Nashville’s Cheap Time hit the road this week on a full US tour that spans 27 states and 58 cities in a little under three months. With only 212 miles between Nashville and Memphis, the band has made the Bluff City their second home during their career, playing venues like the Buccaneer and the Hi-Tone Café every few months. Former Memphian Jeffrey Novak (the band’s songwriter and founder) also collaborated with the late Jay Reatard many times, and Reatard produced Novak’s first solo record in the house the two shared on in Midtown.
Although Wallpaper Music, the group’s third album for the Los Angeles-based record label In the Red, came out in May, this is Cheap Time’s first tour in support of record. I got Novak on the phone while in the tour van en route to the band’s kickoff show in Chattanooga:
Flyer: How do you prepare for a tour of this size, mentally and physically?
Novak: There isn’t really a way to prepare for a tour this big. Being in this band over the years it seems like no matter how much we try to practice before tour it never works out, someone’s gone or there are scheduling problems. Right now we know more songs than we’ve ever known before, which is good. We know a whole new album that no one’s ever heard. Before a tour I always get filled with anticipation and I cant sleep a few days before we leave. There is also the excitement of being on the road and playing every night. It’s also nice to be in a position where things are being taken care of by our publicist and tour manager and we can just focus on the music.
You’ve toured the U.S. extensively over the years. Are you hitting any places for the first time on this outing?
There are tons of places we’re playing on this tour that I’ve never played before. It is inevitable when you tour for this long but we told our new booking agent Todd we wanted the longest tour possible with the fewest days off. Our European tour later this year is the same way. Once you’ve been doing this for a while and you can tour on a name, the doors open to more places you can go. We’ve stuck to this for seven years and it keeps getting a little better with every tour. There’s never been a major change before; everything’s always been really slow for us.
