July 7, 2026 • 46 mins
Dan Lavery is a New Jersey based multi instrumentalist musician, most prominently known for his role as the bassist in 90's Alt/Rock band 'Tonic' - whose breakout hit 'If You Could Only See' was recognized as rock radio's most-played song of 1997.
Originally part of the band 'True', Dan decided to relocate to Los Angeles in the mid 90's to try and further his career. A decision that ultimately ended up being life changing for him.
Dan talks to me about this, touring the world, his stint with 'The Fray', following ones passion and even his key roles on management teams for artists like Adam Lambert and Joe Jonas.
For more information on Dan or Tonic, please search for him across all socials (@DanLAvery) or visit - www.toniconline.com.
For further information on Travis Marc or 'Musicians-Mentor' website, please visit www.musicians-mentor.com
As usual, thanks for checking out the channel and if you're getting anything useful from this content, please feel free to comment, like, share and subscribe, thank you.
You can support this #podcast by - Visiting our affiliate page with the lovely folks over at -
'Soundbrenner'. https://www.soundbrenner.com where you can use code TRAVISMARC-DEAL for 20% off of their products.
Big thank you to our good friends over at -
'Boom Boom Drum Pillows' for sponsoring today's episode.
Make sure you check them out for the best drum dampeners to enhance your drum tone with secure, handcrafted accessories - via www.boomboomdrumpillows .com
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Episode Transcript
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(00:06):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome tothe Musicians Mentor Podcast.
As usual, I'm your host Travis Mark, and with me on the show
today I am stoked to announce isone of my absolute favorite bass
players, Dan Lavery from the band Tonic.
Many of you may know of Tonic because they've had some
absolutely monstrous hits over the last few decades.
(00:29):
Songs like If You Could Only Seeor You Wanted More.
These singles were soundtracks to my upbringing really, and I
still think their records sound great, so it was so cool to have
Dan on the show. During the course of this
interview, we speak about several things touring, what it
takes to make it dance, Tom spent in key roles on management
(00:52):
teams for Adam Lambert and Joe Jonas.
We talk about relocation and mental health and just so much
more. So I'm going to quit my
blabbering. We can jump straight into this.
But before I do, please let me remind you to check out our
affiliation with the lovely folks over at Sound Brenner.
The link is in our show notes and I would also like to welcome
(01:12):
one of the first big announcements that I was
planning on making last week andthat is our new friends who were
kind enough to sponsor this episode over at Boom Boom Drum
Pillows. Boom Boom Drum Pillows are a
company that make dampeners and drum pillows to enhance your
drums tone for a perfect warm and ring free sound.
(01:32):
A very cool company who are verypro musicians and the best part
is all of the accessories are hand crafted.
Make sure you check out Boom Boom Drum pillows.com.
Once again, their link is in ourshow notes.
Can't thank them enough for coming on board.
This is just one of several new developments that I'll be making
over the next few weeks. Lastly, don't forget we're also
(01:54):
on YouTube now, so please do subscribe if you use that
platform. Otherwise, don't forget to leave
us a rating or review across your preferred streaming
service. For now, ladies and gentlemen,
let's jump straight into this. Please help me welcome the one
and only Dan Lavery with me on the Musicians Mentor podcast.
(02:20):
Today is musician extraordinaire, at least in my
opinion, the Tonic bassist Dan Lavery.
Dan, I hope your day is going incredible.
I can't thank you enough for your time, and I'm going to jump
straight into this in a fashion that maybe sort of seems like
we're kind of digging really farback, but we're going to try and
(02:41):
kind of cover as much ground as possible.
What I want to do is I want to start at the beginning.
I'd like to sort of decipher howyour interest in music began.
And furthermore, you know, I dida bit of research.
I know you grew up in Jersey, sotalk to me about were you
already playing in bands in Jersey before you moved to LA,
(03:03):
before you got involved with Tonic, all those kinds of
things? What was the Hoth?
Was it just a matter of like, hey, I dug music.
I was sort of seeing what happened.
Just tell me some of the beginning.
It's the well. Yeah, I mean, in the very
beginning I remember spontaneously unscrewing the
(03:25):
legs to a piano bench. It was like a vinyl seat
basically. They went to this electric organ
that my parents had and I would leave the other two on and then
it was kind of like a lean to situation and I would bang on it
and listen to like Beatles records.
There were 8 tracks that my parents had, you know, and
(03:46):
nobody taught me to do that. I just figured it out one day.
Just I had to play. Like I just had to play and
dramas in particular really was that was my first instrument and
that's what spoke to me the loudest.
So when KISS records came out, when when I saw Destroyer in the
supermarket or whatever, like they had it everywhere, right?
(04:09):
And that informed a lot. You know, I started really, I
got into KISS. My parents, as I mentioned, were
always into The Beatles and coolstuff like Arlo Guthrie and
Janis Joplin really, really coolit musical influences.
At home though, nobody was really like a particularly a
musician. My father played acoustic guitar
and sang around the house. It was like a music friendly
(04:32):
household. So yeah, it's as soon I was like
10 years old and I got a bass drum and a snare drum for
Christmas and I still have that drum kit.
It survived Hurricane Sandy because I left it behind when I
moved to LA and I just started playing.
Yeah. I found some friends who I have
a good friend who grew up in this town who was great guitar
(04:55):
player at a young age. And we were walking to soccer
practice one day and we both just went, let's just go jam,
right? Like, we're just like, fuck
this. We just turned around and went
home, you know? And that was like the beginning
of this whole journey right there.
You know, it's really, really cool.
It was like a real turning point.
(05:16):
And then we formed a band, we played cover songs, we played
all the coolest like stuff in the 80s.
It was just like new music like Pure and Smiths and Cults.
Like really we having a really cool eclectic setlist for
covers. And then I just started writing
(05:37):
music on top of that. So I learned how to taught
myself to play guitar and piano and I guess incidentally bass
guitar by knowing guitar a little bit.
So yes, the long answer to your question or the shorter answer
is that I did play in bands in Jersey.
I had two friends in high school.
(05:57):
Sorry, I had two friends from I went to Rutgers University and
also in New Jersey. I graduated with a degree in
electrical engineering and my buddy who the same guy that
turned it was when we were like 14, left soccer practice, was
also an engineer at Rutgers and he got transferred to Southern
California. He was graduating before me and
(06:19):
he's like, you guys got to come out.
You know, our our other high school friend who is a fantastic
drummer had already gone to Musicians Institute out there.
So he was out there and he said,let's just play some gigs, have
a laugh, come out, you know, we'd go out for six months, get
famous, come right back to Jersey and celebrate at the
parade, you know? So, yeah.
(06:43):
So basically a lot of those sameearly people were part of my
formative years of, of, you know, trying to be in the music,
trying to exist in the music business, you know, and then
obviously it didn't, it wasn't six months that I went to LA at
the age of 22 and I decided to move back to Jersey during the
(07:06):
pandemic after having been therefor, you know, over 30 / 30
years. Wow, yeah.
So the band that was the collegekind of band with your friend
originally from the soccer practice, is that the band true?
Yes, that so that that became true.
Two of us. My my neighbor from from Rutgers
(07:27):
was a keyboard player, so he played keys.
That friend from high school andRutgers was a guitarist.
And then we had our friend from high school who was the drummer
out there who had had really themost experience of all of us.
We formed that band and then we we did a lot of great stuff.
You know, we had like super early positive signs like we got
(07:49):
this, people would come to our shows.
We got offered publishing deals.We eventually took a publishing
deal pretty early on and made a record at some point.
But just, you know, constant struggle.
We were just hustling all the time.
We didn't know anybody when we moved out there.
We would have a gig at Madame Wong's West and all these places
(08:11):
that no longer exist, and we would invite every single person
we ever met to our house afterwards just to make it like,
come to see this band play. You're going to a party.
That's awesome. Yeah.
And that was just our marketing machine, you know, that you'd
have to like, make Flyers or something back in the day or
postcards. And we'd invite the person
(08:32):
behind the counter like, oh, youwent, hey, thanks for making
these. Whatever you want to come to a
show tonight. Come, you're having a party to
place later. It was right by Rock'n'roll.
Ralph's on Sunset or our little bungalow, Hollywood bungalow.
It's amazing. I've been bands my whole life,
so I can relate to the Flyers and the parties and and I do
feel that while social media is incredible and we'll possibly
(08:56):
talk about this a little bit later, that those formative
things that you do as a young band to try and make it, they
develop such chemistry within bands.
And, you know, yeah, you just like any band, I suppose at a
(09:17):
point you start to see where certain guys might break or, or,
or not or thrive, right. But let's talk about this just a
little bit. I'm going to try and dissect
your previous answer into one ortwo different roads here.
