The life of a rock star can be difficult when it comes to diet. Just ask Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran, who have both had embarrassing bodily functions play out in front of packed crowds. In this story, JOSEPH EARP explores the typical diet of a touring musician. Scroll to the bottom for bonus recipes from some of Australia’s hardest-working bands.
On September 30, 2012, international pop star Justin Bieber took to the stage before a packed, adoring crowd – and promptly vomited. Not just once, either. After an initial sly little puke, the ‘Baby’ crooner hid around a not-quite-obscured-enough corner and vomited again.
The internet had a field day. After all, Bieber is the easiest target in a digital world saturated with easy targets – he’s the 21st century’s multipurpose snot-nosed brat, the pesky little brother practically begging for a couple of swiftly dealt Chinese burns. Videos of the gaffe quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube, and the image of Bieber, bent over, hands slapped upon his thighs, became fodder for a thousand jibing memes.
“Side effects of a Justin Bieber concert may include: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea [sic], and in some extreme cases, death,” read one meme. “I was like, ‘Baby, Baby, Baby… Blechh,’” said another. The latter image reached the top spot on Reddit and stayed there for a full day. Some enterprising businesspeople even turned the moment into a T-shirt, presumably to tap into Bieber merchandise’s untapped market: Bieber haters.
Funnier still was the Biebs’ reason for screaming Ruth in front of an auditorium full of grossed-out pre-teens and their unimpressed parents. The cheeky spew wasn’t brought on by a hangover, or the aftermath of some wild night of celebrity debauchery – rather, Bieber blamed “too much milk” for his illness. Too much milk. Not whisky shots. Not greening out. Not an excess of blow. Too much milk.
But as fun as it might to single the guy out, Bieber is far from the only musician undone by their gustatory pre-performance rituals. Harry Styles of the chart-topping boy band One Direction suffered the same fate in 2012 after going too hard on his rider before a show, and had to scarper off stage to vomit – only to be unfortunately snapped by a few spew-spotting paps down the front of the theatre.
Spare a thought for Lady Gaga while we’re here too. The ‘Poker Face’ singer vomited three times in front of an audience in Barcelona back in 2012, eventually retreating backstage to Jackson Pollock up the very last bit of her rider. “I went backstage and vomited – I did not want you to see this,” she said upon returning, perhaps unaware that the audience was already well acquainted with the contents of her guts by this stage. “It happens to me sometimes.”
Was praying nobody saw but actually its quite a good laugh if u need one! Check out Lady PukeGA doing Swan “Vomit” Lake http://t.co/heXZr0Qj
— xoxo, Gaga (@ladygaga) October 8, 2012
Yet such performers should consider themselves lucky that their food came back up from their uppermost ends rather than the alternative. After all, they could easily have gone the way of Chris Brown or Ed Sheeran. According to an interview Brown did with MTV in 2011, a habit of overindulging in the rich delights listed on his rider once backfired (no pun intended) when the R&B singer shat his pants right in front of an adoring crowd. “This is real disgusting and too descriptive, [but] … I just remember it running down my leg,” he helpfully explained.
Sheeran made a similar mistake. Full of food, the world’s ultimate sad boy once “sharted” (his terminology) in front of a sold-out crowd. “It was like midway through a performance,” Sheeran told an interviewer back in 2015. “I was really lively, and then halfway through I was like, ‘All right, I’m just going to stand for the rest of the performance, and hope it’s over soon and then go home and throw these trousers out.’”
Indeed, though it might not often get discussed in polite circles, live music has its own faeces-splattered, urine-drenched, vomit-soaked Hall of Shame. Artists as diverse as Fergie, GG Allin and Björk have all voided their bowels, upped their guts and flushed out their bladder in full view of their audiences – almost all of them undone by poorly thought-out pre-performance snacking.
Clearly, this is the side of touring people don’t talk about in VH1 Behind The Music segments, or in the tragedy-laced biopics cinemagoing audiences endlessly chew up. As glitzy and glamorous as life on the road might appear to be, the truth is a far cry from on-screen fantasies: the real world, after all, contains rather a lot more shit.
