I was just thrilled to get the gig to begin with. Ten years later to still have it is not only thrilling but also somewhat of a puzzlement.
I realized that performing was what I wanted to do when I did my first professional gig as a dancer with my company Synergy in Canada. I was overwhelmed with how it felt to perform in front of an audience.
I see myself as a comic but the acting helps sell tickets for gigs.
I felt (a) it was a great role and (b) I wanted to stay in town. I wanted to stop going to these four month and five month gigs up in Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver or down in Mexico. I wanted to be around my son, Max. This came along and I was like, 'I really want to play this guy!'
Just to be around that, to feel a part of it and be able to integrate the experience while I was with the Messengers, of going and playing gigs with other drummers, gave me the chance to realize that it was not just me that was making it happen.
I've been to two stadium gigs in my life. One was James Brown and the other was Pink Floyd. They both sounded the same. I couldn't tell the difference between James Brown and Pink Floyd. I've never liked stadiums.
We played some gigs in Switzerland a couple of weeks ago and it was the first time I really felt the group was really a band in the sense of something I could write for.
Yeah, it can be a make-or-break thing. Absolutely. A performing songwriter can come to the Folk Alliance and play in front of a room full of people and have 60 or 70 gigs booked out of this thing.
We've never done a big tour! At the moment we're juggling our gigs around work but hopefully that won't be the case come May.
I don't get much downtime, that's for sure. We generally make three separate tours of Europe each year alone. Then there's Asia and other foreign countries as well as plenty of gigs in the U.S. My son books all my dates and he does a wonderful job, so I can't complain about my schedule.