The first Rd. is OK, 22. We wired different at 22 than
(09:40):
when we get older. But it takes a lot of courage to
leave your hometown and, you know, go somewhere to try and do
something. Yeah.
So I want to talk a little bit more about that.
I don't necessarily need you to say exactly what you're feeling.
Obviously, you know, to rememberwhat was felt on a day is near
(10:01):
impossible. But talk to me about the like,
were your families nervous? Were you guys nervous?
Was it just a matter of we're going to do this and what
happens, happens? And then in addition to that, if
you wouldn't mind, I'd like to sort of segue into this
marketing sort of strategy. The, the parties, the Flyers.
(10:21):
Like talk to me about and, and again, things have dramatically
changed because of the Internet and things like that, but talk
to me about maybe some advice ortips that you would potentially
offer Anybody who's in a band may be listening to this
interview thinking, well, I'm going to go somewhere and do
(10:42):
something. What would you say that they can
do to try and get out there, especially based on the fact
that things have changed? Well, the first thing is that
tiny community that I had, whichwas three friends and myself,
there were four of us and we lived in the first six months.
We literally lived in the corporate housing that my friend
(11:03):
had been given by, I think he worked for Nabisco at the time.
So we lived, we were living in Anaheim, which wasn't even
really LA. We would go out, try to meet
people. Obviously we were trying to meet
girls. We were four young single men on
a mission to become like rock stars.
And we would tell everybody all about it.
And we were, you know, nice enough people.
So we, we made friends along theway.
(11:24):
But we had each other. And I had this, you know, notion
of like, probably like every kidthat goes to LA and especially
at that time that, you know, let's try everything.
So I went and got head shots andI was going to be an actor or a
musician or like whatever happened blew up first, right?
(11:46):
And what I can say, and maybe this is a piece of advice, was
like, oh, absolutely not. Like you got to fucking focus,
you know, particularly if you want to be a musician because
you come from a cool small town and you're the best drummer,
guitarist with a singer, writer,whatever it is.
And so is every other person in LA.
(12:06):
They're your age. They're they're younger, they're
more handsome, they're smarter, they're faster, whatever it is
like you are going to be up against it.
So know what you want to do, figure it out, figure it out
what you want to do and then do that thing, you know, So I
quickly abandoned. I wasn't like an extra in a
couple of things, a show called 30 something.
(12:27):
It was like featured extra or something.
And that was the end of my acting career until, you know,
Tonic got onto some soap operas or something, you know, we did
music videos, but you know, and that was also I found that I am
a band guy. Like I just the idea of going to
(12:48):
a, an audition and you're, you know, you show up to the top of
the Taff building in Hollywood, top floor, and you walk in and
there's like 20 dudes there who are wearing a black T-shirt,
have like longer black hair and look just like you.
And the guy comes out and goes you, you, you, you, you, you.
Thank you. And everybody else just leaves,
you know, and you're like, that is abrupt and brutal.
(13:13):
It's just brutal, you know? So at least with the band, we
could we could play like, you know, Tuesday night at 1:00 AM
at the Coconut teaser. And we'd have each other.
We'd be laughing and drinking and having a good time.
And we'd eventually meet people that way.
But yeah, so know what you want to do.
And then just like, focus that hammer on that particular nail,
(13:35):
you know, because it's hard. That's awesome, man.
You know, and that's, you know, we can get into this more, but
like, that's a different time period as well.
Like that was be pre social media, so you couldn't become
famous in your bedroom the way you can now, right?
Just and in some cases all basedon real talent.
(13:56):
Yeah. You know, we had to get out and
be stupid. We were talking a little bit
about KISS before I hit record and it always amazes me if you
think about the scope of how youto band like Kiss got in 767778
(14:16):
all pre Internet and social media.
Yeah. Dude, that blows my mind.
You know, like just. No.
What the hell? No one better than those guys.
I I couldn't agree more. All right, let's shoot forward
just a little bit, right And we'll get back to this marketing
thing at some point. I'm definitely going to bring it
(14:37):
back to that. But so you land up in LA
eventually you join Tonic. Tell us the story because I want
to kind of take it forward from time.
One of the coolest. Moments in our Hollywood
existence was we played at the club lingerie one night as we
did this band true and and at the end of this set this older
(15:00):
older looking gentleman came up and he said hey, really like
your band. What's what's your name?
I said I'm Dan and he said you want to make a record.
I said that's our whole goal here.
You know, I said what's your name?
And he said it's I'm Paul Rothschild.
And I said well fuck, I know whoyou are.
You know. And like at that time I probably
knew like 3 producers like Phil Spector, George Martin and Paul
(15:22):
Rothschild because I was a huge Doris fan through a long period
of my life. And so he started to work with
us, like we started doing doing some stuff with him.
But he was also working with hisson Dan, who's himself a
talented producer and multi instrumentalist, but fantastic
bass player. And whatever we did with them
(15:44):
was a great, great learning experience and showcasing
whatever just didn't pan out to anything that we all wanted it
to be. But we may remained in touch
with Dan and I'll go see his band because he was in this band
called Radio Flyer, which becameConnie.
And at some point my group. We just had felt like we had
(16:06):
fought the good fight for as long as we could without any
like any more meaningful wins, you know, and that's another
thing you have to learn out there.
It's like when are you banging your head against the wall?
And we were growing, but like not, I guess in the right way.
We started before grunge, we couldn't get arrested because we
(16:28):
looked like 4 accountants from New Jersey.
Then after grunge, we couldn't get arrested because we look
like dudes who were finally catching up to like our hair was
longer. I don't know, it just looked.
We just couldn't get it right. And so we agreed to just take
some time off, which ended up being, you know, sort of when
everybody mostly not their separate ways, you know, but we
(16:49):
kept in touch with we kept in touch with Dan whatever and went
to see Tonic and, you know, justkind of we actually were on some
showcases together before our band split up.
And it was just kind of part of that orbit, you know.
So at some point, I guess the myfuture band mates decided they
(17:13):
wanted to part ways and yeah, I got a call and that was it.
You know, their manager said like, I don't know who you are,
but like, let's talk. I'm like, great, let's do that.
You know, I had been in a gotteninvolved with another band as
(17:34):
well between that first, you know, after my band broke up and
by the time before I got back talking Tonic, I was in another
band that had showed great promise, was signed to a new
record label called New Millennia.
It had a lot of money behind it and we had a record that was
going to come out. We went like tore up South by
(17:56):
Southwest and just this great promise.
And then just one day, like all the money evaporated.
Guys didn't get paid. A&R guys disappeared.
Our drummer then disappeared. Everything imploded, all in,
like a week. Then I got that call, and I was
like, yeah, yeah, let's talk, you know?
Yeah, I didn't love the idea of replacing somebody, particularly
(18:20):
somebody who, you know, was likea musician friend.
But like, I didn't have many options at that moment, you
know? That was shortly of the Lemon
Parade runs. So Lemon Parade came out, yeah,
in July of 1996, and I played myfirst shows in December of that
(18:43):
year, 1996. Quick.
Yeah, it was fast. Was that record blowing up
already or did that happen after?
No, we we thought we'd be back in.
My excitement level was about going back into the studio to do
a real record and they'd work with Jack Joseph, who was a kind
(19:04):
of a hero of mine because of Jellyfish.
And I think the Grays record hadalready come out at that point.
So I was like, I want to work with that guy, you know?
And we were like, yeah, you know, we'll probably tour for
three, 4-5, maybe six months andwe'll get back in the studio.
You know, they seem to have a lot of support at the label.
And one day we got on our OR busand the tour manager was just
(19:28):
like, you see the schedule changes and we're like, yeah,
what's going on? He's like, you're blowing up.
That's what's going on, you know, Like we had a single, it
just unexpectedly wasn't even a single that we chose blew up,
you know, and the next thing I knew, I was on the road for like
a few years. Yeah, that was, that was bad.
Like there's a snow turning back, you know, which was
(19:50):
amazing. You know, that was like the
dream come true at that point, you know?
Listen, I know I'm jumping all over the place, but I'm trying
to kind of go as you're going, you know?
For you. Let's talk about the road.
I'm going to come back to the band and the marketing because
I've had so many questions. So the road, no stranger to
(20:11):
touring, even now, you guys still do stuff.
So this is going to possibly sound a little geeky, but talk
to me about how musicians can try and remain sane, especially
when spending so much time on the road.
Some guys definitely aren't cut out for it, you know?
(20:33):
So what do you do to stay mentally healthy?
Physically too, I guess, but butmentally, especially physically.