Why drinking the rider too quickly is bad for you
Everything is just that little bit more gross when you’re actually out there living the muso’s life. Just ask almost any contemporary Australian touring musician and they’ll tell you that touring is less Almost Famous than it is 120 Days Of Sodom, and even something as benign as getting a bite to eat before a show is more akin to a feeding frenzy than the kind of polite, civilised grazing one might imagine.
“If we get free beer before the show, it’s a free-for-all,” says Totally Unicorn guitarist Aaron Streatfeild. “It’s like a family of rats – if you don’t get in and gorge yourself, you’ll miss out. You’re more than welcome to wander off and get ‘dinner’, but you’ll be buying your own drinks.”
It’s not even a guarantee that your rider will feature anything much worth eating anyway. Although we often associate musicians’ food requests with blue M&M’s, or fragrant steamed rice flown over from India, or some other impossible to obtain, ridiculously extravagant foodstuff, in actuality you have to sell a lot of albums before your minders start trekking out to the local farmers’ market to harvest you a bounty of bok choy.
If you’re in a mid-level band, and if you’re lucky, you’ll get a plate of caterers’ sandwiches – those anaemic slices of bread stuffed with plastic cheese and watery iceberg lettuce – and if you’re not, you’ll get some salt and vinegar chips and a couple of takeaway pizzas. And even then, you’ll have to fight your mates tooth and claw for a slice of cold pepperoni and a handful of crumbs from the bottom of the chip packet.
But even getting exactly what you want has its own downsides. By the time you’ve loaded in, played soundcheck, got through a few warm-up rituals and then retreated backstage for a drink or two, you might have less time than you thought to get through your meal – and then things get tricky. “I once played a show with someone who ate an entire lobster during our set,” says Kell Derrig-Hall, guitarist for The Singing Skies. “He got a half-priced meal as a part of the rider and it came just before we played. He just set it up next to his snare drum on a little stool and was chomping away between songs.”
Of course, if you do decide to indulge in all the free food you feel you are owed, you (and your pants) may well very quickly come to regret it. Add alcohol, a stomach full of grease – or, God forbid, a whole lobster – to a bad case of nerves and a roomful of eyes watching you for any signs of error, and it’s little wonder that many musicians dread eating too much before they take to the stage.
“I personally don’t like to eat anything too heavy before playing,” says Derrig-Hall. “You don’t want to be burping into the mic.”
Some musicians do try to eat at least a little something – but they do it selectively. “I like to eat before a gig as it gives me the energy that I need to perform at my best,” explains Siebe Carl Pogson, primary composer with Funk Engine. “I don’t eat anything heavy like steak as that makes me feel quite tired and heavy. I usually go for some Asian cuisine or pizza. Most venues have pizza on offer, so that usually works out quite well.”
Then there are the musicians who abstain from chowing down altogether. “The boys [in the band] don’t seem to mind eating, but I can’t eat before a gig,” says Imi Ireland, vocalist for folk-funk powerhouse Joseph Liddy and The Skeleton Horse.
“My body seems to go into fight-or-flight mode – I get butterflies before we play. I can’t waste all that nervous energy on digesting. Plus, who can dance with a huge full belly? After a gig I eat pretty much everything I can find.”
Lara Chrystal, the drummer for Newtown’s self-proclaimed “shittest rock band” Scabz, would have to agree. In fact, Chrystal’s aversion to chowing down pre-gig is a result of once pulling a Bieber herself. “I definitely can’t eat before a gig,” she says. “Drumming is super physical. I’ve been sick once onstage mid-song and won’t be doing that again any time soon.”
Indeed, for Rebecca Callander – one-third of hair rock wunderkinds Rackett – even the possibility of going full Bieber is enough to stave her off too much pre-show indulgence. “With all the jumping we do, we tend to avoid eating anything before a show or it will mostly likely end up on someone in the front row.”
Yet even going foodless is an option fraught with its own difficulties. “It’s tempting [not to eat] but not really feasible if you’re playing semi-regularly,” says Trischelle Roberts of the Sydney-based indie rock band Mere Women. Who would want to step onstage in front of the mic and have their stomach start gurgling?
“It’s a fine line,” Streatfeild agrees. “On one hand you can eat too much food court clearance cuisine and feel horrid; on the other hand, you can have too little and have nothing to combat the rider-abuse leading up to show time.”
