SoundCheck: Turnover redefines the roles of full-time college band members

Nicholas Rayfield | college.usatoday.com

The lifestyle of a college student doesn't have to be defined so tightly. It isn't always going to be a person in their mid-whatevers struggling to find the time to do the things that they've always wanted to.

To the four people that I spent the last couple of weeks with, it actually means quite the opposite. I hopped in a cramped van on May 27, 2015 with Virginia Beach alternative rock band Turnover as they embarked on a two-week tour in support of Detroit punk band Fireworks.

Touring is simply unlike anything else that a musically-inclined college student could do. Turnover is lucky enough to do it anywhere from six to eight months out of the year.

There aren't a lot of other experiences than touring that have the ability to drive people to feel such equally heavy levels of happiness and irritation at the same time. Just because someone might be enjoying that blissful detachment away from their part-time job or their strict study schedule doesn't mean that the sounds of sniffling, crunching or that same song on the radio won't drive that person up a wall.



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It just takes some getting used to.

"Being a college student on the road requires a lot of self discipline," says Eric Soucy, the band's guitarist and psychology major at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. "It's the only thing that makes both worlds possible at the same time, though."

They may be a full-time band with a seemingly unending amount of freedom beneath their feet (or wheels), but Turnover certainly faces some of the same dilemmas that other students do.

"Being in a band requires that much more sacrifice from a student," says Soucy. "I can't stay home to work and be in school. I always end up missing all of the fun parties and holiday events. That normal, suburban lifestyle is easy to fall into, but if you take the risk and go out into the world, it's well worth it."

But the opportunity also comes with a great amount of responsibility.

They diligently choose not to party at or after a show if they know they have an assignment or an exam coming up. And since establishments with good WiFi connections are few and far between when they're touring, they wake up hours before they have to leave each morning to stay caught up with their courseload.

Things like these might not seem like much, but they sure add up fast when they start to slip away.

You know, like when a good night's sleep becomes precious or when there are 10-20 people hanging around and yelling after finishing a meal together — all while you're cooped up inside of the van, reading a chapter in a textbook and munching on a granola bar.



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Oh, and that's another thing: college students aren't just broke at home.

To many people, it's such a surprise that touring bands have to get themselves to a certain financial level before they can start pocketing anything at all — band members aren't simply laying back and swimming in money. Pennies are still pinched for young, touring bands in the same ways they are being pinched by the students inside a school dorm.

Turnover has been touring both domestically and internationally for over four years. They've constantly struggled to get by, but continued hopping into their van to play shows for the fans that cared. Even the lowest points of the journey weren't enough to pull the band apart.

In early May 2015, Turnover released their sophomore LP, Peripheral Vision, through Run For Cover Records.

There's more to being a band than what meets the eye, though. The two weeks that I spent with them were full of constant phone calls, emails, a music video shoot, picking up and restocking merchandise, arguments, a van repair, along with various other restrictions to all the fun that touring is cracked up to be. To Turnover, though, it's all worth it.

The band is back on its feet again (and quickly climbing up the ladder). They sold five times the amount of merchandise every night on this tour that they were accustomed to and their upcoming tour schedule — both announced and unannounced — is enough to keep all four members busy for quite some time.

But just because they're doing better for themselves doesn't mean they don't still have bills to pay and band expenses to maintain. On campus or miles away, it's all one and the same.

"Between traveling and having a new setting and new distractions daily," says Austin Getz, Turnover frontman and a communications major at Old Dominion University, "finding the willpower to do the whole college student lifestyle is sometimes difficult."

Especially when it comes to food.

"Luckily," Getz says, "Turnover has reached a point where I feel comfortable on the road and don't feel l have to constantly eat 'dollar menu food.' In reality, just like anything else, you just have to tell yourself that you're going to do it and then follow through."

The biggest differences between the frightening combination of the budget and the diet of a college student at home and one on the road is the availability of the food and choice system.

They are fortunate enough to occasionally land meal and drink vouchers at the venues or receive meal donations from both small businesses and large corporations alike when on the road.

It's all about balance for Turnover.

The actions that they've taken in the past few weeks showed me that touring is not outside any boundary or constraint of what a college student is actually able to do. The band has rigged a strategy to be able to both check and balance one another and make sure that their priorities are always taken care of, no matter the cost or the sacrifice.

Just ask the band — you don't have to live the on-campus, cookie-cutter lifestyle of a kid attending a four-year school. You can grab on to what you want and take it yourself.



Nicholas Rayfield is a member of the USA TODAY College contributor network.

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