The Artist's Work Ethic
The Artist's Work Ethic
Episode 88 - Musician Chris Barker (Day at the Fair & Lanemeyer)
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Chris Barker is a musician who is the singer and guitar player in Day at the Fair. Day at the Fair was previously on Rushmore Records, a subsidiary of Drive Thru Records and they spent years playing clubs, festivals, and tours across the country. Prior to Day at the Fair, Chris was also in the beloved New Jersey band, Lanemeyer.
And I think you learn in your life, you learn from from every mistakes that you make and every mistakes every mistake that other people make. And how do I apply that to make uh Day at the Fair what what it you know the the mediocre the mediocre uh rise to I guess I guess infinite mediocrity that we became.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Artist Work Ethics Podcast. I'm Mike Pelak. I'm an actor, screenwriter, and filmmaker, and in this podcast, I talk to people from across the arts about their process, habits, and work ethic. You can find me on Instagram at the Artists Work Ethics Podcast, and I'd love to hear from you at the Artists Work Ethics Podcast at gmail.com. Today on the show is Chris Barker. Chris is a musician who's the singer and guitar player in Dade the Fair. Date the Fair was previously on Rushmore Records, a subsidiary of Drive-Thru Records, and they spent years playing clubs, festivals, and tours across the country. Prior to Dave the Fair, Chris was also in the beloved New Jersey band Lane Meyer. All right, Chris, thank you for coming on with me today.
SPEAKER_01Hey, thank you. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00So uh I'm excited for this because we've been friends for a long time, and I've told you this before, but you're one of my favorite songwriters of all time. So I'm very excited to talk to you, even though we have lunch occasionally, and I've told you that before. So thanks, man.
SPEAKER_01Can I say you're one of my favorite people when I was talking about doing this interview? I'm like, I think the true measure of a person sometimes is like when you mention their names and no one can say anything bad about them at all, no matter what situation you were in, whatever social situation you're in, that is you. And I've known you for it's gotta be 30 years now. And I just think you are just a solid, an amazing person, and you're just one of those people that just everybody loves. So I'm happy to do this, man. And I appreciate those kind words.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you. And and so thinking back to how we met was early on in the New Jersey punk scene, and you know, I've I've said before on the podcast that that's really informed me and who I am and how I operate today, just even with the podcast where I go, you know what, I want to do something, I'm gonna do it. How did growing up in the punk scene influence the way you operated the bands that you've been in?
SPEAKER_01So I guess when we go back to the first band, uh, which was Lane Meyer, that was different. We were 16-year-old kids, right? We didn't, we had no idea what we were doing. We had an older drummer at the time, a drummer that was older than us. So he took care of all of those responsibilities. And that's something like I look back on in life and I wish I had more of a say in. And I think I take I take a look at like everything I learned from uh from that experience, and I applied it to being like the the sole, I don't want to say owner of Day at the Fair, but like I took everything I didn't like there, I built it with Day at the Fair, and I didn't realize that like over the years, like those are just complete like the things I learned in both of those situations were just such transferable skills to how I operate these days.
SPEAKER_00So when you I remember when you were still living in California and you were just starting Day at the Fair, you'd recorded something. I don't know if it was a demo or what it was. It was before No Lights on Weldon. And I remember we went out drinking at a bar up by your house in Jefferson one day. And I remember thinking you had this plan. Like it it felt to me at the time like you had a real plan in place for what you were gonna do with Day at the Fair. Looking back now, was it as intentional to you as it seemed to me, do you think?
SPEAKER_01So it was. And again, I I go back to the the fact that we were young, we didn't really know what we were doing. Like the there was a lot of like, and these are these are still my friends these days, but at the time, like we didn't we couldn't we didn't know how to get along, and that was a problem. Like, so as I was I was I I take that even with my life these days, I want to be like a chess player. Like, what is my next goal? So as we were on tour, things were going south, the second record wasn't as great as the first record, and I I I I noticed that like I started making plans for Day at the Fair. Like, this is what I want to do, this is the grand plan. So I ended up moving out to California. I ended up because I wanted to learn similar to what I did in Lane Meyer. What can I do in Lane Meyer? What happened in Lane Meyer that I can do a day at the fair, but just make it better. So take all of the things I didn't like and how do I apply it to there? I got a job offer at Verra at Verizon, sorry, at uh Drive Thru Records, and I moved out. I moved out under the pretense that I was gonna be making $20 an hour, but I guess because uh I poor communication skills as a kid, I was making $20,000 a year, which is impossible to live in California. So anyway, I move across the country because I wanted to work at Drive Thru because it was part of the grander plan to like, what do I what can I learn from a record label's perspective? What do you do from an electronic press kit? What do you do from like photos? What do you do from how do you uh carry yourself? What does the label do? What could you do to help out the label? So on the back end, I learned a lot of the inner workings, essentially stealing from Drive-Thru to later on get signed by Drive Thru three or four years later. So I just wanted I wanted to be like a sponge and just get every amount of information I can in order to make the band as successful as it could be. And I think you learn in your life, you learn from from every mistake that you make and every mistakes, every mistake that other people make. And how do I apply that to make uh Day at the Fair what it you know the the mediocre the mediocre uh rise to I guess I guess infinite mediocrity that we became?