That’s the Sophie’s Choice every musician is faced with. Eat and face the horror of your bladder and bowels embarrassing you in just about the most heinous way you can imagine. But don’t eat and you might have to deal with a whole load of bilious, drunken banter spilling out of your mouth. Either way, you’ll be crapping – your only choice is out of which orifice.
Sweat, snacks and salt: the horrors of the fast food touring diet
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley,” wrote the Scottish poet Robert Burns. He was talking about the inability of any animal – human or otherwise – to prepare for the hardships of life, but he might as well have been talking about Totally Unicorn’s often foolhardy attempts to stick to a nutritionally sound diet while touring. After all, the Sydney metalcore band’s schemes for good health have consistently “gang aft a-gley” ever since they began their rigorous touring schedule, and their bodies have taken the toll pounded out by life on the road.
“On tour you get to make adult decisions, which eventually lead to gout, haemorrhoids and a heap of oily boys,” says Streatfeild. Indeed, those “adult decisions” often result in an overindulgence in the salt- and fat-heavy delights offered up by McDonald’s, and the band list Macca’s as their go-to gustatory spot. “Yeah, whatever, judge all you want,” Streatfeild jokes. “We don’t have standards or ethics. Also, we’re a family, and families stick together and order from the gourmet creations menu.”
Not that Streatfeild and his band of oily boys are the exception to the rule. It seems that few groups – no matter how committed and health-conscious they might usually be – can avoid the allure of takeaway. “It can be hard to eat healthy food when you’re travelling interstate for shows,” admits Derrig-Hall. “Airports and service stations have lots of delicious unhealthy options. I tend to gravitate towards something salty and battered [and make] food choices that I would like to tell myself I might be more sensible about otherwise.”
“When we’re on the road, the ratio of processed foods versus fresh food in a convenient location, like a service station or airport, is totally out of whack,” agrees Callander. “Before we travel, we have to prepare. Having said this, it takes less time than re-stringing a guitar and is far more effective in fuelling our bodies for all kinds of rock activities.”
In fact, so alluring are the unhealthy options available that some musicians just entirely give into the sirens’ call and overindulge in fast food every single day of the tour. For example, when asked if he struggles to keep up a healthy diet when on the road, Chris Penney of the punk act Private Function laughs off the question. “Nah,” he says. “Kebabs are everywhere. Home-cooked meals are for children.”
Of course, cost factors into such decisions too. The first few years of a touring musician’s career – if not the entirety of it, barring some incredible, rags-to-riches success story – must be micromanaged to ensure that as little money as possible is wasted. There’s barely enough cash to handle proper accommodation, let alone the possibility that bands might be able to eat out at fancy, comparatively healthy restaurants every day. And the idea that the rigorous touring schedule might be disrupted enough so that musos can spend a little time off the road in order to cook some meals themselves is frankly laughable.
“When you’re driving a long distance to a gig, most of the places to stop for lunch or dinner are fast food outlets, which aren’t exactly the healthiest joints in the world,” says Pogson. “Then when you finish the gig, it’s late at night and the only places still open are again fast food joints. The only way to avoid them completely would be stopping at a town where there might be a cafe or something, but when you’ve got to be at a venue at a certain time, going off the highway to drive into town uses up valuable time that you may need to get to the gig.”
Even when self-managed bands do fit a couple of quick rest stops in, such breaks are considered a luxury rather than a necessity. “We’re a big band on a budget, so we usually stay in friends’ houses if we tour,” says Ireland of The Skeleton Horse’s touring habits. “Some of us have been lucky enough to be cooked for before.”
As a result, a lot of bands (although obviously not Penney’s) begin to fantasize about the most basic of homemade foodstuffs, and start fetishizing the kind of simple snacks they can make entirely by themselves – or at least, without the assistance of Ronald McDonald or the Colonel or any of their greasy mates. “I miss home-cooked stuff and cooking so much,” says Derrig-Hall.
“The best meals are home-cooked meals,” agrees Pogson. “Even if you do get time to stop off at a nice restaurant and eat a well-cooked meal, there’s something special about eating a meal that you’ve cooked for yourself or a meal that’s been cooked by a friend or loved one. For some reason, it tastes better.”
Kebabs are everywhere. Home-cooked meals are for children.
