Not Getting Rich

On exhaustion, fans, and trying to be better.

A few negronis following a marathon drive. The Getaway, Chicago. Sept 21, 2026.

We just got back from two weeks on the East Coast. We’re a four piece band with no driver, no tour manager, just the four of us handling everything ourselves. I did most of the driving. You get to a city, load in, soundcheck, play the show, load out, and then you drive again the next morning, half awake, running on whatever sleep you managed to grab.

We’re not selling out shows. That’s just the reality of where we’re at. But every night, people showed up who genuinely cared. People flew in from San Francisco. Drove up from Uttica, New Jersey, Cleveland…

What got me most were the conversations after the shows. People coming up, trying to describe how the music affects them, something personal, something they couldn’t fully put into words. I know exactly what they mean, because I have that same relationship with certain music myself. Damien Jurado does that to me. So does Elliot Smith. Something that reaches all the way down to the center of you. Having people describe that same feeling about something I made, that’s not a small thing. That’s the whole reason to keep doing this.

We’re also selling our own merch every night, no one else to hand that off to. It’s exhausting, one more thing piled onto an already long day. But it also means I’m the one standing there afterward, talking to people, hearing their stories, actually connecting with them one on one. Exhausting, but I wouldn't trade it.

Touring like this is hard. I got homesick more than once. But then you meet someone who traveled six hours to be there, and it puts everything back into perspective. We’re not getting rich. We’re playing to people who actually care, who connect with the music the way I connect with the music I love. That’s rare. That’s worth something.

But there’s a cost to doing it this way, and I didn’t fully see it until Robbie pointed it out. When I push myself past my limits, driving all day and then performing at night, running on empty, I get worse as a person. Less patient. Less empathetic. More judgmental with the people I’m closest to. On this tour, I said some things to Robbie I shouldn’t have. He’s one of my dearest, oldest friends, and he told me how it made him feel. It hit me to the core, because that’s not who I want to be. Not with my band, not with anyone.

I’ve always needed to keep getting better. Better musician, better person. But that only works if I actually have the awareness to see when I’m falling short, and the humility to let the people around me tell me the truth when I do. Robbie did that. I needed to hear it.

We’ve got a European tour coming up next, more challenges ahead, no doubt. But we’ll keep pushing forward, and keep trying to be better.