Mentally, well, the answer is far different from when I first
joined band, you know, which waslike full exuberance and
excitement and excitability. And we wouldn't do that much to
(20:57):
stay healthy. We drank a lot.
And I mean, I don't want to speak for anybody else in this
interview, but I drank too much.And you know, we were, we
didn't, nobody did any drugs. Like nobody told me about it
anyway. But we had an awesome time most
of the time, you know, and if you got sick, you know, you just
(21:18):
powered through. And, you know, I had been in a
band with, again, the band I wasin before I was with Tonic that
I told you about. You know, I was on a gig once
for that drummer was may he restin peace.
He was throwing up on the side of the stage between songs.
But just like you would not haveknown it during the song, he was
like a billion percent during the song.
(21:40):
And I always kind of kept that ethos, you know, like this is
you're here to rock'n'roll and entertain and this is what you
wanted to do your entire life, so don't get up on stage and FS
it and whatever. So, you know, the lifestyle kind
of crept into that, into that same vibe.
You know, eventually, like when between the first, you know, and
(22:03):
we started to make our second record, I decided I wanted to
think about more healthy, helpful choices.
And I started to do martial artsand there was a Taekwondo Dojo
dojang around the corner for me.And I started doing that and
that was life changing. And I stayed with it through,
you know, over 20 years. When I moved from California to
(22:26):
new back to New Jersey, I, you know, I effectively stopped.
I still train a little bit by myself, but I don't go to a, to
a Dojo. I just didn't find one that was
as good as the one in LA, but that was very, very helpful.
Like I would get up in the morning, we were in like a hotel
(22:46):
somewhere. I would just go rattle, you
know, twist door handles until like a conference room door
would open. And I would go in and stretch
for 20 minutes, do conscious andkicks for, you know, another 40
minutes or something. And I did that very, very
regularly. No matter how much the chaos was
the night before. I tried to really stick to that.
(23:09):
Yeah. So.
What about travel tips? Obviously when your bands at a
certain level you've got a tour manager most times.
Yeah. But have you ever found yourself
in situations where things have gone haywire?
I'm sure you have. And you yourself think that you
(23:30):
could share a story that might make someone think a little bit
different about how they travel.You know, I get, I get again,
that that's not necessarily the easiest question to answer
because different situations fordifferent folks.
But like, I'm trying to like really bring it more to, if I'm
being specific, more to traveling with gear.
You know, it's getting harder and harder to travel with
(23:52):
guitars or otherwise. I don't get why the airlines
seem to confuse it so much. Like depending on the airline
depends on the rules and regulations.
I know some airlines are now enforcing that you buy a plane
ticket for your guitar, which iskind of ridiculous, especially
(24:13):
given the financial situation a lot of independent musicians
find themselves in. Somewhere they supposed to
suddenly find money for a plane ticket for a guitar while
they're touring? It's not going to happen, but
nonetheless, I digress. If you have anything to share
please. I do, yeah.
And that is like regulations arewhat they are and enforcement is
(24:33):
something completely different, right.
So you can you can know that whichever airline is the best or
worst, you know that there is going to be a lot, not a lot of
oversight into who is handling your instrument if they don't
let you put it on the plane. Sometimes people won't, you
know, I've had, you know, people, lovely people at
(24:55):
Southwest to shout out them At one time I was, you know, and
they said, what are you having the case?
So it's my it was an acoustic guitar.
I was going back to or to Nashville for a while as AI had
a writer songwriting contract down there and you know, they
were just like, cool, let's get you on 1st.
You know, that was amazing. But then other times you'd be
like, you can't bring that on the plane.
(25:15):
So my, my advice now after doingit for the 800 years that I have
toured, I would say invest in hard case like an SKB.
It's got wheels and handles and they they just, you know, my
stuff has gone all over the world and it has survived and
like, you know, knock on wood. But I would say it's just
(25:39):
better, you know, if you don't, if you don't want to, if you
have an instrument, you don't want to, you know, put it to
chance, you know, risk it. Just fortify it, you know, and
let them put it under the plane.Nice all.
Right, Let me backtrack. I'm going to try to bring this
back to the band thing before I get back to the marketing thing.
(26:02):
So you said N96, you joined, right?
Was your first show. Just I think December of 19.
December. Yeah, OK, OK Well, well, close
enough, I suppose so. So you will have been in the
band for 30 years this year. That's a long time.
Let's talk about longevity within a group.
(26:22):
Yeah. And let's try, and again, let's
try and sort of turn this into an advice section for listeners,
especially ones interested in trying to keep their bands
together. What do you think makes a band
gel? And additionally, what are some
possible personality traits thatpeople can work on away from
(26:45):
just being musicians that might make them a good hang, which
might keep them in their beds? Yeah, well, you know, that's,
it's such a great question because there's a huge
difference between being what people call a band guy and being
like a side guy or a session manand just mentality.
Not like there are side guys whoare effectively band members,
(27:08):
whether it says so on paper or not.
And I think the difference is that you're always thinking
about the group, you know, as a whole.
And there's always going to be personalities that are a little
more, I have to be in the spotlight.
And then then those that are better at being like the glue,
(27:32):
you know, and you'll definitely find bass players are often the
glue, you know, And there's there's you know, there's
there's just reasons people end up in the position they are, you
know, And so, you know, find that thing like if you really
want to be in a band and you don't, and you're not like
(27:54):
constantly looking for a better Ave. for yourself, like then do
what's good for the band, you know, and make it obvious that
that's what you're doing. Like that you're you're there
for the betterment of the whole,you know, that you recognize the
band as greater than the sum of its arts, right.
So but you know, not that's not for everybody, you know, not not
(28:19):
everybody wants to be play in a band.
They want to do like they want to be the best guy that plays
this or that, whatever instrument it may be.
And that's that's awesome. Like we're all musicians and
just making art in whatever way we do is is a great thing.
To be able to actually get paid for it is insanity, you know.
(28:41):
So I would say like, think aboutthat, you know, think about
living in gratitude often. And especially if you you're
lucky enough to get as far as tobe like on a tour bus and then
to have a tour manager and have that tour manager tell you that
you have a song blowing up, you know, like all these kind of
things. I like to think that I kept and
(29:06):
still do like, you know, gratitude high on the list of
things to think about regularly.You know, and honestly, like
some of that, that the martial arts thing is a, you put that as
a thread in your life that has alot of positive influence, You
(29:31):
know, because you're just, it's all about doing your best, being
your best, not not always about winning, just about being like
solids and making good choices and work for yourself and
respecting others. And you know, it's just I like
that whole day. So do I, it's always cool to see
(29:53):
like people just doing their thing, you know, like especially
like you say, like, like when it's not a competition, it's not
about winning or whatever, but like you can tell someone's
doing their thing, like doing the best they can.
It's, it's radical, man. I love that stuff.
OK. Back to this marketing question
and then we'll move on. I'm no expert by the way.
(30:14):
No. But listen, you, you will have
knowledge that definitely will help.
So let's let's put you in a hypothetical situation.
If you were up and coming, whether as a musician or as a
band, and you were trying to make it.
Now you were trying to go some, maybe go somewhere, maybe not, I
(30:37):
don't know, But you were trying to make it.
What could you possibly do that you've you've done in the past
from a marketing perspective? How could you potentially relate
that into modern times? And what would you suggest
someone tries to do with no guarantee there's a disclaimer
for anybody who who kind of claims that this was the answer.
(30:59):
No, this is just a suggestion. What would you suggest to up and
coming band members or or musicians that they could
potentially try and do to maybe have a shot?
Well, you know, anything I did 30 years ago or or more, it just
(31:20):
simply doesn't apply anymore. You know, except to, to be good
at your craft, you know, do you do your best?
But I would say that the marketing thing to me now is
1,000,000%. Like where you might want to
lean into AI and AI is a real asa real negative attachment in
(31:40):
music because and I and I, you know, for the record, I never
used AI to make music and I don't believe I ever will.
Like I'm too far along, you know, and I have an engineering
and technical background, but I don't, I don't care for it
conceptually as, as art because it's such A, to me, it's there's
a lot of theft going on and but AI is not going anywhere.
(32:05):
It's like the, the Napster question back in the 90s, right?
Like it's, you can fight it all you want, but AI will is, is the
future. It is now.
And every AI that you use is theworst AI you'll ever use.
And tomorrow it'll be that much better.
So I would ask AI, how should I market this thing?
You know, like what's the frequency of posting that does
(32:27):
best? And you know, all all this kind
of shit that I don't honestly, I'm not too interested in, but I
have, you know, we can, if you want, we can even go into this.
But I, I spent a good chunk of the last decade as a manager and
had some, you know, some real, got some real insight into like
(32:53):
what the labels were doing, you know, to really break acts and
to sustain acts that were already having success.