Needless to say, all these problems are further compromised if you have a vegan – or even a vegetarian – in your band. Unless they plan on picking the patties out of their McDonald’s burgers and chowing down on two bits of bread so sugary that they are technically classified as cake, a lot of the time band members with dietary needs are going to go hungry – or will be forced to improvise. “My go-to food is a banana,” says Chrystal, a long-time vegan. “It’s a vegan’s best friend. [That’s the] saddest sentence ever.”
“Being a combination of hardcore vegans and softcore vegetarians, [Rackett] mostly live on fruit, vegetables, nuts, grains and sugar,” adds Callander. “This usually means no airport food. At best we’ll eat fresh fruits and vegetables, and at worst, anything fried potato.”
Nonetheless, some bands see their vegans as secret weapons: human radars that they use to search out tastier, healthier snacks. “Fitting food into the logistics of touring can get frustrating,” says Roberts. “Our saving grace is that Kat [Byrne, drummer] is vegan, so she usually has some local knowledge on hand. A few of these, like Smith & Deli, have become regulars.”
This is how bands like The Skeleton Horse ultimately manage to avoid salt-saturated artery hardeners. The ten-piece are an equal mix of “vegetarians, vegans and garbage guts”, and as a result, try to find a healthy-ish middle ground to satisfy the entire troupe.
“Eating on the road definitely forces you to compromise a lot,” says Ireland. “Either you split to go hunt down exactly what you want, or you go with the group decision and be happy with that. We generally aren’t a fast food type group, though – someone always gets sick. After all, you’re getting no sleep, drinking, eating badly, and there’s minimal showering. We’re all just hot-boxed in a Petri dish.”
But the likes of The Skeleton Horse are a rare proposition indeed. Most bands, no matter how hard they try, always end up back in the food court at some dead-end shopping centre in the outer suburbs, chewing down on the saltiest, fattiest, most fulfilling thing they can find.
And who can blame them? There is just something so deeply convenient – so damn alluring – about side-of-the-road fast food outlets. They aren’t only havens for musicians because they’re everywhere, or because they can serve you fast, or because they’re cheap. It’s because such joints are hard-wired to please you.
Everything you chow down at a McDonald’s or a KFC – or even your grotty local kebab store – has been dreamt up to fulfil your every salty, fatty desire. A filet-o-fish burger might not be a Lamborghini – in fact, it might be more akin to a beat-up old moped you scored for a steal off eBay – but it will get you where you need to go. And when you’re in a band, movement is the name of the game.
What Australian musicians eat: a guide to their favourite recipes
Joseph Liddy and The Skeleton Horse’s Pasta Bianco
Ingredients:
Fettuccine (or linguine)
Two cloves of garlic
Half a brown onion
One spoonful of butter
One egg
Fresh parsley or basil
Shaved Grana Padano
A splash of white wine
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Chilli flakes
Method:
1. Cook pasta al dente
2. Chop and caramelise the garlic and onion
3. Add pasta to the pan
4. Stir in raw egg while hot
5. Throw in the rest
6. Eat
Notes:
Joe’s pasta bianco is perfect for a drunken, post-gig, late-night wind down. Feeds the whole family (except the vegan).
Private Function’s Awesome Bolognaise Sauce
Ingredients:
Heaps of mushrooms
Heaps of zucchini
Heaps of carrots
Heaps of capsicums
Heaps of green olives
One jar of bolognaise sauce
Method:
1. Grate all of your ingredients into a pan of bolognaise sauce
2. Cook
3. Eat
Notes:
I love heaps of vegetables in my bolognaise. But sometimes I think to myself, “What the fuck is this sauce? It’s just too chunky.” It’s like I’m sitting there eating a salad or something, digging through all this bullshit, trying to get the perfect bite. That’s not what sauce is about man, you know? So I had this awesome idea – I’ve started grating all the vegetables in the bolognaise. It becomes this awesome thick sauce where every bite has a bit of everything.