SPEAKER_00Would you say that you were the driving force behind Day at the Fair?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So it was my it was started as a soul project. The day, the weekend I left Lane Meyer, we played a show with the Ataris. I was in Pittsburgh, we drove home, I just quit the band in the middle of the night. And two weeks later, I was in the studio with John McClario, just doing some of the stuff on my own. As I did just a four-song demo, I was like, all right, let me just go back in and start recording No Lights Unwelded. And that was piecemeal together because I was really broke. One thing Lane Meyer left me was like insanely broke. And I it's almost like whenever I think about being a musician, I immediately relate it to how poor I was for like 15 years. So that was like the brokest I've ever been. So I was scrounging up records, I was scrounging up like old records, demos, doing whatever I can just to make No Lights on Weldon happen. And that's where I kind of just outsourced all my old friends from like Josh from Humble Beginnings, Casey Morgan, Doyle came and sung some songs on No Lights on Weldon. And so I funded it as best as I could. I don't think the album was ever mixed or really mastered. It was piecemealed together because I wanted to get it out there.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. And thinking back a minute ago, you mentioned that you wanted to take what you learned in Lane Meyer and apply it to Date the Fair. Like, is there anything looking back that maybe you did in Lane Meyer that you were like, I am not going to do this with Date the Fair, I'm gonna do it differently.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and a lot of that was was financially. I mean, I think we with I look back at like like Lane Meyer back in the day. This is before streaming, this is when we had a $500 van. This is when you're selling records every night, like you're playing shows, gas is 99 cents, and I never got paid in Lane Meyer. And I'm I don't know, I don't want this to piss off anybody, but I never got paid. And I look back like what we were dealing with in Day at the Fair, where we had guarantees, we were opening up for bigger bands, gas was 250, we were traveling around an RV and a trailer. So I think the money was a little bit mishandled in Lane Meyer. So I wanted to make sure that all the checks and balances were aligned and everybody knew exactly where how the sausage was being made, so to speak. Because that's what I do in my job even these days. Like I look at like the under the low-hanging fruit of like some of the financials. Like, what could we be saving? Like, how do we explain what we're spending on? Because I think that's important. I never knew where it went. It was like, hey, like, can I get like a slice of pizza? I'd be like, no, didn't you work all summer? That was kind of like the mentality we had in Lehmanmeyer. So I had to go home, work my ass off at Craigmere, which was like a ski resort in New Jersey. I'm sure you remember it. Um, I had to work my ass off to get as much money as I could in order to go back out on tour. And then I'd be like, guys, I can't tour anymore. I'm broke. I have bills, I have car insurance. So I think the biggest takeaway I had was number one, how to how to treat people with respect. And that's not saying that I was any better than the guys there. I mean, Sean and I and Doyle fought like cats, you know, like a cat and a cats and why something the plural of that. Um, but we we we argued a lot. And I think like I learned in Day at the Fair, like, how do we get along? Yeah, how do I show exactly like um you know how the band's growing? How do like what the vision explain the vision? We were just young kids, we had no idea what we were really doing in Lane Meyer, and I took those those lessons as takeaways for Day of the Fair.
