Ludo is considered one of the more fortunate St. Louis rock bands.
It landed a deal with Island/Def Jam, which released its CD "You're Awful, I Love You" nationally this year, and its song "Love Me Dead" was a
Top 10 hit on Billboard's modern rock singles chart in August.
Still, Ludo makes no bones about how the economy has affected the band, which just wrapped a tour with headliner Relient K before beginning its
own West Coast tour this month.
"It's rough," keyboardist Tim Convy says. "It's really bad.
"We've been lucky more than anything because we're still on a major record label and the record is selling. But if the economy was different, we
would be selling more. It would be going much better."
Ludo especially feels the pinch on tour. The band is touring the country in a van instead of a tour bus.
"You'd be amazed at all the bands getting back on the van, a lot of bands you would 100 percent think would be in a bus," Convy says. "And
they're not bringing the same crews with them they used to."
This wasn't the case just this past summer, when Ludo toured with the major Vans Warped Tour on a bus.
"That tour went really well, though that was before a lot of the crazy stuff hit," Convy says.
Even though the summer had sky-high gasoline prices, concert producer Live Nation gave the bands gas cards.
"(The cards) made a big difference, as well as the fact everyone sold a lot of merchandise," Convy says.
But the Relient K tour, which came to the Pageant last month, didn't "do the numbers Relient K expected. Kids aren't buying tickets as much as they
used to, which makes touring a very scary thing. We played rooms that should have been more full. And they had to move a show from a room
they had previously sold out into a smaller room."
Friends in bands are playing 1,000-seat venues in which 100 fans show up, Convy says, and Ludo is hearing about a lot of cancellations and a
lot of acts staying home.
Ludo will continue to scale back.
"We hadn't gotten used to too many luxuries anyway," he says.
And they'll contemplate what's next.
"Everyone is looking at next year, and we don't know what we will do," Convy says. "We need to be out there working the record, but bands who
can afford to stay home are staying home.
"But it's hard to predict what's going to happen."
Chrisian Music News Source
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