In the time since Sam Ray started Teen Suicide in 2009, the band has done a lot of touring. The 2018 introduction of Ray’s now wife, Kitty Ray, into the band only strengthened the group’s road bonafides. For years before she joined Teen Suicide, Ray had a career touring the world under the name Kitty Pryde. On the occasion of the release day of their new record Nude Descending Staircase Headless, we sent some questions over to Sam and Kitty Ray about touring, and they gave us a lot of tips, tricks, and excellent stories. Read the piece, and listen to Nude Descending Staircase Headless below.

What is your favorite fast food option on tour?

Sam: Besides the forbidden chicken, maybe Taco Bell, if I had to choose? I don’t really enjoy it much, but it’s the most reliable as far as getting something without cheese/dairy that won’t make me sick ever. Bean burrito, no cheese, add rice and potatoes—bam, there you go. Great. Reliable. 

Kitty: He got that burrito recipe from me and it's my absolute favorite fast food option. My body is not well equipped to handle processed and fried food anymore, so it's the only one I can do.

What venue has the best backstage?

Sam: Don’t know which has the best, but I really enjoy the venues that have been “Kid Rock-ified,” if you’ve ever experienced one of those. It’s really funny each time. 

Kitty: What he means by that is that some venues have been around so long that Kid Rock played them during his brief moment of relevance. His demands for a venue required the backstage to have a functioning hot tub and animal print everywhere. Many venues renovated their entire green rooms to meet his standards, and some never renovated them back to normal, so you'll show up at one of these old places and see a broken hot tub in a corner or a dirty leopard print couch.

What are some tips for not getting sick during a long tour?

Sam and Kitty: Don’t eat cheese or dairy—it changes your voice, stimulates mucus production, etc. Don’t drink cold beverages before singing, for your throat. Drink a lot of hot tea, throat coat with lemon, honey. Local honey when possible, for allergies. Eat really well in general—no fast food if you can avoid it, no greasy/fried food at all. Nothing too rich. Lots of vegetables. Thai is a very good go-to for us when pressed for time, since you can get a lot of vegetables at least, and there are a lot of quick take-out places. We try to get into these good habits long before tour, so that it’s not a shock to the body suddenly cutting a lot of stuff out. Exercise when possible. 

Basically just listening to your body, if it’s telling you that it’s worn out, try and rest, don’t do any cardio, take it easy, eat a lot of extra stuff. If it’s telling you that it’s bloated and feeling bad, try to eat really clean, drink extra water, do cardio when possible. Just that kind of stuff. Get as much sleep as you can. Oh and don’t drink. Especially not to excess. Quit smoking if you haven’t already. Quit drinking, maybe have one drink at most if you really feel like you need one to get through all the show stuff. Mask up in the venue, mask up when doing merch, talking to people, being in crowds. Don’t shout over the music, you’ll lose your voice instantly that way.

What is the most unconventional venue you've ever played at?

Sam: My favorite oddball show ever was in 2013 or 2014, something like that, we played with a friend’s band (Born Gold, from Canada), who were on tour. They were doing a tour of unconventional places, basically bringing along their entire sound/PA/lighting rig for the show so that the shows could happen anywhere, so long as someone would host them. In Baltimore, we joined them for a show at their friend’s house, in the suburbs. It was a beautiful, big, suburban home, exactly like you might picture. Except the friends booked an Elvis Impersonator to open the show, which was fucking awesome. He showed up, did his Elvis shtick in the living room, and then left. And then we played. I have photos of it somewhere still.

Kitty: In 2016, not long after we got married, Sam and I drove from Florida to Texas so I could perform a solo set at this guy's 50th birthday party. His wife had paid me thousands to be there, but the party itself only had about seven guests. It was me, this guy and his family, and a completely nude painted model who was holding a tray of shots for the entire night. I played a full solo set on a rented stage in this guy's backyard and at the end, they requested I sing "Let it Go" from Frozen. The house had a massive painted portrait of Elsa hanging over the mantelpiece. Really insane night.

What is a piece of audio that always saves you from the brink of insanity on the road?

Sam: If such a thing exists, I have yet to discover it.

Kitty: "Genius of Love,” Tom Tom Club

What are the best and worst airports and why?

Sam: I’ve done a lot more driving than flying, but I’ve had a good time at the Portland and Seattle airports. London Heathrow is alright too. Better security over there. Atlanta might be the worst, just for how often you end up missing flights or having stuff cancelled. I got stuck in the Philly airport for two days once during a systems outage, and it was alright. They gave me free food at a lot of the places, by day 2.

Kitty: I love the liminal aspect of airports, but none of them stand out to me as especially good. JFK International used to be the absolute worst, but now I think it's tied with Atlanta.

What is the longest drive you've ever done?

Sam: I’ve driven from Boise, Idaho back to Baltimore in one long shot before, alone, but I split it up over about three days. I’ve driven from Phoenix Arizona back to Baltimore with Kitty without stopping at all, besides to eat. No sleep. That was pretty intense. I’ve driven from Central Florida to Baltimore and Philly (and vice versa) many times straight through, which is about 13-15 hours usually. I recently drove alone from Orlando to Portland in four days, flew home, and then did the drive again in a moving van a week later—so that was about six thousand miles in three weeks, all told.

DURING tour, it was probably playing Denver, finishing up around one in the morning, and having to drive to St. Louis for a show the next night. We drove overnight and still got in for our show around 9 p.m., maybe five minutes before we had to get onstage. Awful. That booking agent is no longer with us, thankfully.

Kitty: I was the passenger princess for all of those drives, so help me God. 

What is the worst venue bathroom you've ever encountered? You don't have to name names if you do not want to.

Sam: I can’t say what the worst is, but my favorite funny one was at the Bell Foundry in Baltimore back in 2011-2012. You basically climbed a huge set of stairs and when you got to the top, you were facing a toilet, no walls, nothing. So you could just sit on the toilet and look down the stairs before you and wonder if someone might come. When I first visited Italy, I was told that you “honked on the mountain roads to let the other cars know you were coming,” and that was the formal driving “right of way” system—it always came to mind when back at the Bell Foundry.

Kitty: There is a venue in Seattle called El Corazon with some of the most uncomfortable artist amenities in America. The backstage bathroom has a shower, but it's HORRIFYING, and there's never a drop of soap in sight. One year we ended up playing there twice, only a few months apart, and there were messes I noticed the first time that still hadn't been cleaned up months later. One of those messes was actual Nazi graffiti scribbled on the wall. I literally brought cleaning supplies to make it usable for us the second time around.