CMT Blog: Archive

A young band hitting the road has a very simple definition of success - your first tour bus. One glimpse of a mighty Prevost on the highway is enough to make a musician's heart flutter from within the confines of a smelly over-crowded Chevy passenger van. Could that be Alison Krauss and Robert Plant? Tim McGraw and Faith Hill? The tour bus is the Promised Land.

But as Kinky Friedman once said: "The price of fame just went up." This leviathan of luxury is looking outdated in a world of rising costs and ever-expensive gas. Instead of comfort, I now see the bus as a large red dollar sign on the expense account. In our little van, we used to fill the tank for $50 when we hit the road three years ago. It now costs over $100. We can hope to get 17 mpg, but what's good mileage for a tour bus? The average expectancy seems to be 5-9 mpg. That would mean filling a tank that size would cost approximately $9 million! OK, that's an exaggeration, but you get my point.

In 2005, a tour accountant at the very top level told me she budgeted $1,000 per day for a tour bus. This covers the hire cost of the bus, gas, the driver, extra charges for long trips, the driver's hotel room, and taxis to get the driver to and from the hotel. In today's market I can only imagine that expense is now upwards of $1,500 per day. For most bands, these are fairy tale figures. The van-bus divide in our business is a cruel one; the equivalent of the peasant and gentry divide in old feudal societies. I say good luck to anyone who rides around in the tour bus and please raise a glass for us van warriors. But until I start making hundreds of thousands of dollars per night, I'll continue to wave from the comfy confines of my van.