When you are a mom and a musician touring can be complicated. When you are often slightly broke, it’s also complicated. When your husband is in the band too, it’s even more complicated in some ways (as to who is looking out for the kids while you are playing) and less complicated in others (as to who you’re bunking with in the hotel room you all share). I think most musician moms are trying to figure out how to make it all work. How to bring everyone along and have it be a fabulous time for all. And maybe see some sites along the way without feeling like Chevy Chase in Vacation when he just held up the bartender and needed everyone to get a move on from the Grand Canyon. Or how to be away from your kids for just a little and totally make up for it when you come back? And maybe how to get an extra job just to keep investing in what you do. And is it all worth it? Are your kids getting something out of this or just you? And is it OK if it’s just you sometimes? If you are neurotic like me, that’s how it goes. And you grin when your kids refer to “our third album” and give yourself a little break from doubting yourself for a minute.
In the midst of all of these thoughts, it could be easy to abandon the idea of touring altogether, but when I take my own kids to see other bands play, I understand its impact from the audience’s perspective. A live show makes a dramatic difference. My kids may arrive at the venue mildly enthusiastic about a performer, but after they see the live show, they suddenly take that artist extremely personally. The next thing I know, I’m overhearing imaginary phone calls between my daughter and Justin Roberts, and the music is in rotation, rotation, rotation. So I think…yeah, gotta tour. At least a little.
Recently we hung out with some old friends for the first time in years, and, I have since heard, after we left their kids took a new interest in our music. Lunch Money was back in the CD players. An eleven-year-old was revisiting songs she had liked as a much younger child, and she was listening on a different level now. The songwriter in me could not have been more pleased to hear this. I mean, that’s what it’s all about.
So…new PR mission. Gotta tour. And gotta have lunch with everyone who has a Lunch Money record. Look out families, here we come. We’ll bring dessert! Do you like cookies?