And it had to, had a lot to do with like social media and
frequency and the timing and, and publicity and PR.
And it's like it's there's that monster machine that's really
important still, but you can compete with it because AI is so
(33:17):
powerful. So I don't know how to do that,
but I know it's in there. You know what I mean?
Yeah, I think using it in a way that you're kind of implying is
a smart thing to do because especially from the autistic
point of view, you got a lot of people revolting against it at
the moment. Which I'm all for, because I too
(33:38):
don't believe that we need additional music and arts and
video just for the sake of having it.
Like let the autistic and creatives do that stuff.
And I get it, you know, it's notalways everybody's cup of tea.
You know, there'll be people outthere who love your band.
There'll be people out there whodon't.
It's like that's the the beauty of art, right?
Like the, it's not always going to win everybody over.
(34:02):
But I do feel if we as musiciansand artists and bands and
managers, etcetera, etcetera, ifwe can find ways to use it in a
smart way for marketing, why not?
Because like you say, it's not going anywhere, so you might as
well use it to your advantage. I have to agree Dan, bit of a
(34:23):
strange one, but what do you think in your opinion has been
the hardest part about being A10time career musician?
Well, I think it comes down to an overriding like mental health
thing. Like, do you have the emotional
mental fortitude to just like the constant struggle can like,
(34:48):
are you, are you into it? The constant rejection, the, you
know, the, the dopamine of a, ofa win.
Can you handle those ups and downs?
And I, you know, I can say from my own experience, like, I think
music was a real therapy, you know, and in some ways, when
(35:12):
music started to feel a little bit more like a job, it might
have made me nervous, you know, trying to figure like, how much
I want to share. But like, you know, I got
divorced at one point and I knewthat it was going to affect my
career adversely, not because ofthe relationship, but just like
where it was going to put me personally was going to really
(35:35):
inhibit my means for continuallyto try to do what I was doing.
But like, that was more important.
You know, it really has a lot ofeffect.
It can negatively affect relationships, particularly when
you're a tour musician. You leave somebody back behind,
whether it's a girlfriend or a wife or a family.
(35:56):
Like that is hard to survive from both sides of the equation.
Once, once I became a parent, itwas hard for me to tour and I
didn't really I'm, I take that back.
I did. I went out on the road with the
Fray for a couple of years, but they didn't go for very long.
(36:16):
And it was really comfortable. And that was when they first
like I think it was AOL instant messenger.
Somebody figured out how to do those little cameras.
And you know, I was on top of that and I would talk to my kid
who was at the time and preschool.
I think so, you know, that's thehardest thing.
It's just the the mental health stuff honestly.
(36:39):
Just briefly talk to me about your time with the Fray.
I read that you had been involved in for a little bit.
How did that come about? Were you an official member of
the band for a while? Were you just filling in
etcetera, etcetera? Yeah, they've always had that
position as a hired gun. And, you know, as a as a, this
(37:00):
is probably one of those things like in terms of like life
lessons or professional lessons.I met this kid who was a an
aware records Rep in upstate NewYork once and he ended up
working with them. And he and I had like chatted
one afternoon. Like, instead of going out and
seeing Albany OR something, I think I just sat in the venue
(37:22):
and chatted with this kid who was really smart and friendly.
And we stayed in touch over e-mail and like, can we talk
like maybe twice a year or something?
We just kind of keep up on what he was doing and what what not.
And ended up being working for that band.
And just because we had this relationship and because I was
(37:42):
cool to this kid, you know, which was, I don't know, just
speaks to the greater thing of like, don't be a Dick in life,
right? And they were at the Grammys and
were asked to do the Leno show like the next day.
It's Grammys rolls on a Sunday. It was a Monday night.
And their bass player, because it was a higher gun thing, I had
(38:03):
to do something else. And they were like, shit, what
do we do, you know? And so this kid was like, oh, my
friend plays bass and tonic and they're like, what?
Why? How, you know?
And so whatever. Something he called me said,
would you be available to do this tomorrow?
And I went and played with them on Leno and just met him that
day. That's awesome.
(38:24):
Yeah. And so whenever they were
interested in making a change, they asked if I would be
interested in coming to, you know, do some a little, you
know, some tour, like a tour with them.
They only had one record out, soI went and learned all of it.
It's another lesson is, you know, they flew me to Denver and
(38:46):
I think we ran through everything once and they were
satisfied and I was happy and there were no questions.
So they ruled me out the same. There was supposed to be another
day of rehearsal and they just blew me out the same day.
That's awesome. So two things, don't be a Dick
and always show up prepared. You might have just answered my
last question, but I'm still going to ask when we get there.
(39:07):
OK. If you could potentially change
one thing in the music industry in a positive way, what do you
think that would be? 100% bring back actual artist
development because you know, ifyou have all these geniuses who
(39:30):
run these companies and make zillions of dollars and they do
so by putting art into the world, then help develop that
art. Don't just find the way to make
the most money, you know, So find a young aspiring artist and
(39:51):
put just a little bit of money. Like if you can take a kid who
you know, or I don't even know, like a kid a 20 something who's
like a barista or something and all that.
I met somebody actually in in a gig in Philly.
She was like a barista. Or something like similar and
just say like, I just want to quit my job and do this only
(40:14):
this, you know, and like how howmuch of A, you know, development
budget would it take to do that for hundreds of young people
like that? They're not asking for much, you
know, it's just to be able to live on their music would be
insane to not have to get up andgo to work.
They could get up and go in their studio because everyone
can have a studio now, you know,they all have something at home.
(40:35):
So to answer your question most definitely.
Artist development. That's a good answer.
I haven't had that one before, so very nice.
OK, second last question. Dan, you've been extremely
successful as a musician. Would they?
Always somebody more successful,yeah.
(40:56):
Yeah, there's always someone more successful, that's true.
Is there anything that you wouldstill like to achieve?
I'm not necessarily meaning likeband wise or anything, but just
as a musician, as somebody who plays and writes.
Is there anything you would still like to try and do or are
trying to do? I don't know, like I find, you
(41:27):
know, this, this phase, I'm so happy to still be able to go out
and play music I'm enjoying going to see other people play
lately and maybe more collaborations, something like
that, like the people that I really admire or something like
try to get into a more collaborative process or
(41:48):
something like that. I met.
I've been a fan since the 80s ofa band called Del Amitri.
Yeah, Del Amitri, yeah. Unbeknownst to me, I was at
their first show in 1986 in and I met Justin, their singer in
1997 when we were crossing pathson tour in Chicago.
(42:09):
And I sold them. And it's like at this gig, you
know, and he said that was our first US gig.
And I was like, oh shit. Anyway, I've been a massive fan.
And I went and saw them again inNew York the other night.
And after, you know, 40 years after that first show.
And I got to just was I don't try to meet anybody, but I just
(42:30):
happened to go to go my my fiance and I went for a pint.
And on the way back, he was standing, Justin was standing
out in front of the bus. So I went like, fucking ace.
Yeah. You know, just being able to
talk to him was as big a musicalthrill of as I've had in a long
time. You know, yes, this is a real
cool fanboy moment. I hope I didn't embarrass myself
(42:54):
like I did when I met Paul Weller in Amsterdam one time.
I do the pieces. I'm proud.
Proud to be still be a fanboy, you know.
Yeah, it's really nice to see actually, because a lot of guys
at your level, they almost like they don't show that, you know,
which is, it's nice. It's like you can see the love
(43:15):
for music. It's great.
OK, you might have answered thisone already, but I'm going to
ask you anyway just in case maybe you've got something
additional. Last question, what do you think
has been either the best piece of advice you've ever received
in regards to your music career?Or if nobody gave you a piece of
advice, what do you think might serve as good advice to somebody
(43:36):
else that was perhaps something you learned along your own
journey? Yeah, I may have, I may have
answered that already because I think the biggest thing is just
to be cool, you know, like try to try to be nice to everybody.
Definitely, definitely be respectful to everybody and of
(44:00):
everybody. And I think that will take you
very, very far. You know, like sometimes you
have to be hustling. Like there's just no way around
it in this business. You, you will hustle you or
you'll die. You know, it's like a, it sounds
like Game of Thrones. You win or you die.
It's but it's like, it's like that.
(44:21):
And I think you meet so many people and they'll remember your
you not being cool far more thanthey'll remember how well you
played that thing, you know? So I would say that's the
(44:41):
biggest thing, you know, be respectful, be cool, and take
care of yourself. Take care of you.
Dude, that's amazing, man. Dan Lavery.
Dude, I cannot thank you enough for your time.
That was super cool. I loved it, super insightful and
just, you know, been a fan of you for a while.
