A rock-and-roll-centered column from Vulture’s Devon Ivie that dives into the big stories, trends, and crazy ideas coming out of the music industry.
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A rock-and-roll-centered column from Vulture’s Devon Ivie that dives into the big stories, trends, and crazy ideas coming out of the music industry.
Philip Bailey and his son, Oshunde, have been touring together for the better part of 16 years in Earth, Wind & Fire — the band that Bailey, the insanely groovy singer and percussionist, has been a member of since 1972. Despite this passage of time and hundreds of “Shining Star” and “Boogie Wonderland” run-throughs, the duo hasn’t been able to reflect on this unique type of familial achievement until now. “This is the first time that we’ve ever done an interview together,” Bailey admits. “Every night when we introduce the band, there’s a different warm applause when I say ‘my son.’ We probably take it for granted more than we should.” Oshunde, a fellow percussionist and singer, doesn’t disagree. “There’s a normalization of it because this is the life I was given. But then there are the moments where I go, Wow,” he says. “My favorite Earth, Wind & Fire song is ‘Serpentine Fire.’ I should appreciate it more that I get to sing it.” This is news to his dad: “I didn’t know ‘Serpentine Fire’ was your favorite song. You should tell me these things!”
The Baileys are just one of several professional father-and-son pairings who have been on the road performing together this summer, comprising a paternal “dudes rock” trend so endearing we’ll choose to ignore the nepo of it all. There’s James Taylor and his son Henry; John Fogerty has two juniors with him, Shane and Taylor; Train’s Pat Monahan brings out his teenage son, Rock; and the Barenaked Ladies now employ front man Ed Robertson’s son, Lyle. Spencer Tweedy, meanwhile, will be back in tour mode with his dad, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, soon. While the backstory for every offspring’s involvement differs, they’re all united in loving the music, having the full blessing of their dads’ respective bands, and being talented enough not to get booed off the stage every night. Why not get involved in the family business and further enshrine that surname if the opportunity arises?
Rock Monahan is the only one of this group being paid in guitars. The 14-year-old, who sings and shreds on a trio of preselected songs at each gig, is missing his first day of high school to complete the current Train tour. Monahan, who jokes that his son was “born a 40-year-old man,” says his fellow Train members had no issue approving Rock’s presence given the virtuosity of his playing, which has repeatedly gone viral in recent weeks. “We wanted to tee up Rock to be successful,” Pat says. “The band gets excited about it just as much as I do. If it was ‘cute’ instead of ‘great,’ then they would have some reservations about it.”
Rock is aware there may be a preconceived notion or two when he comes out onstage. “Yeah, I bet the audience thinks, This is going to be adorable,” he puts it. “But then when I start playing, it’s a whole thing and really fun, and I let it rip.” Rock’s mother supported his decision to go on tour and stay with his father on the bus. “She’s a very big support system,” Rock says. “She loves that I’m singing with my dad. I’ve had chances to go home, and I’ll ask her if I should go home or not. And she’s like, ‘You should probably stay on the road.’ She knows it’s very important.” He only hopes, next year, that his allowance will increase to three guitars instead of two.
Rock wants to pursue a career in music upon graduation and is already anticipating the next Train tour. “This is what he wants to do with his life,” the elder Monahan explains. “He’s always like, ‘Why do I have to leave?’” The duo has, remarkably, not dealt with any strife while adjusting to the close-quarters rocker lifestyle. “I’ve always seen that front-man vibe with my dad,” Rock says. “He doesn’t change an insane amount.” (“What Rock is trying to say,” Monahan quips, “is that I’m an asshole onstage and offstage.”) They both also appreciate how this experience has strengthened their bond in a way that, say, school drop-off can’t. “As he gets older, he becomes funnier and wiser and more talented. It’s fun to watch him become what he has longed to be since he was little,” Monahan says. “I really miss his sisters and his mom. But they’re having their life moments together, we’re having ours, and then we’ll all be together again soon.”