SPEAKER_00And then I you know, I always think that relationships are so important, not in just like quote unquote networking, but just like genuinely being a decent person. And and so you had mentioned that you were working at Drive Thru at a point, and then Date the Fair ended up signing with Drive Thru later on. And you know, I always think that relationships are an important part in the arts, you know, not just networking to network, but but a true, you know, friendship or relationship that's genuine. Do you think those relationships played a part in Date the Fair, you know, leading to that signing eventually?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, because I I think I think with us everything, everything really came full circle. And I I still feel like this these days, I think loyalty is very important. It almost, I mean, there's probably points in my career where loyalty, you know, had the had the adverse effect where it should. I had a loyalty to Chris Badamy, I have a loyalty to John McClerio. These are people that like we worked with since we were 16. So when Drive Thru gave us the opportunity to go wherever we wanted to record the record, I'm like, I'm going to John. And then we finished the record with Chris. When we had different labels we were talking to, I was like, I already have a rapport with Richard and Stephanie. I don't need to go through that whole awkward like knowing people, you know? Yeah. They were always great to me. I mean, I know like they've had their this, you know, some people have been outspoken about them, but for for me, I think they paid for an insanely huge portion of my life, which is probably went largely unrecouped. I mean, like, they a lot of my best memories of my life came from them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I mean, we had rocky relationships when I worked there, but I mean, they they did they did right by me all along, so I wanted to make sure that I continued that relationship rather than starting anywhere new. So I think relationships are important to me. Um, they've always been, and I think that loyalty was as well.
SPEAKER_00If the band went through tough times, like uh, you know, a string of shows that weren't what you hoped, you know, or or like a you know, a tough tour after a good one or sales dipped or whatever, how did you force yourself to just stay the course and push through? Because I think you know, in the arts that's the thing that everyone faces on some level. And it's and it's I think one of the toughest things to to kind of like get yourself over those humps that inevitably come.
SPEAKER_01It was always there was communication breakdowns, and I think we it I think sometimes you need to you need to completely have a breakdown in order rebuild it. And we've had tours where we fired somebody on the road and they cried, and then you know, we would bring them back in because we felt bad. But like it was those communication breakdowns and those those massive like those arguments. We really settled our our differences like when things really got hard. And I think that's where really like the rubber would meet the road. And but and coming from like Lane Meyer, where we didn't have any money and we didn't have any support or or tour support, where you break down and you'd be calling mom, and mom's like, I'm not giving you a thousand bucks for a transmission, goes back to the Richard and Stephanie piece from drive-thru. It'd be like, Hey, we just blew a transmission, I need four thousand dollars, we have seven dollars in our bank account. I'm gonna take a bus to meet up with this band, and could you pay for the hotel for a couple of days? And they would do that. So we had that support, and that was that was nice always kind of having a parachute where we didn't have that before. But I think like Rob was kind of the cornerstone to the band, he was the only real mainstay. We went through a thousand different members until it ended up being the right group, and Rob and I are still friends to this day, it was right up the street from me, and we were always on the same page regardless of what it was, uh, regardless of what the issues were. So, yeah, there were times where you know where things kind of broke down, but we we we knew, you know, how to rebuild easy.
SPEAKER_00What's something in your music career, whether it's Lane Meyer, Day at the Fair, where something that you did maybe a little out of the norm that helped you stand apart from other bands? You know, taking taking the the songs themselves aside, you know, something that you did that just helped you stand apart from the crowd.
SPEAKER_01That's a good question. I don't I don't know if I even know the answer to that. I think in Lane Meyer, Lane Meyer resonated more with like everything on the East Coast. Like Day at the Fair couldn't sell 20 tickets on the uh, you know, like in Jersey like 20 years ago. Lane Meyer for some reason, I think it was a timing thing. You know what I mean? I think everything was like timing, and you know, even though like there was a lot of infighting in the band, like the the two singers, the the way the songs were structured, the rawness of it, I think that resonated with people in Jersey and like more on the East Coast more than like anything with Day at the Fair. Day at the Fair, when we came on, was kind of like, and I I every time I read anything, which I I don't like to do, but it's it's it's mostly favorable on YouTube, you know, you'll see like people saying like this band never really got their chance. And I think we did come in late in the game, like the the the record label like was already like a like a sinking ship at the time. The industry changed. We were getting older, like we were in our 20, 20, we were 25, 26, like we were at the point where like, okay, we need to like we want to have families. Yeah, so I think uh we didn't have the opportunity um that I may have if I if I'd started Day at the Fair maybe earlier, got it off the ground a little earlier. But in regards to Lamar, it was timing, and a lot of these bands are timing. Like, I mean, you worked at Side One Dummy. I think like that, whatever it was about that first gaslight anthem was like the timing of that, every single song resonated with who I was because I'm the same ages, we're the same age as Brian. Yeah, and the songs and the way that the way it was recorded and the way it resonated, a lot of it's just timing. And and Lehmeyer did have timing, but didn't have the full execution and the full longevity or the finances to do it, where Day at the Fair was more like uh the end of it, the end of that era.
