Healthy Road Life: Tyrone Mattner and Gareth Katzew on Staying Fit on Tour (Episode 2)

You learned how to make music. Nobody taught you how to make a living making music.

And nobody taught you how to stay healthy while you do it on the road. In Episode 2 of The Career Musician, from the Nomad's Place days, Nomad sat down over breakfast in Durban, South Africa, while on tour with Toni Braxton and Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds. His guests were Tyrone Mattner and Gareth Katzew, the close protection bodyguards and event security pros working that tour.

These two have worked with just about every major act that has come through South Africa, from U2 to Chris Brown, and they met as training partners in the gym. Their topic was a healthy road life: how to keep your diet, training and sleep consistent when your schedule is anything but. You are not a bodyguard, but your body is your instrument too, and the same rules apply.

Pack your food before you need it

Hotel living comes with a default menu: burgers, fried food, processed food. Tyrone's answer is to plan before the trip. He carries a bag with compartments for prepared meals, a section for vitamins and omegas, and room for shakes and water. He aims to eat every two hours, knowing that on a crazy day it ends up closer to every four. He keeps unsalted nuts on hand, grabs fruit from the hotel, and travels with protein powder in a shaker that has its own storage compartment.

Gareth is built differently and eats more loosely, and he was honest about the cost. Since starting that tour he had already lost three to four kilograms and could feel the muscle mass shrinking.

"At the end of the day it's also determined by your body type, because I'm quite a tall guy... I would just eat whatever's in close proximity, whatever's available."

Gareth Katzew, 2:35

Both agreed on one thing: starving yourself is the worst thing you can do. Your body needs nutrients to perform, and if you deprive it, it stores fat. Eat often, and eat for fuel. Save the big meal for a cheat meal, not a whole cheat day, and keep it to one.

Know your why

Gareth said his training is maybe 10% vanity and the rest is about strength, because size and strength help him do his job. In a high risk environment, though, being functional beats being big. A huge guy who cannot get himself over a wall is not much use.

That got Nomad talking about his own why. When he started working with a trainer in Los Angeles, the first question was why he wanted to train. His answer: he wants to live a long life for his daughter. The trainer told him that was the best answer.

When you know why you are doing something, it directs the route you take. That goes for the gym, and it goes for the career.

You go with what you got

Nomad asked about the mental side, because he lives it. The morning he got a workout in, he felt like a million bucks and his mind was sharp. The morning they rushed to the airport and he skipped it, his mindset suffered and so did his day.

"No matter how challenging your day is... if you can just... get yourself to the gym, when you step out the problems are still going to be there, but you're just going to feel fractionally better, and you're better equipped to deal with them."

Gareth Katzew, 17:29

One of them passed along a saying from his training partners: you go with what you got. Some days you burn through the weights. Some days you have no strength, no energy and no motivation. Show up anyway, do a fraction of what you would usually do, and get it done. That is a musician's mindset, too. Not every gig is your best night. You still show up and play.

Sleep is the hard one

Everybody at the table agreed sleep is the toughest piece on the road. The bodyguards got back from the stadium around one in the morning, made sure the client was settled, packed, showered, and maybe got two and a half hours. One of them had walked over twenty thousand steps that day running alongside the artist through the crowd. Hotel gyms with no real weights didn't help.

If the people protecting the artist struggle with it, you will too. Catnaps on planes help, but they are not the same. Guard your sleep wherever you can.

Musicians, pace yourselves

This is why Nomad wanted the conversation in the first place.

"Musicians have this horrible tendency to not eat properly at all... after the gig the senses are alive, we're wide open, and what do we want to do? We want to go out and eat. That's the worst thing for us to do."

Nomad, 20:30

His message to the younger generation going out on their first tours: pace yourself. Gareth's advice was to get adequate nutrition through the day rather than nothing at all, or one huge meal, or the finger food backstage. Celebrate with the people you perform with, have a drink, enjoy yourself, but balance it with real food.

Long tours reward the people who can keep going night after night. Reliability beats virtuosity, and reliability on a three month run starts with what you put in your body. Showing up healthy and steady is part of being low maintenance / no drama, too. Nobody wants to cover for the player who ran himself down by week three.

The takeaway

When Nomad asked for words of wisdom, the answer came back in one line: consistency is key. Consistency and hard work with everything, not just training, but your career as well. Plan your food, protect your sleep, move every day you can, and go with what you got on the days you have less. That is how you last long enough to Make Music Your Business. If you are getting ready for the road, grab the free Get the Gig guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

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