(45:02):
So thank you for indulging me and just keep making good music
dude. That that's quite an outro.
Thank you so much. Sweets.
There we have it, everybody. Dan Lavery I'd like to once
again thank Dan for his time. And as usual, I want to thank.
Each and everyone of you for your time.
(45:23):
I truly appreciate you continuing on this journey with
me. If I can do anything to help
your artistic or music career along or if you just want some
help with the band, please do feel free to drop me Adm.
You can find out more about me at the Musicians Dash mentor.com
website. Once again, a big thank you to
our sponsor Boom Boom Drum Pillows.
(45:46):
You can find out more about themat Boom Boom Drum pillows.com.
Until next time, be safe, be diligent and have some fun.
Peace.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome tothe Musicians Mentor Podcast.
As usual, I'm your host Travis Mark, and with me on the show
today I am stoked to announce isone of my absolute favorite bass
players, Dan Lavery from the band Tonic.
Many of you may know of Tonic because they've had some
absolutely monstrous hits over the last few decades.
(00:29):
Songs like If You Could Only Seeor You Wanted More.
These singles were soundtracks to my upbringing really, and I
still think their records sound great, so it was so cool to have
Dan on the show. During the course of this
interview, we speak about several things touring, what it
takes to make it dance, Tom spent in key roles on management
(00:52):
teams for Adam Lambert and Joe Jonas.
We talk about relocation and mental health and just so much
more. So I'm going to quit my
blabbering. We can jump straight into this.
But before I do, please let me remind you to check out our
affiliation with the lovely folks over at Sound Brenner.
The link is in our show notes and I would also like to welcome
(01:12):
one of the first big announcements that I was
planning on making last week andthat is our new friends who were
kind enough to sponsor this episode over at Boom Boom Drum
Pillows. Boom Boom Drum Pillows are a
company that make dampeners and drum pillows to enhance your
drums tone for a perfect warm and ring free sound.
(01:32):
A very cool company who are verypro musicians and the best part
is all of the accessories are hand crafted.
Make sure you check out Boom Boom Drum pillows.com.
Once again, their link is in ourshow notes.
Can't thank them enough for coming on board.
This is just one of several new developments that I'll be making
over the next few weeks. Lastly, don't forget we're also
(01:54):
on YouTube now, so please do subscribe if you use that
platform. Otherwise, don't forget to leave
us a rating or review across your preferred streaming
service. For now, ladies and gentlemen,
let's jump straight into this. Please help me welcome the one
and only Dan Lavery with me on the Musicians Mentor podcast.
(02:20):
Today is musician extraordinaire, at least in my
opinion, the Tonic bassist Dan Lavery.
Dan, I hope your day is going incredible.
I can't thank you enough for your time, and I'm going to jump
straight into this in a fashion that maybe sort of seems like
we're kind of digging really farback, but we're going to try and
(02:41):
kind of cover as much ground as possible.
What I want to do is I want to start at the beginning.
I'd like to sort of decipher howyour interest in music began.
And furthermore, you know, I dida bit of research.
I know you grew up in Jersey, sotalk to me about were you
already playing in bands in Jersey before you moved to LA,
(03:03):
before you got involved with Tonic, all those kinds of
things? What was the Hoth?
Was it just a matter of like, hey, I dug music.
I was sort of seeing what happened.
Just tell me some of the beginning.
It's the well. Yeah, I mean, in the very
beginning I remember spontaneously unscrewing the
(03:25):
legs to a piano bench. It was like a vinyl seat
basically. They went to this electric organ
that my parents had and I would leave the other two on and then
it was kind of like a lean to situation and I would bang on it
and listen to like Beatles records.
There were 8 tracks that my parents had, you know, and
(03:46):
nobody taught me to do that. I just figured it out one day.
Just I had to play. Like I just had to play and
dramas in particular really was that was my first instrument and
that's what spoke to me the loudest.
So when KISS records came out, when when I saw Destroyer in the
supermarket or whatever, like they had it everywhere, right?
(04:09):
And that informed a lot. You know, I started really, I
got into KISS. My parents, as I mentioned, were
always into The Beatles and coolstuff like Arlo Guthrie and
Janis Joplin really, really coolit musical influences.
At home though, nobody was really like a particularly a
musician. My father played acoustic guitar
and sang around the house. It was like a music friendly
(04:32):
household. So yeah, it's as soon I was like
10 years old and I got a bass drum and a snare drum for
Christmas and I still have that drum kit.
It survived Hurricane Sandy because I left it behind when I
moved to LA and I just started playing.
Yeah. I found some friends who I have
a good friend who grew up in this town who was great guitar
(04:55):
player at a young age. And we were walking to soccer
practice one day and we both just went, let's just go jam,
right? Like, we're just like, fuck
this. We just turned around and went
home, you know? And that was like the beginning
of this whole journey right there.
You know, it's really, really cool.
It was like a real turning point.
(05:16):
And then we formed a band, we played cover songs, we played
all the coolest like stuff in the 80s.
It was just like new music like Pure and Smiths and Cults.
Like really we having a really cool eclectic setlist for
covers. And then I just started writing
(05:37):
music on top of that. So I learned how to taught
myself to play guitar and piano and I guess incidentally bass
guitar by knowing guitar a little bit.
So yes, the long answer to your question or the shorter answer
is that I did play in bands in Jersey.
I had two friends in high school.
(05:57):
Sorry, I had two friends from I went to Rutgers University and
also in New Jersey. I graduated with a degree in
electrical engineering and my buddy who the same guy that
turned it was when we were like 14, left soccer practice, was
also an engineer at Rutgers and he got transferred to Southern
California. He was graduating before me and
(06:19):
he's like, you guys got to come out.
You know, our our other high school friend who is a fantastic
drummer had already gone to Musicians Institute out there.
So he was out there and he said,let's just play some gigs, have
a laugh, come out, you know, we'd go out for six months, get
famous, come right back to Jersey and celebrate at the
parade, you know? So, yeah.
(06:43):
So basically a lot of those sameearly people were part of my
formative years of, of, you know, trying to be in the music,
trying to exist in the music business, you know, and then
obviously it didn't, it wasn't six months that I went to LA at
the age of 22 and I decided to move back to Jersey during the
(07:06):
pandemic after having been therefor, you know, over 30 / 30
years. Wow, yeah.
So the band that was the collegekind of band with your friend
originally from the soccer practice, is that the band true?
Yes, that so that that became true.
Two of us. My my neighbor from from Rutgers
(07:27):
was a keyboard player, so he played keys.
That friend from high school andRutgers was a guitarist.
And then we had our friend from high school who was the drummer
out there who had had really themost experience of all of us.
We formed that band and then we we did a lot of great stuff.
You know, we had like super early positive signs like we got
(07:49):
this, people would come to our shows.
We got offered publishing deals.We eventually took a publishing
deal pretty early on and made a record at some point.
But just, you know, constant struggle.
We were just hustling all the time.
We didn't know anybody when we moved out there.
We would have a gig at Madame Wong's West and all these places
(08:11):
that no longer exist, and we would invite every single person
we ever met to our house afterwards just to make it like,
come to see this band play. You're going to a party.
That's awesome. Yeah.
And that was just our marketing machine, you know, that you'd
have to like, make Flyers or something back in the day or
postcards. And we'd invite the person
(08:32):
behind the counter like, oh, youwent, hey, thanks for making
these. Whatever you want to come to a
show tonight. Come, you're having a party to
place later. It was right by Rock'n'roll.
Ralph's on Sunset or our little bungalow, Hollywood bungalow.
It's amazing. I've been bands my whole life,
so I can relate to the Flyers and the parties and and I do
feel that while social media is incredible and we'll possibly
(08:56):
talk about this a little bit later, that those formative
things that you do as a young band to try and make it, they
develop such chemistry within bands.
And, you know, yeah, you just like any band, I suppose at a
(09:17):
point you start to see where certain guys might break or, or,
or not or thrive, right. But let's talk about this just a
little bit. I'm going to try and dissect
your previous answer into one ortwo different roads here.
The first Rd. is OK, 22. We wired different at 22 than
(09:40):
when we get older. But it takes a lot of courage to
leave your hometown and, you know, go somewhere to try and do
something. Yeah.
So I want to talk a little bit more about that.
I don't necessarily need you to say exactly what you're feeling.
Obviously, you know, to rememberwhat was felt on a day is near
(10:01):
impossible. But talk to me about the like,
were your families nervous? Were you guys nervous?
Was it just a matter of we're going to do this and what
happens, happens? And then in addition to that, if
you wouldn't mind, I'd like to sort of segue into this
marketing sort of strategy. The, the parties, the Flyers.
