that I don’t plan on ever using, or how many ways I can squeeze in the Jurassic Park or Top Gun theme song without anyone noticing (except the keyboard player; he’s ever watchful). This kind of keeps it fun for me and keeps me occupied while still giving everyone else on the job enough to work with so that they can practice doing what THEY need to do.

But here’s what I want you to keep in mind, and it’s something that I need to CONSTANTLY remind myself as I’m diddy-daddling during these “unimportant” moments on the job:

You never know who’s out there listening.

Last week I played a venue and was confronted by a man who is a 6-time Grammy Award Winner for Mixing; he said he had been there ALL DAY (even during our rehearsal) and was impressed. At first I thought, Wow, that’s awesome! Immediately my mind went to another place, however. Oh no! I hope I sounded good during soundcheck too… Did he hear me unplug my bass without the setting the tuner to bypass? Classic rookie mistake; I hope he doesn’t think I’m a newbie…” and so on and so on. Once I cut a record with a guy, only to find out later that he had worked on 5 Michael Jackson records, soundtracks for Lucas and Spielberg, and a slew of my bass idols over the years.

You just never know, and I fall short of this so much that it’s not even funny, but you always need to be conscious of what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. And it’s not just your playing that matters, but your attitude and behavior as well. Were you short with someone backstage? He may have been a fan that won’t support you anymore. Who else has the FOH mixed for, and what connections may he have that could benefit you? Don’t make him mad or he’ll never get you on that tour that he was thinking about recommending you for. Who’s sitting in the audience right now that could potentially work with you in the future? You just have NO CLUE, so make sure you always give it 110% so that you don’t ever run the risk of giving off a “bad impression” when you thought it didn’t matter. It all matters. Always. ESPECIALLY when you’re not playing – there’s tons of dudes I’ve never hired because I thought they were jerks EVEN THOUGH they were great players.

Anyways, I gotta get back to soundcheck now. Leaving the Sudoku behind 🙂