Musicians Advice - Part 1: on touring, stage fright, self-doubts
What are your top tips to make touring easier? What works and what doesn't?
Max Cooper: For me, the main trick for touring is to figure out how to keep the stress levels down. Travelling to the airport, getting on the flight, turning up to the venue, setting up and getting to the point of the gig with the minimum amount of stress. I make sure I’m running early rather than late. When I’m travelling I try to feel relaxed and do something enjoyable: I read a lot, listen to audiobooks and try to learn. If I can keep the stress levels down I have way more energy, the gig will generally go better, and then for the next day’s travelling I’ll have more energy, and so it continues. Whereas if I get in late and things are hectic and the set-up is not working properly then the stress levels go up and it burns a lot of energy. Touring can get very exhausting, so when energy levels get too low I start becoming more forgetful and then more things go wrong and it spirals out of control.
Niv from Red Axes: To help me on the road I wear comfortable travel wear; I load my bag with good movies, books and albums, which kill time in a very rewarding way; I carry good headphones, particularly noise-cancelling ones, and also my Nintendo Switch portable console, which is a good reminder to connect with my inner child. Other tips that help me take responsibility during touring are to be friendly, meet the locals and stay open to different cultural habits; to eat healthily, sleep as much as possible and to exercise. I also try to stay positive and control my desires.
Beside a cheeky drink, how do you ease performance anxiety before a show?
Max Cooper: I do have a drink to be honest, especially when I’m playing club shows. It's a bit easier when I'm playing a sit-down concert where people are more sober, then I share the same sobriety. For me playing gigs is all about getting into the same mindset than the audience, enjoying it as much as them, and for us to share an experience. That's when the gig really works. So if I'm playing in a club at 6am, then I need to have a drink to get into that state of sharing and to ease the anxiety. Playing shows is enjoyable but also stressful, so having one or two drinks eases that. Also, practice makes perfect: the more you do it, the easier it gets and you learn the pitfalls. Being well-prepared is helpful: it's really important that you don't end up in a stressful situation mid-set, when something goes wrong and you don't know how to deal with it. Being familiar with your own and the venue’s equipment is also useful. Having a good idea about what you want to do, but staying flexible helps too. I’m totally against pre-planned sets: you have to see what’s going on in the venue, look at what time you’re playing and gauge what the soundsystem or the people are like. It varies every time and you have to adjust your set to compensate for all these things.
Niv from Red Axes: It's not magic but a long process to work out: you need to train yourself to be in the moment and keep it real. You need to be confident and prepared, and be ready to give your best. Having a disco nap before a gig also helps a lot sometimes.
It's very common for artists to doubt themselves or compare themselves to others. How do you overcome this?
Max Cooper: I don't know if you should overcome it. If you never doubt yourself or compare yourself to others, that can be a dangerous place creatively. From my perspective, the self-doubting, listening to other people’s music and having my mind blown and feeling inadequate (musically) is part of a process that allows me to grow. I need to keep learning and developing what I'm doing and I know I have a lot to learn. I feel that if I got to a point where I didn't doubt or question myself then my growing process would stop. It’s a balancing act: if you doubt yourself too much then you don’t release anything, it can be torturous so that’s a bad place to be as well. You have to find a healthy balance between being critical of yourself but also being confident enough about what you do. The key is to be realistic. There's so much noise, with trends and friends that are pushing you in different directions. You have to get your own value judgment system for music or whatever it is you’re doing creatively, and apply it. Have belief in your system for evaluating things, more so than just believing in the output of your work. The key is having a system that you don't doubt, rather than having an output that you don't doubt, so you can always improve but have your principles you can rely on.
You said you don't like things to be perfect, because you're not a machine but a person. What advice do you have for artists who struggle with perfectionism?
Jlin: I would tell them that balance is perfection. Mistakes in trying to find balance are vital. You have to make mistakes, otherwise there is no balance when it comes to success.
What do you wish you had known about making it in the music industry when you first started out?
Jlin: I don't have that wish at all actually. Everything in my life is aligned and is panning out exactly as it should.
Thanks to Max Cooper, Jlin and Red Axes for taking part in this interview - and be sure to check out Part 2