Andy Grammer’s been touring non-stop since 2011, but he recently decided to ask the women who are on tour with him if there was anything they needed that would improve their on-the-road experience. What happened next, Andy says, was “profound.”
In a lengthy editorial for Pollstar magazine, Andy writes that because his wife is having a difficult pregnancy, it’s been “fresh on my mind how wildly different life in general can be for women.”
“So, for the first time in my eight years of touring, there was a sit-down with the women on tour (there are five) and they were asked a super simple question: Is there anything we can do to make this tour better for you?'”
“What happened was profound,” Andy reveals. “One by one, they each told me that in all their years of combined touring, no one had ever asked them this question.”
Andy says he was shocked, not only that they’d never been asked the question, but that he himself took eight years to get around to asking it himself.
“In my experience women are constantly seen as the underdogs of this industry; they already feel extra pressure to not be difficult and to prove themselves over and above expectations,” he writes. “It seems like the least we can do is hear what is genuinely different for them and not make it any more difficult than it already is.”
Andy vows, “It will continue to be an ongoing part of my business to make this dialogue a priority.”
Oh, and by the way, Andy and his tour manager immediately moved to make all the changes the women requested, in areas such as hygiene, changing rooms and respect for personal space.
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