How Do You Pace Yourself? - Rico Sisney of Sidewalk Chalk

In this week's episode we sat down with Rico Sisney of the band Sidewalk Chalk, who has just released an album and is kicking off a 55 show tour. In this episode we asked him how he paces himself when going on tour, and generally in a life balancing his music career and work as an activist and fundraiser for Greenpeace. Besides for the obvious "saying no to late night partying" there were a couple of interesting things Rico brings up in the episode. For one he says the "always on" and "always needing to entertain one another" has long gone for him and his band, in the best of ways. There are seven of them in total and now that they are practically family, while they still chat on the bus and have fun, they all know how to hang in silence, which Rico says is super important in not only resting your voice but your mind and body as well.

Another area we dove into this episode was the idea of engaging in similar tasks consecutively, because it's harder for your brain to jump from one mode to the next and catch up quickly. This is a big way we can be more efficient and effective with pacing ourselves, by not over scheduling too many disconnected activists in one day or one time setting.

Aside from discussing how we all pace ourselves, Rico explained to us the post tour depression that kicks in when your whole routine for months on end comes to a grinding halt and you head back to your other life at home. He also told us that one of his favorite songs on their newest album An Orchid Is Born, is Long Time Coming (our theme song this season!) which he feels was a perfect blend of writing candidly about a society where bad things are happening but making it feel upbeat and uplifting, he cited Bob Marley as an inspiration for this sort of juxtaposing in his music. I hadn't ever thought of it before but the idea that you could take something so serious and heart wrenching and turn it into something hopeful and even something people can sway their hips to is a beautiful thing.

It was a really fun conversation and such a pleasure to meet Rico - check it out here!