Good morning everybody. My name’s Alex Cameron, and I’m a professional. What kind of professional? The best kind: I’m a bonafide, no shit taking, microphone wielding, three quarter erection having cold-blooded crowd killer. And with the help of my good friend and business partner Mr Roy Molloy, I’ve charmed audiences the world over; from beautiful places like Fort Wayne, Indiana to the famous Vanilla Cafe in Le-Pré-Saint Gervais. I’m the kind of professional that keeps the toilet door swinging, these audiences get so damn excited and damn near piss all on themselves.
I’m the kind of professional that checks theatre seats for wet patches after the show. And I’m the kind of professional that ensures the price of admission is well accounted for, regardless if the show is mine, or some lucky headliner’s that hit the jackpot and decided to hire me n Roy to raise the curtains. That’s right folks. You’re looking at the world’s hottest opening act. You’re reading the words of a man who made a living having his name in the small font. I’m so damn good at opening stages I even managed to put on three kilos this past year. That extra beef was earned from money and a stress related weight condition from working so damn hard.
Me n’ Roy Molloy don’t go half measure, we go full tilt. You ask our friends at Foxygen. You ask the fellows at Jack Ladder and the Dreamlanders. You ask Reuben and the Unknown Mortal Orchestra. You ask the one and only Mr Henry Rollins. We don’t fuck around. We earn respect from the bottom all the way through to the top. It’s something that we pride ourselves in. We’re professionals. And over time I’ve learned that there’s a certain way to go about things on tour to make sure your peas stay on your knife. I’ve come close to losing the plot based on my behaviour on tour. I’ve come home from the road only to find out that ain’t my home anymore. I’ve shacked up with people I can barely hold down a conversation with just for a roof. People like to think they could do tours if only people heard their music on the internet, or the national broadcaster cut them a break. But touring is work. It’s a tight ship. You don’t get to have your anxieties. You don’t get to vent your emotions. And if you’re the support act you can multiply the trials and tribulations by a grand fold.
Get ready for some legitimate zero respect circumstances. I’m talking about parking cops laughing at you. I’m talking about in house sound guys eating pad-thai while you’re playing and forgetting to turn the front of house on. And I’m talking about not inviting anyone you love back stage cause the headline act might decide to charm them and steal them from you forever. These are legitimate possibilities. So to avoid certain circumstances, certain emotions and certain sensations from running down my spine, I’ve developed a system for getting by. You don’t become the world’s finest opening act by walking around acting like a headliner. Save the celebrations for the big show when people give a shit about you. You wanna know how to tour right read these tips. These are Roy Molloy’s tour tips for support acts brought to you by Alex Cameron and the Crawfish.
Touring is tough, and being the support act is even tougher. The road is long and treacherous, so heed the advice of the world’s no. 1 support act, Alex Cameron.
Complete contracts
Due to Visa issues my dear friend and business partner Alex ‘Ken’ Cameron was runnin’ 5 days behind sched’, so the plan was I’d buy a car in LA and he’d fly Sydney to Reno, where I’d pick him up and drive us to the first show in Idaho. Simple. We’d pooled $2500 US together for the purpose of buying a vehicle and I opted for an ’88 Cadillac Coupe Deville. One of the perks of having the Cadillac is that above the speed of 85 Miles per hour the speedometer just stops counting for sweet ignorance and she lowers to the road and becomes like a leaf in the wind. Driving the way we were we managed the seven hour drive to Boise Idaho into a five hour blissful cruise. If it weren’t for the minor technicality of a time zone shift, “Mountain Time”, the local coats called it, we would’ve been right on time.
Contract complete though. Money in the glove compartment. Man, what a vehicle she is. The Duchess. Take a look at her back seat. That’s two business suits hanging neatly above a couch sized back passenger space. What I’m sayin’ is you gotta complete contracts. If you’re not there outta necessity then you may as well not be there at all. Make the concert. Get the envelope with the cash in it. You need wheels you can trust, like the Duchess, and supporting a headliner is a scavenger job. If you don’t have the chihuahua DNA, and the dog car to go with it then go find a nice standalone in the suburbs and be a golden retriever or some shit.
Hitch-hikers
People often ask me if I’d ever pick up a hitch-hiker. Hell yeah I’ll pick up a hiker. I’ll even pick up any outdoor specialist needs a ride. One time I picked up this rock climber from Los Angeles. He had all this synthetic THC which made me have confused, rage filled thoughts. Made me realise why they call that place the city of Angeles. He had the name of Sandy and he came with me all the way to Reno in me n’ Ken’s 88 Cad. Guy had one clean, low ponytail. Damn. I ditched him at an Indian Casino and I think he stole one of my Adidas. Point is sometimes your business partner is going to be on the red eye.
