I've worked behind counters serving food, and I've lived on the circus train, and I've led bicycle tours in Eastern Europe and the Balkans and Russia. I've been a key liner for a newspaper, I've done typesetting. Oh, all sorts of things.
But by us doing a lot on the road, we were able to afford things like videos on the tours, cartoons that we'd open up the shows with. We were doing that way back when and now it's the hippest thing to do. We're just coming back around, I guess trying to play catch-up.
It's still the height of every four years for me, regardless of Tours de France and everything: it's all about the Olympics.
It's important to learn to say no. With tours and all of that stuff, there are so many aspects that go into it, it's easy to have so many people around you saying, 'Oh yes, yes, you can afford this, you can afford this,' and then all of the sudden you've spent $20 million on your stage, and you're like, 'Where's my money?'
My only general rule was to steer away from things I played with the band over the past couple of tours. I was interested in re-shaping the Rising material for live shows, so people could hear the bare bones of that.
In pop music, the public usually see the results - the hit records, the Grammy Awards performances, the concert tours - but not all the work that goes into getting into the spotlight. And not everyone realizes that, even if you have a lot of talent, chances are you won't make it.
I don't like long tours. I find it much easier to go out for a short spurt every month.
I did most of my Ph.D. in Washington. They used to bring black kids through the lab for tours, and I was one of the few black researchers.
The 2018 tour is supposed to be a farewell tour. But you take farewell tours one at a time.
I also never went there when I was little because I was too busy working and traveling on national tours.