(10:21):
Like talk to me about and, and again, things have dramatically
changed because of the Internet and things like that, but talk
to me about maybe some advice ortips that you would potentially
offer Anybody who's in a band may be listening to this
interview thinking, well, I'm going to go somewhere and do
(10:42):
something. What would you say that they can
do to try and get out there, especially based on the fact
that things have changed? Well, the first thing is that
tiny community that I had, whichwas three friends and myself,
there were four of us and we lived in the first six months.
We literally lived in the corporate housing that my friend
(11:03):
had been given by, I think he worked for Nabisco at the time.
So we lived, we were living in Anaheim, which wasn't even
really LA. We would go out, try to meet
people. Obviously we were trying to meet
girls. We were four young single men on
a mission to become like rock stars.
And we would tell everybody all about it.
And we were, you know, nice enough people.
So we, we made friends along theway.
(11:24):
But we had each other. And I had this, you know, notion
of like, probably like every kidthat goes to LA and especially
at that time that, you know, let's try everything.
So I went and got head shots andI was going to be an actor or a
musician or like whatever happened blew up first, right?
(11:46):
And what I can say, and maybe this is a piece of advice, was
like, oh, absolutely not. Like you got to fucking focus,
you know, particularly if you want to be a musician because
you come from a cool small town and you're the best drummer,
guitarist with a singer, writer,whatever it is.
And so is every other person in LA.
(12:06):
They're your age. They're they're younger, they're
more handsome, they're smarter, they're faster, whatever it is
like you are going to be up against it.
So know what you want to do, figure it out, figure it out
what you want to do and then do that thing, you know, So I
quickly abandoned. I wasn't like an extra in a
couple of things, a show called 30 something.
(12:27):
It was like featured extra or something.
And that was the end of my acting career until, you know,
Tonic got onto some soap operas or something, you know, we did
music videos, but you know, and that was also I found that I am
a band guy. Like I just the idea of going to
(12:48):
a, an audition and you're, you know, you show up to the top of
the Taff building in Hollywood, top floor, and you walk in and
there's like 20 dudes there who are wearing a black T-shirt,
have like longer black hair and look just like you.
And the guy comes out and goes you, you, you, you, you, you.
Thank you. And everybody else just leaves,
you know, and you're like, that is abrupt and brutal.
(13:13):
It's just brutal, you know? So at least with the band, we
could we could play like, you know, Tuesday night at 1:00 AM
at the Coconut teaser. And we'd have each other.
We'd be laughing and drinking and having a good time.
And we'd eventually meet people that way.
But yeah, so know what you want to do.
And then just like, focus that hammer on that particular nail,
(13:35):
you know, because it's hard. That's awesome, man.
You know, and that's, you know, we can get into this more, but
like, that's a different time period as well.
Like that was be pre social media, so you couldn't become
famous in your bedroom the way you can now, right?
Just and in some cases all basedon real talent.
(13:56):
Yeah. You know, we had to get out and
be stupid. We were talking a little bit
about KISS before I hit record and it always amazes me if you
think about the scope of how youto band like Kiss got in 767778
(14:16):
all pre Internet and social media.
Yeah. Dude, that blows my mind.
You know, like just. No.
What the hell? No one better than those guys.
I I couldn't agree more. All right, let's shoot forward
just a little bit, right And we'll get back to this marketing
thing at some point. I'm definitely going to bring it
(14:37):
back to that. But so you land up in LA
eventually you join Tonic. Tell us the story because I want
to kind of take it forward from time.
One of the coolest. Moments in our Hollywood
existence was we played at the club lingerie one night as we
did this band true and and at the end of this set this older
(15:00):
older looking gentleman came up and he said hey, really like
your band. What's what's your name?
I said I'm Dan and he said you want to make a record.
I said that's our whole goal here.
You know, I said what's your name?
And he said it's I'm Paul Rothschild.
And I said well fuck, I know whoyou are.
You know. And like at that time I probably
knew like 3 producers like Phil Spector, George Martin and Paul
(15:22):
Rothschild because I was a huge Doris fan through a long period
of my life. And so he started to work with
us, like we started doing doing some stuff with him.
But he was also working with hisson Dan, who's himself a
talented producer and multi instrumentalist, but fantastic
bass player. And whatever we did with them
(15:44):
was a great, great learning experience and showcasing
whatever just didn't pan out to anything that we all wanted it
to be. But we may remained in touch
with Dan and I'll go see his band because he was in this band
called Radio Flyer, which becameConnie.
And at some point my group. We just had felt like we had
(16:06):
fought the good fight for as long as we could without any
like any more meaningful wins, you know, and that's another
thing you have to learn out there.
It's like when are you banging your head against the wall?
And we were growing, but like not, I guess in the right way.
We started before grunge, we couldn't get arrested because we
(16:28):
looked like 4 accountants from New Jersey.
Then after grunge, we couldn't get arrested because we look
like dudes who were finally catching up to like our hair was
longer. I don't know, it just looked.
We just couldn't get it right. And so we agreed to just take
some time off, which ended up being, you know, sort of when
everybody mostly not their separate ways, you know, but we
(16:49):
kept in touch with we kept in touch with Dan whatever and went
to see Tonic and, you know, justkind of we actually were on some
showcases together before our band split up.
And it was just kind of part of that orbit, you know.
So at some point, I guess the myfuture band mates decided they
(17:13):
wanted to part ways and yeah, I got a call and that was it.
You know, their manager said like, I don't know who you are,
but like, let's talk. I'm like, great, let's do that.
You know, I had been in a gotteninvolved with another band as
(17:34):
well between that first, you know, after my band broke up and
by the time before I got back talking Tonic, I was in another
band that had showed great promise, was signed to a new
record label called New Millennia.
It had a lot of money behind it and we had a record that was
going to come out. We went like tore up South by
(17:56):
Southwest and just this great promise.
And then just one day, like all the money evaporated.
Guys didn't get paid. A&R guys disappeared.
Our drummer then disappeared. Everything imploded, all in,
like a week. Then I got that call, and I was
like, yeah, yeah, let's talk, you know?
Yeah, I didn't love the idea of replacing somebody, particularly
(18:20):
somebody who, you know, was likea musician friend.
But like, I didn't have many options at that moment, you
know? That was shortly of the Lemon
Parade runs. So Lemon Parade came out, yeah,
in July of 1996, and I played myfirst shows in December of that
(18:43):
year, 1996. Quick.
Yeah, it was fast. Was that record blowing up
already or did that happen after?
No, we we thought we'd be back in.
My excitement level was about going back into the studio to do
a real record and they'd work with Jack Joseph, who was a kind
(19:04):
of a hero of mine because of Jellyfish.
And I think the Grays record hadalready come out at that point.
So I was like, I want to work with that guy, you know?
And we were like, yeah, you know, we'll probably tour for
three, 4-5, maybe six months andwe'll get back in the studio.
You know, they seem to have a lot of support at the label.
And one day we got on our OR busand the tour manager was just
(19:28):
like, you see the schedule changes and we're like, yeah,
what's going on? He's like, you're blowing up.
That's what's going on, you know, Like we had a single, it
just unexpectedly wasn't even a single that we chose blew up,
you know, and the next thing I knew, I was on the road for like
a few years. Yeah, that was, that was bad.
Like there's a snow turning back, you know, which was
(19:50):
amazing. You know, that was like the
dream come true at that point, you know?
Listen, I know I'm jumping all over the place, but I'm trying
to kind of go as you're going, you know?
For you. Let's talk about the road.
I'm going to come back to the band and the marketing because
I've had so many questions. So the road, no stranger to
(20:11):
touring, even now, you guys still do stuff.
So this is going to possibly sound a little geeky, but talk
to me about how musicians can try and remain sane, especially
when spending so much time on the road.
Some guys definitely aren't cut out for it, you know?
(20:33):
So what do you do to stay mentally healthy?
Physically too, I guess, but butmentally, especially physically.
Mentally, well, the answer is far different from when I first
joined band, you know, which waslike full exuberance and
excitement and excitability. And we wouldn't do that much to
(20:57):
stay healthy. We drank a lot.
And I mean, I don't want to speak for anybody else in this
interview, but I drank too much.And you know, we were, we
didn't, nobody did any drugs. Like nobody told me about it
anyway. But we had an awesome time most
of the time, you know, and if you got sick, you know, you just
(21:18):
powered through. And, you know, I had been in a
band with, again, the band I wasin before I was with Tonic that
I told you about. You know, I was on a gig once
for that drummer was may he restin peace.
He was throwing up on the side of the stage between songs.
But just like you would not haveknown it during the song, he was
like a billion percent during the song.