SPEAKER_00Well, I feel like you you did have, you know, you you you had some pretty big tours. Like I I don't feel like you should look back with any any regret that you didn't really have a chance, you know.
SPEAKER_01Oh, and and I don't. That's one thing I probably should start off by saying, like, there's no regrets. I'm so happy to this day that like the band the band wasn't as successful. Like, I I enjoy my career now. I love my children, I love my wife. Like, that's my life now. And had I like stuck on stuck with it, and if it were ever successful, like I couldn't picture myself being on the road. Even when I try, I travel for like a decent amount for work right now, not like a six-month tour. And it's it's hard for me because I don't like they're young, I don't like being away from like my family, and I don't like staying out late. I became like kind of a stick in the mud as I got older. I'm very regimented. Like, I'm everything I do, I I rehearse for, I practice for now, you know, like whenever we play a show. So I look back, I again, some of it's like self-deprecating humor. Like, I like to, you know, I I don't I guess it's kind of more or less like the way I was raised. I look back and like as my life and like the those times as uh in the band is almost like an afterthought, you know what I mean? And can I actually talk about that real quick? I want to so when I left the band, it was it was interesting because I I told you before, like I kind of hid behind the the you know, you know, um you book shows and then you went from booking shows to a career, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01Is that that was pretty much your trajectory, right?
SPEAKER_00Basically, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So like I left from being in a band, being broke, not being able to afford an apartment with my wife. Like it was a very embarrassing time in my life to be 26 and like have you know like a 500 credit score. So I hid, like when I went and I started my career at like a real entry level, um, I I I I hid the band from myself from like I hid everything I did in those Leymar years, everything I did in those day at the fairs. I didn't want anybody to know until I did my first management interview, and that was in 2012, right? So I brought my resume in, I had like a little purple shirt on. I look like Bert Wonderstone. I come in and I was like, I hope that whatever they do, they don't ask me about that gap in my resume from 2002 to 2005, because that was day at the fair. Yeah. And when I got in to the interview, I you know, they get to the end of the interview and they said to me, They're like, uh, we have a gap in your resume. I'm like, oh shit, here it comes. You know? And I was like, all right, here's here's here's my chance that you know, the career advancement. And what I learned in that interview after it, like they asked a bunch of questions. You're like, well, what did you do in the band? I was like, singer, songwriter, uh, we got on this show, we said we sold this many albums. I didn't realize until that moment that like everything I learned in my past, and I'm sure that you see this a lot in your career, everything you learned from the DIY perspective, really like you never knew it at the time, but like you were learning everything you needed to know now based on like what you were learning back then. And when you think about it, it's like managing internal, external stakeholders, vendors, marketing, PR. Like, I dealt with all those things at like a grassroots level, and you built it from the ground up. So when I look back on like Day at the Fair success and like or or or lack of thereof of success and and lame, I look back on all those mistakes, all those things I learned, everything from a DIY perspective, and I apply it to my career these days. And now I walk into every job interview and I for I start out with that. I start out saying, like, I was a guy in a band. Here's what I did. I managed this, I did this, I did this, I book shows, and it it really shows like where you came from and how you can you can work leaner and you can do more with less, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I I I just think it it makes you a more complete person, you know. I mean, right, we both have been in corporate environments. You see the people who you know, they they uh graduate college at 22 and immediately go right into that and and maybe they get there one or two vacations a year. And that's their only experience is going out and doing things. And and it's you know, it's it's just that experience is gonna just bring different perspectives. And and I feel like for myself, I'm such a proponent of just experiences, you know, and just if you feel like doing something, and it probably comes from the punk scene to a big degree, and just like we're just gonna do it somehow, we're gonna figure it out, we're gonna make it happen. And I think there's a lot of people who I've come across and they go, How how could you do that? How how did you how do you just one day decide to start a podcast and end up doing that? And like, how do you decide you're just gonna make a movie and and join a band and whatever? And it's like there's something in me and you and a lot of these other people who I talk to, and I I have never been able to pinpoint it, but it's something that we just go, you know what, we're just gonna do it. I don't know why.
SPEAKER_01A hundred percent. It's yeah, I couldn't have said it better myself. We you learn how to be resourceful, you know. You learn how to like, if you don't know an issue, you learn how to if there's an issue, you know how to fix it. You know what I mean? We're lucky the way we grew up, you know what I mean. I think we're lucky. I look back on I went from living a dream to going to college to a career and then finishing college. Like I did everything backwards, and I don't regret any of it. Same because I don't think I would have like if I had stayed in college, you know, like I don't know like initially if I would have loved like my life and the trajectory that I had and the things I learned. Because you you learned you learn how to do more with less, and you learn how to just just just just know I think that's the biggest thing is just being a good communicator and knowing how to like know it, getting to know people. And that's that's what we learned just from from growing up.