Totally Unicorn’s Road Rolls
Ingredients:
A dozen Coles cheese and bacon rolls
One tub of Tabouli
Pack of cigarettes (they’re cheaper at the supermarket)
Five longnecks (any brand. Get them across from the supermarket)
Cling wrap (not the Home Brand stuff, that is fucking useless)
Method:
1. Crack a beer and smoke a dart: grocery shopping is a punish
2. Forget about everything else in the van for a few days and just eat shitty takeaway (allow to marinate at least overnight)
Rackett’s Tofu Spinach Lasagne
Ingredients:
Half a pound of lasagne noodles
Two ten-ounce packages of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
One pound soft tofu
One pound firm tofu
One tablespoon sugar
A quarter of a cup of soy milk
Half a teaspoon of garlic powder
Two tablespoons of lemon juice
Three teaspoons minced fresh basil
Two teaspoons of salt
Four cups of tomato sauce
Method:
1. Cook the lasagne noodles according to the package directions. Drain and set aside
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
3. Squeeze the spinach as dry as possible and set aside
4. Place the tofu, sugar, soy milk, garlic powder, lemon juice, basil, and salt in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth
5. Stir in the spinach
6. Cover the bottom of a nine-inch by 13-inch baking dish with a thin layer of tomato sauce, then a layer of noodles (use about one-third of the noodles)
7. Follow with half of the tofu filling
8. Continue in the same order, using half of the remaining tomato sauce and noodles and all of the remaining tofu filling.
9. End with the remaining noodles, covered by the remaining tomato sauce.
10. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes
Singing Skies’ Eggplant And Potato Curry
Ingredients:
A pinch of cumin seed
A pinch of mustard seed
Two teaspoons of chilli
Two cloves of garlic
One onion
A pinch of turmeric
Two good-sized sliced potatoes
Rice
One third of a can of diced tomatoes
One good-sized eggplant
Method:
1. Fry the cumin seed, mustard seed, chilli, garlic, onion and turmeric in an oil-coated pan
2. Add a third of a can of diced tomatoes to the pan
3. Boil two potatoes. When boiled, slice them into cubes
4. Slice up the eggplant and fry it until it changes colour and starts going soft
5. Put all the above cooked ingredients into a pot, cover with water, and then boil on a reduced heat until the mixture becomes thicker and more amazing
6. Serve with rice
Funk Engine’s Slow-Cooked Pulled Pork Shoulder
Ingredients:
18.5 kilograms of pork shoulder
One large onion, chopped
Four cloves of garlic, minced
Two tablespoons of vegetable oil
Half a cup of apple cider vinegar
One cup of chicken stock
One tablespoon of chilli powder
One tablespoon of thyme
Two tablespoons of mustard
Two tablespoons of brown sugar
One-and-a-half cups of BBQ sauce
Method:
1. Pour vegetable oil in pot followed by pork shoulder
2. Mix remaining ingredients in bowl and pour over the top
3. Cook on medium heat for about six hours
Ainsley Farrell’s Thai Green Curry
Ingredients:
One onion
Two gloves of garlic
Four carrots
Two broccoli
One capsicum
One teaspoon of shaved ginger
Half a block of tofu
Half a cup of coconut milk
Two tablespoons of green curry paste
Method:
1. Fry up all your veggies and tofu in a big pot
2. When ready, turn the heat down and add in your coconut milk and curry paste
3. Mix well and let the veggies/tofu relax and soak up the flavours
Notes:
Serve with rice. Satisfies a band of vegans, vegetarians or meat-lovers on a meat hiatus.
Vast Hill’s Chicken Pesto Salad
Ingredients:
One roasted chicken from Woolworths
One jar of pesto
One packet of baby spinach
One packet of Parmesan cheese
Method:
1. Empty the spinach into a massive salad bowl and shred the chicken in there
2. Empty half of the pesto jar into a glass and mix in a bit of water (not too much: enough to give it a dressing-like consistency)
3. Pour onto the salad and mix through
4. Mix through Parmesan to taste
Notes:
I know when you hear salad you immediately think “boring”, but this chicken pesto salad is the bomb! It only costs about $15 and serves around three people.
Mere Women’s Spice Paste
Ingredients:
Three tablespoons of smoked paprika
Three tablespoons of ground chilli
One-and-a-half teaspoons of ground cumin
One-and-a-half teaspoons of onion powder
One-and-a-half teaspoons of garlic powder
One-and-a-half teaspoons of ground black pepper
Half a teaspoon of chipotle powder
Method:
1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl
Notes:
It’s not a recipe as such, but instead a spice mix I use a lot. It works well in mayonnaise with a little lime juice and salt as a sauce for grilled corn.
