As anyone who’s been on a road trip knows, touring the U.S. in a car means eating a lot of bad food. It’s the same for rock bands–during long drives from gig to gig, sustenance comes more often than not from highway rest stops. When you’re on your second tube of Pringles in one day, Denny’s never looked so good.
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“Most musicians I know are either hot dog eaters or they’re vegans that don’t cook, so they’re eating processed soy products,” he says. “In my band Julie [Pomerleau, who’s also his girlfriend] and I are the only people that really cook. The other guys appreciate that it’s nice to eat good food, but I don’t think Sledd, our guitarist, has had his gas on in two years, so it’s all about going out. One friend of mine says, ‘I enjoy eating fruit, but it’s so much easier to eat a candy bar.’ Yeah, ’cause the time it takes to peel an orange is so inconvenient. It seems like a lot of younger people just grew up in this convenience-food culture.”
Authement proposed the idea to local indie labels Thrill Jockey and Drag City, but it was harder to find volunteers than he expected. “The publicist at Drag City wrote me back and said she was having a hard time because none of the guys cook,” he says. “They just open up the can and heat it up.” But Thrill Jockey was able to find a handful of musicians on the label who loved food and cooking. Liz Payne of Town and Country and members of Eleventh Dream Day and the Nerves have signed up to teach classes. Each instructor or group of instructors gets $100 for their time, but that doesn’t seem to be a motivating factor.
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