When you are in an international touring band there is always some sort of silent race going on with other bands. It’s not really a race because there isn’t really a finish line so it’s really a one up competition. Bands are always looking up to do the next bigger and better thing. Something better than what you buddies band is doing or has done. If you are touring a lot you want to get exposed to as many people as possible. You want new fans. Which mean you have to go and play for people that would not normally come to see you play. This is looking up. 
I remember seeing Clutch on tour with Sepultura in 1993. Clutch was one of the openers and they were playing for a total metal crowd. See how it works is they would come through as a supporting act and hopefully gain a bunch of new fans at that show and then they would come through as a headliner and hope that the new fans would come see them at their headlining show. This is how a lot of bands grow. This is also how a lot of bands die.
We talked in the last episode about starting a band and how I got my feet wet and gained some playing experience. Today we are going to talk about what it’s like when something takes off. How does that affect you and your relationships.
So my best friends in the world and I started this band called Spit. I was in 10th grade. This band was awesome because these were my friends, my boys, we did everything together. We went skateboarding, we went to theme parks, we went recording shopping and to shows. We did it all together. It was awesome!
Playing in band with people you know well is pretty awesome especially if you are on the same page musically. There is this every running band encyclopedia of terms and feels that will never end as long as music continues to be written. It’s about referencing music when writing music. All great artists steal we know that. But what people may not know is that other bands names are throw around every single day in studios and practice spaces all over the world. When a band is writing a song it’s not uncommon for someone to say something like “give me more of a Bonham type beat” or “let’s do a prince type vocal break right there”. And when you are in a band with your best friends and you all listen to the same music together because you are together every day you can almost play it before they say it because you just know. The idea that I have enough space in my brain to remember 6,000 different drum parts that I didn’t write but can reference at any time just blows me away. Music and rhythm is powerful and it sticks in our brains like the craziest of glue!
So in 1994 Spit recorded and released our first cassette that we called “Blue Collar”. It was a lot of songs that were kind of angry talking about things like getting kick out of class at school or how our families worked these blue collar jobs for pretty much nothing.
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