SPEAKER_00Yep. So normally I would ask, what's a goal that you still want to accomplish in your career? Now, you know, Day at the Fair has has played sporadically. You put out you know the the newer song, I guess it was probably two or three years ago now. But is there is there anything else musically that you still want to do in your life that you haven't gotten to do yet?
SPEAKER_01So it's funny. I say no more to shows now than I do, it's gotta feel right, right? And there's a couple on the table right now, like a little mini tour this summer, but it kind of goes back to like that like uh that instinctual thing I have in me. I just think the second I start picking up a guitar again, I'm gonna go broke. So there's an offer on the table right now, and I've been like avoiding it a little bit because I'll be honest with you, every time we play a show, I come out, and I think 2022 we did a Lame reunion with Midtown, and it was amazing. I had so much fun. And then last summer, Houston Calls asked us to play with them over at Crossroads. It was an incredible show. For some reason, I always follow those shows up with an acoustic show. I think all of a sudden I can play acoustic and uh and just do well. And I did it, I opened up for Chris Get Gethard over in uh uh at Twin Elephants Brewing, which is an amazing place. Like they put on great shows. And then a couple months ago, I I opened up for Ace Enders. So maybe the long the my long-term goal is to like not suck at those shows because every single time I play acoustic, I'm absolutely terrible. I can't my voice can't hold up the way it was. That's why I understand why people like tune down 20 steps. So I think my long-term goal is to one day play Twin Fellow Elephant Brewing and not suck. As for Day at the Fair, we didn't, I never realized how many songs we did over the years that we never released. And I just I plugged in an old iPod a couple months ago, and and I there was like 20 songs on there B Sides from the Rock and Chair years, demos I did, like because I would work sporadically, and every time I would get together with our old drummer Dave Patino, who's just an amazing, wonderful person. We would just go do demos and we'd work for like three weeks on demos and never release them. We have acoustic versions, demos of all songs that are other songs that are better than what's on the record. Stuff we did with Ryan Selleck. Like, I really want that to just be out there. Rob Freeman has all of them from Hidden and Plainview, and like we just it's funny because he and I like we talk about it and then we just don't do anything for six months. So long-term goals with Day at the Fair is you know, not suck at twin elephant brewing and then release uh release uh that that that that B-Sides album.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I don't know what it takes, but is it the type of thing that you could put on Spotify relatively easily, or or is that like a lot more than just me saying it?
SPEAKER_01We could, and I know like other bands have done that, but like I don't know. And I'm sure like and I've learned this just you know, it goes back to like the work ethic thing. It's different now than the way it was. No lights on the world in 20 years ago. I'm like, just release it without master, don't give a shit. Put it off in the ether. Nowadays, let me go in and tweak this line. Let me go in like make this this note was a little bit off. So you be the older you get, the more like you become of like a perfectionist on certain things, and you walk into everything prepared and over-prepared. Whereas like 20 years ago, that was a lesson you didn't really have. That wasn't a tool you really didn't have in your tool belt. So I have it there, it's there. I could probably go in tomorrow and just say, here you go, here's everything. But the the the perfectionist in me that exists at 46 that did I didn't have it uh 16 exists now.
SPEAKER_00All right, well, I'll be bugging you for it.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, I'll just send it to you. I gotta plug in the iPod.
SPEAKER_00All right, anything you want to plug before we go?
SPEAKER_01No, I mean, you know what? Like uh, if you have kids, my daughter released an EP. We actually did it a couple of years ago, a couple years ago. We talked about that full circle thing like we did before. Um, went back into John Declario studio up in New York and gave that first experience that I had. Well, actually, we she did a song like five years ago at Crispodammy's where Wayne Meyer started, and then um we went and did an EP with John Declario. So it's Brighton May, and she's writing bangers. You know, she's she's a 13-year-old kid. She comes home every day and just writes songs the way I used to when I was 13. So check it out, it's on Spotify and all that kind of stuff. Brighton May Barker.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. Well, Chris, thanks for talking with me today.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, man. I appreciate this.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Uh thank you for being you and thank you for everything you do. You've been nothing but an amazing person in the 30 years I've known you. So this was an honor to hang out with you.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe if you aren't already, and come give me a like on Instagram at the Artists Work Ethic Podcast.