BY BRETT NIERENGARTEN @PRORODEOBRETT
Ian Munsick is in the final stretch of his Long Live Cowgirls Tour that began on Jan. 20 at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas and will conclude with his first headlining show at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on May 16.
The tour was originally supposed to end in Atlanta on March 16, but additional dates in Iowa, Nebraska, Arizona, Montana and Colorado were added along with the Ryman show.
We talked to Munsick about what a typical concert day is like for him, how he decides what to play at each show and what life is like on the road.
On the day we spoke to Munsick, he had left from his previous show around 2 AM and slept on the bus, which he says is a great luxury to have rather than a van.
TCC: What is a typical show day like for you?
“So, today I woke up around 8 o’clock, get some coffee, do your thing and then usually I’ll have interviews, depending on where we are (Munsick also stopped by the Lucchesse store in the Fort Worth Stockyards that day). Then, we’ll head back to Billy Bob’s get some lunch and then after that is when we’ll usually start to load in all our geat, sound check, do all of that, which usually takes three hours-ish and then after that I usually have an hour to just hang out, be alone and then I do VIP (before the shows), which is meet and greet and acoustic stuff, then I have about an hour to eat and hang out and that’s about the time the opener will start.”
TCC: Do you watch the opener?
“I’ll always try to see how the crowd is, you know if they’re a rowdy crowd, if they’re an engaged crowd to just kind of see what kind of performance I need to to do.”
TCC: How does the set change based on the crowd?
“I’ll always have a good idea of the tunes and the order, but man, there’s times where it’s like, we’re playing at 3 o’clock, in the heat of the afternoon for half an hour, if that’s the case, you want to play more slow stuff because the crowd is probably out there hot. But at the same time, you only have a half an hour, so just hit ‘em with the bangers over and over. The crowd absolutely plays a huge role in how you play on stage, but at the end of the day, every single time, you have to give it 100, because that’s why they’re there and that’s why we’re there.”
TCC: Do you have any pre-show meals or superstitions?
“We’ll do a huddle with the band right before we go on stage and we’ll pray then we will throw up a random word, like last night it was ‘brussel sprouts.’ So, we’ll say ‘1-2-3, brussel sprouts!’ and that just kind of reminds us that we’re there to put light in other people and have a good time.”
TCC: Favorite part about being on the road?
“Getting to see the audience with my own eyes. You spend all of this time in a room writing and recording with one or two other people and then you get to go out and see how people are influenced by the thing you did in a room a year ago, a week ago, five years ago and that’s the most special part about it.”
TCC: Least favorite part?
“We’ve been so lucky with our tours that we’ve always had a bus out here that we can sleep on and have our own space, where as a lot of guys are traveling in a van. So, I really try and be thankful, because we are very blessed to be out here doing it. I don’t really know if I have a least favorite. Even if our bus breaks down on the road, knock on wood, we’re in a bus, so we’re all good.”
TCC: How do you stay sane on the road?
“The thing I try to do the most out here, which is kind of weird, is to sleep as much as I can. When I’m at home, I try to spend as much time with my 3-year-old as I can, so I wake up early with him every morning.”
TCC: What’s something that would surprise people about being a touring country musician
“I think a lot of people think that you roll in, you’re hanging out all day, you get on stage and you play for an hour or two, and then you roll out. It’s not that. You have to load in, do interviews, you have people you need to see and then you get on stage and then you’re out after that, but it is not just hanging out all day.”
TCC: What’s your dream show, who are you playing with and where?
“It would be Cheyenne Frontier Days, Cody Johnson and Chris LeDoux. That would be the pinnacle of my career.”