Being a Rock Star is grueling.

Case in point: I recently interviewed an up-and-coming punk/pop band called the Plain White T's. Their touring schedule is intense. The group will play 200 shows before summer's over.

That means that every other day these guys are in a different town. The day in between each town is spent in a van (that frequently breaks down). AND every night before they get in the van, they scream their heads off on stage until midnight. And they do this ten months out of the year.

                     The Plain White T's on stage

It's the kind of lifestyle that should burn them out, but they just keep on going ...

The band’s cofounder and guitarist, Dave Tirio, 26, says music was all fun and games in the beginning, but when the band decided to make music a career, "we just had to go for it, and that meant getting very little sleep, eating really bad food and getting used to having no money in our pocket." 
 
"I didn’t think it would be this hard," says the Plain White T’s lead singer, Tom Higgenson, 27, "but it is definitely worth it. The harder we work, the bigger the band gets and the more it pays off in the end for everyone."

Not only does the band have to spend 10 months out of the year on the road. They have to make people like them. After driving through the middle of nowhere on little or no sleep, the Plain White T's are known to hang out with their fans after the show. One fan even said that Tom hugged her after she bought the band’s album. Now we know they’re delirious.

You must have a favorite band. Read their biography. I can almost guarantee it’s full of heart-breaking tales of hard work and suffering. For example, I learned all sort’s of interesting things reading my favorite band, Pulp's, biography. I found out that the lead singer lived on the dole (welfare) in Sheffield, England for most of the 1980s, worked in a fish market, and he was nearly paralyzed when he jumped out of a third story window trying to impress a girl.
(not terribly clever ...)

So, here’s the formula: bands=interesting story.
(A good example is this biography of rap pioneers Run DMC)

AND ... if your favorite band doesn’t have a biography, read all the magazine clippings and Web bios you can. Use that information to piece together their life story. Who knows, it could be the start of a biography … a biography by you.

         Could you write the T's bio?

Practice now by commenting below on your favorite musicians and saying something interesting about where they came from. (Note: Nobody is allowed to say Jewel lived in her car. We all know that already.)