(21:40):
And I always kind of kept that ethos, you know, like this is
you're here to rock'n'roll and entertain and this is what you
wanted to do your entire life, so don't get up on stage and FS
it and whatever. So, you know, the lifestyle kind
of crept into that, into that same vibe.
You know, eventually, like when between the first, you know, and
(22:03):
we started to make our second record, I decided I wanted to
think about more healthy, helpful choices.
And I started to do martial artsand there was a Taekwondo Dojo
dojang around the corner for me.And I started doing that and
that was life changing. And I stayed with it through,
you know, over 20 years. When I moved from California to
(22:26):
new back to New Jersey, I, you know, I effectively stopped.
I still train a little bit by myself, but I don't go to a, to
a Dojo. I just didn't find one that was
as good as the one in LA, but that was very, very helpful.
Like I would get up in the morning, we were in like a hotel
(22:46):
somewhere. I would just go rattle, you
know, twist door handles until like a conference room door
would open. And I would go in and stretch
for 20 minutes, do conscious andkicks for, you know, another 40
minutes or something. And I did that very, very
regularly. No matter how much the chaos was
the night before. I tried to really stick to that.
(23:09):
Yeah. So.
What about travel tips? Obviously when your bands at a
certain level you've got a tour manager most times.
Yeah. But have you ever found yourself
in situations where things have gone haywire?
I'm sure you have. And you yourself think that you
(23:30):
could share a story that might make someone think a little bit
different about how they travel.You know, I get, I get again,
that that's not necessarily the easiest question to answer
because different situations fordifferent folks.
But like, I'm trying to like really bring it more to, if I'm
being specific, more to traveling with gear.
You know, it's getting harder and harder to travel with
(23:52):
guitars or otherwise. I don't get why the airlines
seem to confuse it so much. Like depending on the airline
depends on the rules and regulations.
I know some airlines are now enforcing that you buy a plane
ticket for your guitar, which iskind of ridiculous, especially
(24:13):
given the financial situation a lot of independent musicians
find themselves in. Somewhere they supposed to
suddenly find money for a plane ticket for a guitar while
they're touring? It's not going to happen, but
nonetheless, I digress. If you have anything to share
please. I do, yeah.
And that is like regulations arewhat they are and enforcement is
(24:33):
something completely different, right.
So you can you can know that whichever airline is the best or
worst, you know that there is going to be a lot, not a lot of
oversight into who is handling your instrument if they don't
let you put it on the plane. Sometimes people won't, you
know, I've had, you know, people, lovely people at
(24:55):
Southwest to shout out them At one time I was, you know, and
they said, what are you having the case?
So it's my it was an acoustic guitar.
I was going back to or to Nashville for a while as AI had
a writer songwriting contract down there and you know, they
were just like, cool, let's get you on 1st.
You know, that was amazing. But then other times you'd be
like, you can't bring that on the plane.
(25:15):
So my, my advice now after doingit for the 800 years that I have
toured, I would say invest in hard case like an SKB.
It's got wheels and handles and they they just, you know, my
stuff has gone all over the world and it has survived and
like, you know, knock on wood. But I would say it's just
(25:39):
better, you know, if you don't, if you don't want to, if you
have an instrument, you don't want to, you know, put it to
chance, you know, risk it. Just fortify it, you know, and
let them put it under the plane.Nice all.
Right, Let me backtrack. I'm going to try to bring this
back to the band thing before I get back to the marketing thing.
(26:02):
So you said N96, you joined, right?
Was your first show. Just I think December of 19.
December. Yeah, OK, OK Well, well, close
enough, I suppose so. So you will have been in the
band for 30 years this year. That's a long time.
Let's talk about longevity within a group.
(26:22):
Yeah. And let's try, and again, let's
try and sort of turn this into an advice section for listeners,
especially ones interested in trying to keep their bands
together. What do you think makes a band
gel? And additionally, what are some
possible personality traits thatpeople can work on away from
(26:45):
just being musicians that might make them a good hang, which
might keep them in their beds? Yeah, well, you know, that's,
it's such a great question because there's a huge
difference between being what people call a band guy and being
like a side guy or a session manand just mentality.
Not like there are side guys whoare effectively band members,
(27:08):
whether it says so on paper or not.
And I think the difference is that you're always thinking
about the group, you know, as a whole.
And there's always going to be personalities that are a little
more, I have to be in the spotlight.
And then then those that are better at being like the glue,
(27:32):
you know, and you'll definitely find bass players are often the
glue, you know, And there's there's you know, there's
there's just reasons people end up in the position they are, you
know, And so, you know, find that thing like if you really
want to be in a band and you don't, and you're not like
(27:54):
constantly looking for a better Ave. for yourself, like then do
what's good for the band, you know, and make it obvious that
that's what you're doing. Like that you're you're there
for the betterment of the whole,you know, that you recognize the
band as greater than the sum of its arts, right.
So but you know, not that's not for everybody, you know, not not
(28:19):
everybody wants to be play in a band.
They want to do like they want to be the best guy that plays
this or that, whatever instrument it may be.
And that's that's awesome. Like we're all musicians and
just making art in whatever way we do is is a great thing.
To be able to actually get paid for it is insanity, you know.
(28:41):
So I would say like, think aboutthat, you know, think about
living in gratitude often. And especially if you you're
lucky enough to get as far as tobe like on a tour bus and then
to have a tour manager and have that tour manager tell you that
you have a song blowing up, you know, like all these kind of
things. I like to think that I kept and
(29:06):
still do like, you know, gratitude high on the list of
things to think about regularly.You know, and honestly, like
some of that, that the martial arts thing is a, you put that as
a thread in your life that has alot of positive influence, You
(29:31):
know, because you're just, it's all about doing your best, being
your best, not not always about winning, just about being like
solids and making good choices and work for yourself and
respecting others. And you know, it's just I like
that whole day. So do I, it's always cool to see
(29:53):
like people just doing their thing, you know, like especially
like you say, like, like when it's not a competition, it's not
about winning or whatever, but like you can tell someone's
doing their thing, like doing the best they can.
It's, it's radical, man. I love that stuff.
OK. Back to this marketing question
and then we'll move on. I'm no expert by the way.
(30:14):
No. But listen, you, you will have
knowledge that definitely will help.
So let's let's put you in a hypothetical situation.
If you were up and coming, whether as a musician or as a
band, and you were trying to make it.
Now you were trying to go some, maybe go somewhere, maybe not, I
(30:37):
don't know, But you were trying to make it.
What could you possibly do that you've you've done in the past
from a marketing perspective? How could you potentially relate
that into modern times? And what would you suggest
someone tries to do with no guarantee there's a disclaimer
for anybody who who kind of claims that this was the answer.
(30:59):
No, this is just a suggestion. What would you suggest to up and
coming band members or or musicians that they could
potentially try and do to maybe have a shot?
Well, you know, anything I did 30 years ago or or more, it just
(31:20):
simply doesn't apply anymore. You know, except to, to be good
at your craft, you know, do you do your best?
But I would say that the marketing thing to me now is
1,000,000%. Like where you might want to
lean into AI and AI is a real asa real negative attachment in
(31:40):
music because and I and I, you know, for the record, I never
used AI to make music and I don't believe I ever will.
Like I'm too far along, you know, and I have an engineering
and technical background, but I don't, I don't care for it
conceptually as, as art because it's such A, to me, it's there's
a lot of theft going on and but AI is not going anywhere.
(32:05):
It's like the, the Napster question back in the 90s, right?
Like it's, you can fight it all you want, but AI will is, is the
future. It is now.
And every AI that you use is theworst AI you'll ever use.
And tomorrow it'll be that much better.
So I would ask AI, how should I market this thing?
You know, like what's the frequency of posting that does
(32:27):
best? And you know, all all this kind
of shit that I don't honestly, I'm not too interested in, but I
have, you know, we can, if you want, we can even go into this.
But I, I spent a good chunk of the last decade as a manager and
had some, you know, some real, got some real insight into like
(32:53):
what the labels were doing, you know, to really break acts and
to sustain acts that were already having success.
And it had to, had a lot to do with like social media and
frequency and the timing and, and publicity and PR.
And it's like it's there's that monster machine that's really
important still, but you can compete with it because AI is so
(33:17):
powerful. So I don't know how to do that,
but I know it's in there. You know what I mean?
Yeah, I think using it in a way that you're kind of implying is
a smart thing to do because especially from the autistic
point of view, you got a lot of people revolting against it at
the moment. Which I'm all for, because I too
(33:38):
don't believe that we need additional music and arts and
video just for the sake of having it.
Like let the autistic and creatives do that stuff.
And I get it, you know, it's notalways everybody's cup of tea.
You know, there'll be people outthere who love your band.
