Fake Dad - PRESHOW RITUALS

In this Preshow Rituals segment, the indie rock duo, Fake Dad, reveals what they do before taking the stage. You can check out the rituals below:

The idea of pre-show rituals is something we as a band only fully cemented in the past couple of years since we moved to LA. When we met and formed in the underground DIY scene in New York, we felt like it wasn’t necessarily “cool” to do that. Friends and people we knew in the scene would hang and drink and smoke weed, and kind of just pre-game for the night ahead. It was always very nightlife-oriented over there. I, being the vocal nerd that I am, would always picture my vocal teacher yelling at me like, “You know you shouldn’t be smoking or drinking if you want to be able to sing past 50.” I guess that always stuck with me, so I would sneak away for like 15 minutes and do my vocal exercises in some grimy bathroom or some random alley, just trying to be as hidden and quiet as I possibly could so no one would see or hear me.

When I first started performing as a teen, I would always absolutely freak out hours before going on stage. My stomach would be sick and I’d be nauseous—sweaty palms, weak knees, the whole nine yards. But then this thing would happen whenever I got on stage; after the first 30 seconds or so, it would all just melt away, and it’s like I’d become a different person. But really, it felt like I was becoming the real me. Or maybe just the fullest version of me. So ever since then, I’ve just been trying to get myself to remain as calm, focused, and centered as possible pre-show so that I could more easily and comfortably access this show Andrea without having a pre-show meltdown hours before.

Now it’s been years, and Fake Dad has logged a good amount of time playing shows—we were just on our very first North American tour with this indie rock Norwegian band called Pom Poko. It was the best time ever; we had so much fun. We’ve never felt like we should be doing something so clearly as we felt when we were on the road and playing shows every night. Just felt so comfortable and right for us as a band. And the live show has never been more crucial to the sound and identity of Fake Dad than it is right now.

In terms of pre-show rituals, I still do some of what I did as a teen, except I just don’t hide it. There’s always this time, roughly 30–40 minutes before we go on, where I’m just like, “Alright everyone, I’m going away to do my thing.” And everyone in the band knows exactly what that means and totally respects it. It’s just like, yeah, don’t bother Andrea right now, she’s doing her thing.

Luckily, I’ve figured it out, and part of it is thanks to anxiety medication (even though I was diagnosed at a young age, I wasn’t medicated at all until recently) and regular yoga and meditation practice. I’ve also found that because my performance is so energy-dependent, I always need some kind of physical warm-up before hitting the stage. I’ve been training at a local boxing gym in LA for the past six months and have integrated that into my pre-show warm-up. This is something that Josh actually joins me on, so he can get his body and energy ready for the stage as well. We’ll lightly drill, meaning he’ll mitt for me as I throw some combinations. Sometimes we’ll also jump rope before shows. But if we don’t have any gear on us, at the very least we’ll do jumping jacks, run around a bit, and perhaps most importantly, always stretch. Because I jump and throw myself all over the place during our live sets these days, I find that if I forget to stretch, my likelihood of being sore or straining a muscle goes WAY up.

Keep up with Fake Dad on Instagram, TikTok and their website.

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