Touring

Wgg: O.k, to come back to the tour...

Do you have a setlist that you stick to?
Is it pretty much the same tunes you play each night?

Scott: Yeah. Although we have a few switchovers. But if one tune starts sounding better than another one we usually just keep playing it until or unless somebody says, "I'm really sick of that now. Can we play something else."

It's hard to play the same music day in and day out, even the tunes that are mainstays that always sound good. You still get tired of hearing them and I try my best to try to come up with new stuff to play on the tunes.

But you can't reinvent yourself every night.

So there's a lot of repeated shit... which makes touring hard for me. It's listening to myself play the same shit over and over and over. That drives me nuts.

Wgg: So how do you deal with that? When that happens do you go like, "Damn, I played the same lick over that passage again?"

Scott: Yeah, you do. But in a way you can't.

Because you are who you are and you have the vocabulary that you have. You can't invent a new vocabulary every night. All you can do is try to add to the one that you've got.

On the road that's not really that easy because you don't have a chance to practice in the day... a very little chance to practice during the day.

Wgg: What's a regular day on the tour like for you?

Scott: You wake up and you get in the van and drive for like... however long you drive and then you usually get there just in time to have maybe an hour in your hotel room and then you go to soundcheck and eat dinner and play. That's it.

It's pretty much travel during the day and play at night. There's not a lot of time for practicing.

Wgg: You don't kind of think, "O.k, I'll go on tour and that's what I'm going to work on on the side, do a little songwriting or composing?"

Scott: I always bring tools to do that and I never use them. I have my little recorder ready to go and my computer ready to go with Digital Performer and I have a Pandora that I can plug into my computer.

I've never written a note of music on the road. Even though I could if I wanted to.

I don't have time and not even the energy because after all the travel you just wanna rest sometimes or watch TV or have just a little bit of personal time to yourself.

So I don't accomplish a lot on the road outside of just playing the gigs. It'd be nice if I did, but I never do.

Wgg: Do you get a chance to check out some of the cities?

Scott: Oh hell no!

Wgg: Maybe now you'll do. You have 4 or 5 days in Vienna.

Scott: Yeah, this is unusual to be able to. Actually, I'm just resting because I've been so sick for the last three weeks. I'm just kind of laying in bed and watching TV.

I just wanna be well by the time I go home. This is the worst flu I have ever had. I never had a flu like this before. I've never been sick for more than a week in my life. So this really hit me hard and it's really hard for me to believe I could be sick for this long.

The doctors we saw in Germany said that's the whole thing about this particular strain of flu. It hits you and it doesn't go away. It's like a real bastard.