Anthem Magazine

HOW TO SURVIVE TOUR WITH YOUR LOVER

Handsome Furs excellent sophomore album, Face Control, was released last week. (The title is the hilarious phrase for an Eastern European club policy that only lets in beautiful people.) In our upcoming print issue, we headed to the Sundance Film Festival to photograph Dan and Alexei traipsing through the snow and generally being very much in love. This got us wondering—how does a couple survive the cramped spaces, endless sound checks, and squalid accommodations that a rock ‘n roll tour entails? In this spirit, we proudly present Handsome Furs’ Guide To Surviving Tour With Your Lover.

—No threesomes with fans. Flattered, decline.

—To combat the fact that you may be sharing your hotel room with a ceaseless Youtube-and-sport-stats-checking tour manager, simulate sex on stage every night. (You might not get the actual chance later)

—No matter how early you have to get up in the morning to drive to Zlina, Slovakia, do not give up the opportunity to stay up all night drinking local booze, talking, and fucking. Nobody likes a party pooper.

—Take a break from complaining about last night’s soundman, and realize you are eating seafood pad thai at a buffet in Fargo, North Dakota!

—Don’t be embarrassed to be surprised by everything: sometimes it’s a TV tower in Riga, or air quality, or a chocolate bar named Daim!, or a sidewalk gas pump in Nebraska, or a Ukrainian woman living in a portable toilet in downtown Moscow, or a German road sign font, or Mexican radio.

—Be quiet even when you’re happy.

—Tomorrow no one will care about your complicated relationship with your father, no matter how much coke they did the night before.

—Don’t be afraid to hurt yourself onstage.

—No matter where you are, remember that you are not at home. You are somewhere different. It’s romantic, isn’t it?

—Boob sweat’s not that big of a deal (just avoid Flickr).

—Boys and girls will be staring at your lover. Get over it. You are on stage, after all.

—If you’re doing this tour right, you are going to smell bad. Don’t worry about it.

—C.S.I.—available everywhere, all the time.

—It’s okay to cry/puke/embarrass yourself at the hotel breakfast buffet.