Why DIY Touring Still Works (Jake LeDrew of Dial Drive)
Jake from Orlando punk band Dial Drive talks about building a loyal fanbase through touring and their local music scene. We also talk about why they signed to a record label for their latest full-length album.
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Transcript:
Mike: Hey Jake, how are you?
Jake: Doing good, man. How are you?
Mike: I'm doing great, thanks for being on the show. I’ve been listening to your latest single, Left Out, and I’m really digging it. It’s right up my alley. I’ve run a label for about sixteen years, and this is the kind of music we would represent — super fun stuff. So, was Dial Drive your first band, or were you in other projects before this?
Jake: Unlike a lot of my friends, Dial Drive was the first — and so far, the only — real band that I’ve been in. My buddy Nate and I, he’s the other singer and guitarist, we started messing around on acoustic guitars back in late 2016. And in 2017, we played our first show — it was at an open mic night at a bar in town. I was hooked immediately. I always wanted to be in a band, but I just never found the right people or made it happen until then.
Mike: That’s wild — first project, straight from an open mic, and now you’re about to release your third full-length. That’s pretty unusual. Congrats on getting that far in about eight years.
Jake: Appreciate it. It’s been a journey. We’re from Orlando, and a lot of people around here grow up in the scene — high school bands, college bands, you know — so by the time they have their “real” band, they already know promoters, venues, all that. We didn’t have that. When we started, we didn’t even know where to play or who to talk to. So there was definitely a big learning curve.
Mike: How did you figure it out — like, online research, DM’ing artists, going to shows?
Jake: Yeah, all of that, honestly. A lot of trial and error. We just started looking things up — “venues near me,” or we’d ask friends in other bands, “Hey, how did you book this place?” And then we’d just go for it. I remember the first time we booked a show — it was at Austin’s Coffee. I called Nate and was like, “Dude, I got us a show!” We were freaking out. From there, it was just learning by doing. We’d go to shows, meet other bands, talk to people. That’s really how we figured out the local scene.
Mike: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It sounds obvious, but that first step is the hardest one. You just have to start. Book the coffee shop, go to shows, meet people, talk to venues. Venues are like stepping stones — you start with the small ones, then move up.
Jake: Exactly. Everyone talks about “the scene,” and there’s a reason. It matters. If you show up, support other bands, help out, it all comes back around. When one band does well, it helps everyone.
Mike: Totally agree. I think some bands get this mindset that they’ve outgrown their hometown scene. And yeah, you do need to expand into new markets, but you also have to keep your home base strong. You’ve done a lot of touring yourselves. How did you learn to plan runs and book those tours?
Jake: From the very beginning, Nate and I were like, “We want to tour.” We just wanted to get out there. Once our Florida shows started to go well, we wanted to take that feeling somewhere else — like, do multiple days in a row. But we had no idea how to even start. Touring DIY is way harder than booking local shows. Even now, we still do it all ourselves. It’s usually me and our drummer, Billy, handling the routing and booking.
The main thing we figured out is it’s all about word of mouth. Once you start meeting bands who also tour, you can help each other out. Like, “Hey, you booked us in Orlando — do you know anyone in Nashville or Atlanta?” That’s really the best way. You’ll still end up cold-emailing venues sometimes, but a lot of venues prefer if you go through a promoter, so it’s a lot of research. You’ve gotta find out who’s booking what. Facebook groups help, Google helps — just a ton of digging.
Mike: Nothing beats homework.
Jake: Yeah, exactly.
Mike: Like, actually looking up which venues book your kind of sound, which promoters run those rooms, checking their past events, asking touring bands for intros, and setting up show trades — where you host them in your city, and they host you in theirs.
Jake: Yeah, totally. I even started a little thing called Havoc Underground. At first, it was just me putting on shows in Orlando and Sanford to help touring bands find good weeknight gigs and meet local bands. Then it turned into more — we ended up putting on two festivals: Sanford Punk Fest and Florida Underground Fest. It helped out a lot of touring bands, and honestly, it helped us too.
Mike: That’s awesome. That kind of thing not only builds community but also gives you credibility. It’s great networking, and you get to be part of growing your scene.
Jake: For sure. We always wanted to make sure touring bands had the best experience possible when they came through — good crowd, paid fairly, a chance to sell merch, that kind of thing. Not everyone can or wants to “return the favor,” and that’s fine. You can’t take it personally if someone can’t book you back. Booking shows isn’t for everyone.
Mike: Yeah, totally. It takes a specific kind of patience to deal with all that stuff. There’s always something that goes wrong.
Jake: Always. Every single time.
Mike: I get that. When I ran my label, we didn’t really book tours for the artists — usually the bands or their managers handled that. We focused more on events like showcases or themed nights. We’d do things like an anniversary party or a “Guilty Pleasure” cover night with a local radio station — that one was always hilarious. Bands would do covers of anything from Lady Gaga to Disney songs. It was a blast.