Sometimes he’s going to making a radio appearance in Maddison Wisconsin. Other times he’ll be coiled up in some hotel somewhere suffering from self diagnosed agoraphobia. You’re gonna need company for the long solo drives is what I’m saying. You need to maintain a sense of urgency, and be adequately uncomfortable so you don’t drift off. My only rule with hitchhikers is if you see em and they look like they need a ride pick em up. What goes around comes around, and I believe in social trust. Make em ride up front and put all their belongings in the trunk.
Weather Systems
You wanna make sure you know your weather systems. Know the difference between the coldness of a Colorado bleater and the hot, witch like gasps of a diabetic Georgian rain storm. What I mean is some storms gonna make the road turn to ice, others gonna come down pissing hard make everything in front of you a great river of unknown. What I like to set up is a co-pilot type situation. I get Ken in the back letting me know of any bypassing trucks in the left lane. I slow the Cad down to around 60mph, and I get damn near half off the road with my nose right up on the windscreen.
I also focus on the fact that one untrue move could destroy my reality forever. That makes for a real vigilant vibe in the car, and maintains the kind of alertness that saves rock shows. If you come across a Nebraskan super storm that ain’t my problem. They got lightning over there that runs from the ground up to the sky and all the way across to the horizon. A friendly woman in Omaha told Ken that if we ever see a tornado it’s too late and that we gotta find a ditch to lie face down in. Cars can’t outrun those things and you don’t wanna get chopped in two by a rogue piece of sheet metal. Stay living.
Maintain Respect
Listen, Ken’s right, bein’ the support act means you’re gonna find yourself in some legitimate zero respect circumstances. You ever felt the wind get burnt from your wings? You ever felt some phantom limb keepin’ your head below water waiting for you to suck in and drown? It can be hard to maintain perspective, but you gotta keep your eye on the prize. In this circumstance the prize is establishing an international business network for the purpose of hot cash injections. Don’t make me spell it out for you, and you don’t have to be an arse kisser, but use respect and your personality to show potential global affiliates you ain’t a total piece of shit.
Be good to people. Don’t be an antisocial coward. And don’t for one second get the self pity in you. I’ve seen acts pick up 30 dates supporting hot bands across the globe and come home with nothing but complaints. The crowds didn’t like us. The rider was warm. The sound guy didn’t respect my requests. No one wants to hear that shit. No one’s forcin’ you to be there. And you know what? The bar manager at one of the venues might a been in a bind with a couch that needs moving or a sick cat that won’t die, so start throwing favours around and watch the work roll in. Trick to killing a cat is use antifreeze. Something about the smell attracts them and the death, apparently, is near instant.
Get lean
Me and Ken ran outta money countless times. It’s the nature of the experiment. Touring’s expensive. NY was a particularly dire one. We had 45 dollars, a cheque from the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame: Cleveland that’d bounced and a car that wouldn’t start. Trick is if you got no dollars just to use what you got at hand. Engage your skill set. You can stand in the aisles at Walmart and just eat all the package ham you want. Go to the casino and you better believe some large and natural babe’s gonna buy you drinks. Need a place to sleep? Just park up in a council carpark and lay back, friendo.
Sleepin’ in your car ain’t a big deal. I advise you to avoid the back seat foetal position due to spine alignment problems. Just put the front seat back, don every piece of clothing you own and get ready to ride the wave. I had one of the more restful sleeps of my life in the carpark of the Winston-Salem Eldorado Resort. Ken once found a whole row of free seats on a packed delta flight on account of there being bags of sanitary waste stowed there. That’s a free bed to any professional opening act. After he asked me why he smelled of copper and I said I had no idea. What I’m sayin is get ready to get lean. Get your act stripped back to two guys and a sedan and get ready to live the life. Extra baggage and dignity costs money so you’ll have to do without them for a while or possibly forever.
Hygiene
I found showers pretty few and far between when on tour, so leap at any opportunity. In lieu of a shower try brushing your teeth in the carpark by streetlight. In my experience it can be both great for personal hygiene and a wonderful way to meet local sociopaths. You combine that with a change of socks and a terse look in a store front window and you’re basically good as new. When you do get to shower always remember to wash your dick fellers. If nothing else do wash your dick. A simple rule is that if you can smell your genitals from a standing position then you need a shower.
I forgot to wash my dick in Brisbane this year and next thing I’m at a petrol station in Melbourne standing tippy toes tryin’ wash my hog in the sink. Not great for vibe. Need to get clean but you ain’t got a place to stay? Hit up the local pool or community centre. I got a beautiful weights sesh and a swim in Fort Wayne’s beautiful YMCA facility, plus a nice shower with a couple of the local boys. You can form a lifelong bond with a city just by goin dicks out with the boys in the community centre showers you guys. What I’m sayin’ is look after yourself. Bein’ clean and presentable is an easy way to prevent illness and revulsion from people you met. Bein’ a rat don’t mean you gotta smell like a rat. Look after your bodies.
