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Tour:Smart seminar with Martin Atkins »

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• Cowboy Monkey »
  6 Taylor St. Champaign, IL 61820
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Martin Atkins is a man with many titles. Author, teacher, session musician, drummer and addition to bands including, but not limited to, Public Image Ltd., Ministry, Pigface, and Killing Joke, are just a few of the numerous titles that occupy Atkins life. On Tuesday, March 3 at 6:30 p.m., Atkins brings his current speaking tour to Cowboy Monkey under the title of Tour:Smart. This event has been deemed "mandatory" by countless publications and past attendees and will cover topics from the basics of touring to how to cope as a band monetarily in these economic hard times. buzz had the pleasure of speaking with Atkins about his book, tour and advice for musicians.

buzz: How did Tour:Smart come about?

Martin Atkins: Writing a book in and of itself doesn’t seem strange. It began as a kind of opportunity to say, “Hey, let’s look back at what we’ve done.” Not to glorify what I’ve done necessarily, but just to kind of put everything in one place before it’s damaged in a flood or something. I had some amazing photographs that went on to form the basis of a chapter about memorabilia and it spiraled from there. I started teaching kind of by accident at Columbia [College in Chicago] and I just love it. Did I ever think as I approach my 50th birthday that I’d be looking back at years of playing and be deliriously excited by new potentials in education? No. Did I think that I’d be doing lectures that in some circumstances just sometimes become more like a stand up comedy routine? No. I’m not a religious man at all, but sometimes I feel blessed with the things that have happened in my life. I’ve been blessed with four amazing children and life continues to excite.

buzz: Was there a defining moment when you knew that you had to write this book?

Atkins: When I walked into the first class [I was teaching at Columbia College] Business of Touring, I saw that there was a textbook and said, “Oh wow! There’s a textbook and that’s great,” I asked a student to hand the book to me and when I saw that it was written in 1962, I hit the student upside the head with the book. I told them, “If this was a meal in the classroom I’d send it back. You are consumers, how can you sit here and agree to learn from a book written in 1962 about a business that is changing everyday?” I immediately started to get the materials together [for the book] from lesson plans and the fact this, and other textbooks, didn’t have the other elements of touring—the human endeavors, the sex, the drugs. It sounds like happy accident or coincidence…but you have to make this stuff happen. I push myself past my own fear, you know? What the hell, am I a teacher? If I can stand up in front of an audience for several hours [as a musician], I can stand up in front of some kids for several hours.

buzz: There are a great deal of guest contributions in the book. How did these come about?

Atkins: A few of the people in the book I specifically asked for contributions from, but then other things started to happen. Henry Rollins called me and needed a track for a radio show, so I talked him into contributing to the book. You could call it leverage, or out and out blackmail. I talked to people like Jason Pettigrew at Alternative Press, brought in a real doctor to talk about drugs and the effects and then had a real expert to talk about actual drug experience. I started to really love the crazy directions and all of the different input and it makes you realize that every single band has one crazy experience, but when you take a few steps back you start to see that that is the norm. Crazy coincidence and horrible accidents are the norm and you better be prepared for it.

buzz: What should one expect out of your presentation and what kind of people would you suggest attend?

Atkins: I’m ADD. It can go in any direction. I can talk about my stuff for seven hours, that’s easy. What I prefer to do I use my examples, illustrations and ideas and keep things funny. Talking to collections of bands sometimes, it’s very, “How can we do this? How can we do that?”—very specific, like there is a socioeconomic background of the punk rock revolution. I’m like, “Uh, things go wherever they want to go.” Fuck off. People didn’t need a label before. People have never needed anything. Stop waiting for someone to give you permission and start doing it

buzz: If you had one ultimate piece of advice for touring bands, what would it be?

Atkins: Run for your fucking life. Do something else. Anybody who would want to be in this business has to be driven and passionate. If saying run for your life will stop even two people, they didn’t deserve to be in the business as it is. The easier version of this would be to say that you must responsibility for every single thing you do and stop blaming people for everything. There’s no entitlement to anything. You are entitled to roll up your sleeves and work your nuts off 46 hours a day, 9 days a week. It’s when people blame and beg and ask for permission…it’s just boring. Somebody blaming somebody is so fucking boring. It doesn’t matter. There are so many whiners. Your story isn’t getting on 60 Minutes and you need to have that attitude when you go on the road.