Jake: Dude, that’s awesome. I just got back from this long trip — I drove from Montana to Florida after going up to Alaska — and that 2000s pop playlist was keeping me awake the whole way. Kesha, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, all that stuff. I’ve actually thought about doing punk covers of Katy Perry songs before.
Mike: Oh, pop-goes-punk always hits. There was even that Disney compilation — Punk Goes Disney — I remember Bowling for Soup and Simple Plan were on it.
Jake: Yeah! I totally remember that.
Mike: Okay, so let’s talk about something you mentioned in your bio — you said you built your fanbase “off of touring.” I’ve noticed a shift post-pandemic where a lot of discovery happens online first, and then the touring supports it. And I’ve also heard venues are more selective now about who they book. You started in 2017, and then the pandemic hit right in your third year. How has that changed things for you? Is touring still as impactful as it used to be?
Jake: Honestly, it’s way harder now for bands who are just starting out. In 2018, it already wasn’t easy, but it’s worse now. Venues are way more careful about who they book. Sometimes they’ll just skip touring packages entirely and only book a local headliner with local support because it’s safer. I get it — COVID hit venues hard, and a lot of them are still recovering.
We were lucky that we had already made a lot of connections before the pandemic. That made it easier to pick back up afterward. We still post on social, but not as much as we probably “should.” We’d rather spend our time actually being on the road. It’s slower growth that way, for sure, but every tour gets better. Each time we go out, we see more familiar faces, more people singing along. I know bands that blew up on TikTok and got label deals from that, and that’s awesome. It’s just a different path. For us, the road is what we love.
Mike: That’s awesome, man. And congrats on signing with a label for this new album. Everything before this was self-released, right?
Jake: Yeah, we were completely DIY before. If the right label or agent comes along who can help us level up, we’re all for it. All our previous stuff came out through Havoc Underground, my label. But this new album is with SBÄM Records. They’ve got a great roster, they put on a European festival, and they’ve got that wider reach, plus vinyl variants and all that. So it just made sense.
Mike: Did that change how you approached singles or the rollout?
Jake: They were really cool about it. They basically asked how many singles we wanted, we came up with a rough timeline, and then they just kind of tweaked the dates. They let us pick the songs, which was great. Choosing singles is always the hardest part. You love every song, so picking which ones to release first sucks. I almost wish they’d just told us which ones to do, haha.
Mike: Yeah, that’s fair. Labels definitely vary. When I ran mine, I tried to be hands-off unless a band specifically asked for input. I only stepped in for logistics, legal, or if they really wanted my perspective. My thinking was — if I don’t trust a band’s creative direction, I probably shouldn’t be working with them.
Jake: Exactly. I feel the same way on my label side. I’ve worked with bands that want help every step of the way, and others that just hand me a finished plan and say, “This is what we’re doing.” Both approaches can work. I’m sure SBÄM deals with that too.
Mike: Outside of touring and social media, what would you say is the biggest challenge for you right now as a band?
Jake: Social media is definitely a big one, man. I mean, it’s so easy to get lost in it, or feel like you’re not doing enough. I’ll have friends who are in great bands, and I’ll see that they’re on tour, and I’ll think, “Wait, how did I miss that?” It’s because they didn’t post about it. So even though I don’t love posting constantly, I get that it’s necessary. You have to remind people you exist.
But honestly, the hardest thing for any DIY band is breaking out of your local market. You can be killing it in your hometown, and then you go somewhere else and play to ten people. It’s humbling. You’ve got to build it city by city, and that takes years. It’s a grind, but that’s also what makes it worth it when you go back to a city and suddenly people are singing your songs.
There’s also the weird stuff that happens on tour that you just can’t plan for — like, sometimes you’ll end up booked in a sketchy part of town, or you’ll play a venue that you didn’t know had a bad reputation, or maybe it got “canceled” for something and you just didn’t know. It’s constant learning.
Mike: Yeah, totally. Every market has its own personality. You don’t really know what you’re walking into until you’ve been there.
Jake: Exactly. Some shows just won’t be great, and that’s fine. You’ve got to roll with it.
Mike: Totally. So let’s do a little rapid fire to wrap up. First concert you ever went to?
Jake: REO Speedwagon and Foghat at the Porter County Fair in Indiana.
Mike: That’s awesome. What’s your go-to artist right now?
Jake: Alkaline Trio will always be my number one. They’re the reason I picked up a guitar. But lately, I’ve been on this underground hip-hop kick. There’s an artist named Reed who I’ve been listening to a lot lately.
Mike: Nice! And last one — what’s one piece of advice you’d give to other artists or creatives out there?
Jake: It’s kind of generic, but it’s real: find what you love. Whatever that is, just do it. If you love it, you’ll stick with it through all the ups and downs. That goes for everything — music, relationships, your job, even the car you drive. If you love it, it makes the tough stuff worth it.
Mike: I love that. Jake, thank you so much, man. This has been awesome. Everyone, go check out Dial Drive’s new self-titled album — it should be out right around the time this episode drops, and check out the singles leading up to it.
Jake: Appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me.