Tai Shan, Seattle’s newest Americana blues singer songwriter, just left to tour the West Coast in support of her first album, Tiny Planet. But instead of racking up Motel 6 expenses, or even crashing with friends, Shan will be catching her winks on the couches of complete strangers. Her hosts have not even been recommended word-of-mouth, but are gleaned from the internet—couchsurfing.com to be more specific. (CouchSurfing.com connects travelers all over the world with willing, free hosts.) Shan has plenty of connections along the coast, but she chooses to couch surf for the sake of her craft. When welcomed into a stranger’s home, Shan finds that they often open up to her and tell her their stories, which Shan usually writes into her lyrics. In exchange for the hospitality, Shan puts on a small house show at each residence. Sound caught up with Shan on a snowy Sunday night at the Zoo Tavern and talked life on the road.
Sound: How did you start couch surfing?
Tai Shan: I toured Spain by couch last summer. This other girl and I were heading off on this bus into the hills of Granada, and we’d heard that this man we were staying with had a wife and kids, but I asked my friend, “Have you talked to his wife,” and she was like, “no.” So we were like, “Shit. We don’t know anything about this guy. He could be a serial killer.” But the guy turned out to be part of this group of Sufis, who had this leader that was the real deal, I mean you could not turn your back on him, you couldn’t interrupt him… But we stayed with these Sufis and talked to their leader until four in the morning one night.
Sound: So that was your first couch surfing experience. But what prompts you to want to tour like this? Why take the risk?
TS: There’s this great story about the Knights of the Round Table. They went to look for the Holy Grail all together and couldn’t find it. They realized that they would all have to go the darkest part of the forest, alone, and then they would find the grail. That’s how I practice my craft—I look for the scariest, darkest moments I can find, the moments when I’m insecure, and then I write a chord or a lyric out of them. So that’s also how I try to tour. I sleep on these strangers’ couches and I’m terrified, but I feel like I need to live by heading into the forest. The fact of the matter is we’re all gonna die someday—I could die driving down the freeway—so I can surrender just a little bit here. I mean, getting up on stage is fucking terrifying but the best stuff that comes out is the stuff you could never have predicted. So why not live like that?
Sound: So you push yourself to the edge of your comfort zone. But does the edge seem to stretch further out as you do more?
TS: Yeah, about a year ago if I was couch surfing on my tour I would be scared shitless, but now I’m okay with that. I’m always asking, “Okay, what’s the next step? What’s the next thing I can be okay doing?”
Sound: So this is a tenuous connection to make a point, but what you just said reminds me of Kerouac in On the Road. That’s the iconic novel about taking a thrilling, dangerous adventure to the edge, literally, through travel, and with sex, drugs, alcohol etc. That’s how Kerouac lived, and the man basically drank himself to death. Don’t you worry that as you push yourself further away from your safety zone you’ll get into a really dangerous situation?
TS: I couldn’t make it through On the Road. He’s so into the fact that you can get stoned and have orgies. But for me, you have to understand that life is precious. I mean, how fortunate are we that we get to be born as women in the U.S. in this century, and go to college, and do something we’re passionate about. So I feel like I can’t waste this precious gift. So yeah, I’m gonna be sleeping on strangers’ couches, but does that mean that I’m gonna get really drunk and stoned off my ass while I’m there and not use my good judgment, no?
Sound: Who’s the craziest person you’ve met touring?
TS: I went to Colorado to master my CD a little while ago. I ended up hanging out way up in the Rocky Mountains with a bunch of total strangers, jamming until four in the morning, all weekend. Two of the guys were drug dealers, one was named Scrappy and the other was Chicken Little, and Chicken Little looked exactly like Seth Rogen, with these dreads and everything. The other guy, Scrappy (they wouldn’t tell me their real names) rode trains for like seven years. He told me things like, you know, you have to wear this “scrag rag” when you ride trains; you have to piss on a rag and then put it over your face so that when you go through a tunnel you don’t die from the exhaust. I mean, how precious to sit here listening to this guy tell me how to not die riding trains. I’m never gonna do that.
Sound: So you’re living vicariously through the people you meet. You’re doing it as a writer; you get a taste of someone’s life so you can get a story, but you don’t suddenly go out and make up a scrag rag and hop on a train. You come back to your apartment, your job. But you use the material in your songwriting.
TS: Yeah. Hedonism isn’t my mantra. If today is the last day of your life you listen while someone tells you a story. Over and over again we find the most beautiful things in life are the subtle, mundane details. So when I tour, I just try to pay attention to those, because that’s what those stories are made up of.
To hear about Tai’s adventures on her tour, check back in two weeks to see a follow-up post.