Show Appreciation Through Yard Work
Look, me and Ken spent a lot a time on couches and I gotta tell you folks, when it comes to someone letting in a young dog to their house you really gotta go with the law of the jungle. It’s the support act code: if someone let’s you in their house out the kindness of their hearts you gotta hand em over a gift of whatever you got. And what me and Ken got are young backs and an attitude appropriate to hard work in the yard. Show us kindness and you better believe we gonna get those hedges trimmed up straight and that lawn trim and proper. Trick to yard work is you just grab the tools at hand and start howin’ in.
I once hit a yard flat with a bit a timber I found behind a shed. I seen Ken on his hands and knees with kitchen scissors just makin’ some geraniums act the way he likes. Pictured is us working hard in our mate TD’s house in Asheville. What I’m sayin’ is get stuck in and give it a red hot go. There’s people out there who’ll let a greasy deranged musician sleep on their couch and they deserve tidy yards.
Loneliness
I like Richmond, hell, I like Melbourne. Our good friend Lost Animal put us up a couple a nights. Gave us run of his beautiful semi-detached house and it was a real weight off to have a safe space and a bit a privacy, but there’s a flip side to that coin and that is the Llneliness. Bein’ all alone’s part of the game you guys. Bein’ all by yourself on someone’s couch in a foreign city while your business partner’s out buying hair product is just something that’s just gonna happen and again, it’s all about the mind set. Think about numbers rolling by on a screen.
Think about throwing batteries at a protesting crowd of racists. Do a quick set of push ups. Can’t sleep? Just stare at the cracks in the roof and let your thoughts take a walk. Watch the blinds move. Think about self respect. It ain’t illegal for a young dog to be a confident and independent man, nor is it wrong to be in touch with your emotions. Worst come to you can just get online. Chat with beautiful men and women online. They’re out there. Trust me. I spent the afternoon chatting with some lovely gay gentlemen off the Tinder. It’s quite a life you guys.
The lesson is to learn to love your loneliness, cause it’s gonna get pretty barren out there on the road. Everyone copes with it in different ways. Some people go vacant and stay that way the rest of their lives. Some guys hit the chat rooms. Some hit the parlours. Others hit the booze. I even heard of people who are comfortable with their own presence. Just do what you gotta do you guys.
Women
We played a show at a venue called the Elvis Guesthouse in NY. We’d spent the day drinking with a beautiful Jewish girl known as Em Panic, eating Chinese food, relaxing. We’d been on the road a month and we’d finally managed to book what seemed to be a popular gig in town. When things are goin’ hot like that, even for a morning, prepare yourself for a message from your girl to the tune of “I can’t do this any more”. See, the problem with bein’ a musician is women lose any respect they might’ve had for you in the first place, especially if you’re leaving them at home just to be a damn support act. It’s the kind a game that requires a level of self absorption, and a physical distance makes it hard to remember you’re loved.
If you got a girl, prepare yourself to be emotionally abandoned. And remember this: no show you ever do is ever fun. This where you get to do your complaining. To your woman. Or your man. I don’t care if you just received the Number One Entertainer Award at the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame: Cleveland. You had a shit time and can’t wait to come home. Believe me it’s better this way. You also gotta prepare for strange women to contact you online with the words and the pictures. They prey on support acts for reasons of they know you’re in direct contact with the headliners. Playin’ college towns? Dang. Nothin’ stress old Roy out like some young and lustful honeys lookin’ to move their bodies. But that’s your job so swallow any feelings you got and work your body for money.
Blowing off steam
Ken’s got a rule about touring. He says we’ll start partying like headliners when we’re headliners and until then it’s business time. But my finding is that you gotta unleash the beast from time to time. You gotta take a stroll to 70th if the parking’s all full up on 69th. And the best place for that in any city is the local strip joint. Sometimes, after opening up a red hot sold out show and getting zero respect from the staff and audience, the only cure is a cute little arsehole peering out from behind a streak of warm material, flappin’ open and shut amongst a firm set of generosity.
Sometimes when you get paid half of what you’re owed, and the city won’t cash your cheque based on reasons of distrust, you need to see the precision and control a dancing girl uses when she gives you a glimpse of her never not ever and guides your eyes up her body past her little powdered belly all the way to where you’d kiss your cousin in a nightmare. It’s a soothing thing. And it ain’t about disrespecting women. We’re all our here getting paid to entertain. The best thing bout strip clubs is that if you take a photo someone breaks your fingers, and you can always pick up the car in the morning. What I’m getting’ at is that a young dog’s gotta blow off steam, just keep it to a controlled burn you guys, or you’ll end up wrestling with your business partner in the carpark just soaked in rain and surrounded by strangers.
