A Postcard From Tyler Ballgame

EDITOR’S NOTE: No Depression’s “Postcard From” series features dispatches from artists' daily lives on the road, in the studio, or anywhere in between. Our next installment comes from singer-songwriter and roots-rock artist Tyler Ballgame, whose debut album For the First Time, Again came out via Rough Trade Records in January. Ballgame and his band just finished a European tour and shared some thoughts about it with No Depression here.

RIP to the bugs of Europe. The front of our Mercedes sprinter van has now become a Jackson Pollock bug guts graveyard. Each solemn plot representing another mile (nay, kilometre) on this Tyler Ballgame Euro headline tour. Most splats go unnoticed by the silent rag tag ballgamers as we sink our heads in books, rest, screen time, and Duolingo mutterings. Our safety is in the hands of our dutiful and good natured tour manager, Neil, who is good for a quip or a setlist suggestion when prompted, and our spirits are high as Neil drives our van onto the Chunnel and we shove off towards Britannia. 

I think we’ve truly been playing the best shows of our lives these last few weeks and I feel so grateful. Grateful for my friends in the band, for my health, and for these strangers who show up each night to sold out rooms to sing along to songs I wrote in my messy little bedroom in Los Angeles.