There'll be people out there whodon't.
It's like that's the the beauty of art, right?
Like the, it's not always going to win everybody over.
(34:02):
But I do feel if we as musiciansand artists and bands and
managers, etcetera, etcetera, ifwe can find ways to use it in a
smart way for marketing, why not?
Because like you say, it's not going anywhere, so you might as
well use it to your advantage. I have to agree Dan, bit of a
(34:23):
strange one, but what do you think in your opinion has been
the hardest part about being A10time career musician?
Well, I think it comes down to an overriding like mental health
thing. Like, do you have the emotional
mental fortitude to just like the constant struggle can like,
(34:48):
are you, are you into it? The constant rejection, the, you
know, the, the dopamine of a, ofa win.
Can you handle those ups and downs?
And I, you know, I can say from my own experience, like, I think
music was a real therapy, you know, and in some ways, when
(35:12):
music started to feel a little bit more like a job, it might
have made me nervous, you know, trying to figure like, how much
I want to share. But like, you know, I got
divorced at one point and I knewthat it was going to affect my
career adversely, not because ofthe relationship, but just like
where it was going to put me personally was going to really
(35:35):
inhibit my means for continuallyto try to do what I was doing.
But like, that was more important.
You know, it really has a lot ofeffect.
It can negatively affect relationships, particularly when
you're a tour musician. You leave somebody back behind,
whether it's a girlfriend or a wife or a family.
(35:56):
Like that is hard to survive from both sides of the equation.
Once, once I became a parent, itwas hard for me to tour and I
didn't really I'm, I take that back.
I did. I went out on the road with the
Fray for a couple of years, but they didn't go for very long.
(36:16):
And it was really comfortable. And that was when they first
like I think it was AOL instant messenger.
Somebody figured out how to do those little cameras.
And you know, I was on top of that and I would talk to my kid
who was at the time and preschool.
I think so, you know, that's thehardest thing.
It's just the the mental health stuff honestly.
(36:39):
Just briefly talk to me about your time with the Fray.
I read that you had been involved in for a little bit.
How did that come about? Were you an official member of
the band for a while? Were you just filling in
etcetera, etcetera? Yeah, they've always had that
position as a hired gun. And, you know, as a as a, this
(37:00):
is probably one of those things like in terms of like life
lessons or professional lessons.I met this kid who was a an
aware records Rep in upstate NewYork once and he ended up
working with them. And he and I had like chatted
one afternoon. Like, instead of going out and
seeing Albany OR something, I think I just sat in the venue
(37:22):
and chatted with this kid who was really smart and friendly.
And we stayed in touch over e-mail and like, can we talk
like maybe twice a year or something?
We just kind of keep up on what he was doing and what what not.
And ended up being working for that band.
And just because we had this relationship and because I was
(37:42):
cool to this kid, you know, which was, I don't know, just
speaks to the greater thing of like, don't be a Dick in life,
right? And they were at the Grammys and
were asked to do the Leno show like the next day.
It's Grammys rolls on a Sunday. It was a Monday night.
And their bass player, because it was a higher gun thing, I had
(38:03):
to do something else. And they were like, shit, what
do we do, you know? And so this kid was like, oh, my
friend plays bass and tonic and they're like, what?
Why? How, you know?
And so whatever. Something he called me said,
would you be available to do this tomorrow?
And I went and played with them on Leno and just met him that
day. That's awesome.
(38:24):
Yeah. And so whenever they were
interested in making a change, they asked if I would be
interested in coming to, you know, do some a little, you
know, some tour, like a tour with them.
They only had one record out, soI went and learned all of it.
It's another lesson is, you know, they flew me to Denver and
(38:46):
I think we ran through everything once and they were
satisfied and I was happy and there were no questions.
So they ruled me out the same. There was supposed to be another
day of rehearsal and they just blew me out the same day.
That's awesome. So two things, don't be a Dick
and always show up prepared. You might have just answered my
last question, but I'm still going to ask when we get there.
(39:07):
OK. If you could potentially change
one thing in the music industry in a positive way, what do you
think that would be? 100% bring back actual artist
development because you know, ifyou have all these geniuses who
(39:30):
run these companies and make zillions of dollars and they do
so by putting art into the world, then help develop that
art. Don't just find the way to make
the most money, you know, So find a young aspiring artist and
(39:51):
put just a little bit of money. Like if you can take a kid who
you know, or I don't even know, like a kid a 20 something who's
like a barista or something and all that.
I met somebody actually in in a gig in Philly.
She was like a barista. Or something like similar and
just say like, I just want to quit my job and do this only
(40:14):
this, you know, and like how howmuch of A, you know, development
budget would it take to do that for hundreds of young people
like that? They're not asking for much, you
know, it's just to be able to live on their music would be
insane to not have to get up andgo to work.
They could get up and go in their studio because everyone
can have a studio now, you know,they all have something at home.
(40:35):
So to answer your question most definitely.
Artist development. That's a good answer.
I haven't had that one before, so very nice.
OK, second last question. Dan, you've been extremely
successful as a musician. Would they?
Always somebody more successful,yeah.
(40:56):
Yeah, there's always someone more successful, that's true.
Is there anything that you wouldstill like to achieve?
I'm not necessarily meaning likeband wise or anything, but just
as a musician, as somebody who plays and writes.
Is there anything you would still like to try and do or are
trying to do? I don't know, like I find, you
(41:27):
know, this, this phase, I'm so happy to still be able to go out
and play music I'm enjoying going to see other people play
lately and maybe more collaborations, something like
that, like the people that I really admire or something like
try to get into a more collaborative process or
(41:48):
something like that. I met.
I've been a fan since the 80s ofa band called Del Amitri.
Yeah, Del Amitri, yeah. Unbeknownst to me, I was at
their first show in 1986 in and I met Justin, their singer in
1997 when we were crossing pathson tour in Chicago.
(42:09):
And I sold them. And it's like at this gig, you
know, and he said that was our first US gig.
And I was like, oh shit. Anyway, I've been a massive fan.
And I went and saw them again inNew York the other night.
And after, you know, 40 years after that first show.
And I got to just was I don't try to meet anybody, but I just
(42:30):
happened to go to go my my fiance and I went for a pint.
And on the way back, he was standing, Justin was standing
out in front of the bus. So I went like, fucking ace.
Yeah. You know, just being able to
talk to him was as big a musicalthrill of as I've had in a long
time. You know, yes, this is a real
cool fanboy moment. I hope I didn't embarrass myself
(42:54):
like I did when I met Paul Weller in Amsterdam one time.
I do the pieces. I'm proud.
Proud to be still be a fanboy, you know.
Yeah, it's really nice to see actually, because a lot of guys
at your level, they almost like they don't show that, you know,
which is, it's nice. It's like you can see the love
(43:15):
for music. It's great.
OK, you might have answered thisone already, but I'm going to
ask you anyway just in case maybe you've got something
additional. Last question, what do you think
has been either the best piece of advice you've ever received
in regards to your music career?Or if nobody gave you a piece of
advice, what do you think might serve as good advice to somebody
(43:36):
else that was perhaps something you learned along your own
journey? Yeah, I may have, I may have
answered that already because I think the biggest thing is just
to be cool, you know, like try to try to be nice to everybody.
Definitely, definitely be respectful to everybody and of
(44:00):
everybody. And I think that will take you
very, very far. You know, like sometimes you
have to be hustling. Like there's just no way around
it in this business. You, you will hustle you or
you'll die. You know, it's like a, it sounds
like Game of Thrones. You win or you die.
It's but it's like, it's like that.
(44:21):
And I think you meet so many people and they'll remember your
you not being cool far more thanthey'll remember how well you
played that thing, you know? So I would say that's the
(44:41):
biggest thing, you know, be respectful, be cool, and take
care of yourself. Take care of you.
Dude, that's amazing, man. Dan Lavery.
Dude, I cannot thank you enough for your time.
That was super cool. I loved it, super insightful and
just, you know, been a fan of you for a while.
(45:02):
So thank you for indulging me and just keep making good music
dude. That that's quite an outro.
Thank you so much. Sweets.
There we have it, everybody. Dan Lavery I'd like to once
again thank Dan for his time. And as usual, I want to thank.
Each and everyone of you for your time.
(45:23):
I truly appreciate you continuing on this journey with
me. If I can do anything to help
your artistic or music career along or if you just want some
help with the band, please do feel free to drop me Adm.
You can find out more about me at the Musicians Dash mentor.com
website. Once again, a big thank you to
our sponsor Boom Boom Drum Pillows.
(45:46):
You can find out more about themat Boom Boom Drum pillows.com.
Until next time, be safe, be diligent and have some fun.
Peace.
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