Coincidentally, Barenaked Ladies are on the same double bill as Train this summer, with Robertson’s son, Lyle, subbing in as a utility player after bassist Jim Creeggan had to take a leave of absence to care for his family. The pair had a trial-by-fire run of sorts last December, when Lyle, who’s in his mid-20s, joined the band for a series of holiday shows across Canada. “You do 30 half-hour shows in a week and travel by train,” Ed recalls of his son’s entry into the world of touring. “You pull into a random town, the side of the train opens up, and you do a set for a tiny community in minus-30-degree weather. It’s a fun and challenging start point.” Creeggan made the suggestion to keep Lyle on retainer for future gigs if need be, which, despite the vote of confidence, still gave his father pause. “It was more like, Am I forcing my kid on the other guys in the band?” he recalled. “I would be nervous about ramming my son down everybody’s throat and saying, This is what’s gonna happen because I want this to happen. That’s not me. But since all the other guys liked the idea, it took the stress away and made it simple.”
When Robertson introduces Lyle each night, he’s struck, like Bailey, by the audience reaction. “I remember feeling that when I went to see Crowded House and Neil Finn introduced his son Liam onstage,” he says. “It was like, Oh, no wonder why they sound so great singing together.” But Robertson doesn’t necessarily think this arrangement can work for all families, especially when contracts and negotiated wages come into play. “Lyle is being treated like a professional musician and being paid fairly,” he notes. “It’s important to consider the professional end of it and make sure nobody is being taken advantage of or feels like they’re being taken advantage of.”
You can’t take a day off from being a parent, either, when more sensitive feelings bubble up to the surface. “I have to think about how this affects Lyle’s other siblings. I know his younger brother really wishes he was out here doing this. So there’s a lot of parenting to be done around it,” Robertson admits. “Lyle is in a band and teaches music — his whole life is music. His brother works at a financial-investment firm. When I asked his brother a couple of days into the tour, ‘Hey, are you good? Do you need anything?’ He went, ‘Yeah, a fucking time machine so I can go back ten years and stick with the drums and be on the road with you guys.’”
Now clocking in at over a decade touring for his dad’s non-Wilco projects, Spencer Tweedy — a drummer who also works with Waxahatchee — had the inverse challenge of seeing the man we know as Jeff in a deity setting. “It’s kind of a heavy topic, and I don’t want to get into the specific stories that may cause me to reflect on that. But the main thing is I was overly cautious and concerned with people feeling like my dad is punching down and yielding his power over them,” he explains. “I had to learn, from putting myself in my dad’s shoes, that sometimes respect looks like tough love.”
Now 30 years old, Spencer began his first tour with his dad the day after graduating from high school; the duo had done a collaborative album, 2014’s Sukierae, when Spencer was finishing up his senior year. A compromise was made after a long family meeting: He could do the tour and take a gap year, but he still had to go to college. “My mom was happy, and I was also looking forward to getting the privilege of going to school,” he says. “A lot of things were normalized for me, but I never thought I’d directly get to play and make music together in a professional sense.”
Watching Wilco over the years helped give Spencer insight into why his dad’s unusual career required extensive time away. “My parents deliberately tried to make that not a mystery for my brother and me, so when Dad was on the road, we wouldn’t have to worry and wonder too much about where he was and what he was up to,” he recalls. “I still have a childlike wonder with rock music. There’s no getting rid of the romance of being in a band. I like hanging on to that.” Even though Spencer doesn’t necessarily “count down the days until the next time we can tour together” — they’ll be reunited in October — he’ll never step away from it. “Hell, no,” he declares. “It’s not a stepping stone or a means to an end in the absence of other opportunities. It’s the opposite. I get something out of touring with my dad that I don’t get anywhere else. It’s more fulfilling because we can relate to each other on a musical level.”
The Bailey family wasn’t as open as the Tweedys during Earth, Wind & Fire’s era of cultural dominance. Bailey and his wife shielded Oshunde from the full scope of Bailey’s day-to-day life; when they first began touring as father and son, it was almost as though they were making up for lost time. “You have to understand that I missed so much of all of my kids’ lives because I was on the road doing exactly what I’m doing right now in hotel rooms,” Bailey says. “Oshunde didn’t really know what I did; he just knew I was never there. He didn’t know how famous we were. So now, being on the road, he gets a chance to feel where I was in the absence of his life and why the show must go on.” He points to an ongoing band issue, drummer John Paris’s medical emergency, as a test. “Now he sees that, no, you can’t leave 30,000 fans wanting,” Bailey adds. “At all costs, you have to do that gig. Canceling comes at a price.” Oshunde, now in his late 40s, compares their relationship less to spending time together and more to living a shared experience, telling his father, “I was going through something and crying in the airport, and I said something to you and you were like, ‘Man, I remember feeling that exact same way.’”
