For indie musicians, a concert can last up to two hours. The meal after it might be scarfed down in record speed on the way to an after-party or the tour bus’ bunks, but those liminal culinary moments—which can also morph into long-distance friend reunions, impromptu banquets, and gas-station raids—hold a more profane but no less potent power.
Alex Bleeker and Luke Pyenson, of the bands Real Estate and Frankie Cosmos respectively, know the inner workings of the tour diet by heart. Their new book, Taste in Music: Eating on Tour with Indie Musicians, is both an insider guide to stomaching tour and a collection of some of the wildest—and most endearing—anecdotes about food from the pens of their ravenous musician friends (think Chris Frantz of Talking Heads, Natalie Mering aka Weyes Blood, Devendra Banhart, and Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath). From hole-in-the-wall recommendations to meditations on disordered eating to the confessions of Phoebe Bridgers and boygenius’s touring chef, Lily Chait, the tome is punctuated by the kind of life that gets left out of the concert reviews or the blockbuster memoirs—those little moments that quite literally sustain the music you hear.
To mark the book’s publication, Bleeker, Pyenson, and three other contributors dished on their most extreme culinary encounters while on the road—from a tofu scramble worth drunk-dialing for to a “Texas Twinkie.”
Luke Pyenson, food writer and former drummer for Frankie Cosmos and Krill
What's the craziest thing you've ever eaten on tour?
A while ago we played a one-off in Dallas and stayed with friends of Greta [Kline]'s family in Plano. We flew in the night before, and when we arrived they had a whole spread of barbecue waiting for us, including a specialty from their local go-to spot called Texas Twinkies. Crispy bacon-wrapped jalapenos stuffed with shredded brisket and cream cheese. Totally nuts, and I would've never ordered it for myself because I do not like cream cheese. But it was one of the best bites of food I've ever had.
What's the craziest anecdote you have about a meal on tour?
On a day of driving between Switzerland and Croatia, our van broke down and we got stuck in standstill traffic for hours in an Alpine mountain pass. Really bad luck all day. We'd planned to spend the night in Slovenia, on Lake Bled, but we didn't pull in until late at night, and everyone was starving and irritable. The only place open was a pizza place, and we just ordered plain cheese pizza. When it arrived, I swear it was the spiciest thing I have ever eaten in my life. No explanation for why it was so spicy. Like inedibly spicy. Weirdly boring to read this written out, but at the time it really felt crazy. Why is this random Slovenian pizza so spicy?
Alex Bleeker, Real Estate and Alex Bleeker and the Freaks
What's the craziest thing you've ever eaten on tour?
In 2013, I was in Dallas with my band Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, and we were looking forward to eating at the well known Taqueria El Si Hay. Finding the restaurant and acquiring the tacos was easy and delicious, but when we got there we noticed a very long line for another local delicacy. In the parking lot of the famed taqueria, a man was selling Mexican street corn from a cart.
With the exacting precision of a Michelin star chef, he was stripping kernels of corn off of the cob, mixing them with gobs of butter, sour cream, queso fresco, and hot sauce, and serving up the beautiful hot mixture in a styrofoam cup. I cannot stress how delicious this all looked. We knew that we needed to try it. While waiting in the very long line, we struck up a friendly conversation with a woman who told us that the artisan chef before us was known to run out of corn and that he was likely to be running low.
We joked with her, “Since we’re from out of town, if you get the last cup you’ll have to share it with us.” And just like that, she stepped forward, ordered two corn cups in Spanish and walked off, quickly. We reached the front of the line—no more corn, the party was over. I thought about this dish for months: the most delicious food I’d never tasted. When I returned to Dallas with Real Estate later that same year I got there early and managed to get myself a cup. They say anticipation is the best spice—it was absolutely incredible.
Greta Kline, Frankie Cosmos
What's the craziest thing you've ever eaten on tour?
In 2017, we were on tour in Australia, and the band Body Type taught me about Tim Tam Slams. A Tim Tam is an Australian chocolate-covered biscuit. A Tim Tam Slam is when you bite off either end and then drink milk through the Tim Tam like a straw. I think the first one I tried was at the merch table. I was obsessed, and we decided we should all do them on stage at the show. I think we basically ended the show with a chaotic group Tim Tam Slam. It was actually pretty disgusting because we all shared a glass of milk, and maybe even shared a Tim Tam straw… We might have even shared it with some audience members in the front.
What’s a personal anecdote that summarizes how you feel about meals on tour?
Eating on tour is really complicated. Driving all day and playing a show every night tends to put a roadblock in the way of normal eating/digesting times. Having a real sit-down meal on tour at all is such a privilege and a rarity. The more of your life you spend on the road, the more you can learn to prioritize the different kinds of self-care that make it feel more like your life. Food is one of those things for some people (and not for others)!
Sasami Ashworth, SASAMI
What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever eaten on tour?
That's like asking a doctor what the craziest thing they have ever pulled out of a human body is... if a doctor had to do it you know it's probably crazy. If you're on highways stopping at gas stations and rest-stops for food for 90 percent of a tour, you KNOW you're gonna eat something crazy lol. I end up eating a lot of regional snacks on tour. I have toured a lot so I am not as obsessed with seeking out the regional meal specialties in every city (like poutine in Montreal or BBQ in Texas), but I WILL seek out regional snacks. I love U.K. snacks like pickled onion Monster Munch or Hula Hoops.
What’s a personal anecdote that summarizes how you feel about meals on tour?
In the same way that staying at a friend or family member's house instead of a hotel is extremely comforting on tour, having a home cooked meal on tour is so sweet. I think most of my favorite tour meals are day off meals where someone's mom made us dinner. I distinctly remember a tour where we stayed in Nashville at Sophia's (from Soccer Mommy) mom's house, and she made us a homemade chicken pot pie for dinner! Southern hospitality is a WHOLE OTHER LEVEL of coziness, especially on tour.
Sadie Dupuis, Speedy Ortiz
What's the craziest thing you've ever eaten on tour?
The food tourism experience for a vegan is slightly different than the omnivore. For a vegan on tour, I feel like the craziest thing you can find is something that hasn't been done vegan before. I became vegan when I was 17, and I'm 36 now. The science has really drastically improved, and tour is an amazing chance to see those innovations in real time. There's an LA ramen shop called Ramen Hood, and they make a vegan egg that is so unbelievably accurate, it's shocking. A meal that really stands out to me is a restaurant called Smith + Daughters in Melbourne. At the time, their menu was entirely Spanish tapas and I had studied abroad when I was in college in 2008 in Madrid. I would see all my friends going to a tapas bar, but none of it was vegan friendly. It was so incredible to get to go to this place and have like a full suite of authentic tasting Spanish tapas, but entirely plant-based.
What’s a personal anecdote that summarizes how you feel about meals on tour?
What feels typical of a tour experience is going out for a late breakfast with all of your bandmates and all of your friends who live in town. I don't really care if my friends come to a show when we're on tour. I would much rather see them for breakfast and actually get to catch up and hear what they're doing. That feels like a nicer way to actually spend some quality time together. A few years ago, we actually did a tour where we collaborated with a bunch of our favorite restaurants. They would donate the proceeds from some item that we came up with together to either a food justice charity or some other thing in that vein. Bouldin Creek Cafe in Austin is one that really sticks out in my mind. They make my very favorite tofu scramble that I've ever had, and they've been doing it amazingly since I started going there in the mid-2000s. I remember drunk-dialing them once and being like, “I want to know the tofu recipe. Please let me in.” We go there every time and always get to bring buddies. It's such a nice experience to have these homes away from home after being on the road for 15 years.
