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There are those in the spotlight, and then there is Everybody Else.
Hosted by Wes Luttrell (Indiana-based artist growth coach and label founder), Everybody Else is a podcast dedicated to the invisible people who make music happen. Featuring solo commentary and insightful interviews with record label execs, tour managers, music tech founders, producers, venue managers, and a slew of others, this show's mission is to pull back the curtain on the lives and ways of thinking of those who make up the modern music ecosystem. New episodes streaming every Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (00:00)
Hey, a quick note before the show starts. This episode was recorded before the podcast was actually a podcast and it features my college roommate and good buddy Logan Bell, who is a PA tech and he has toured with bands like Metallica, Styx, J Balvin, John Legend, Maverick City Music, Santana, Adam Sandler, Andrea Bocelli, Daniel Caesar, Pantera, New Kids on the Block, Janet Jackson, NF, and...
More that I probably missed, anyway, Logan's a, he's an independent contractor who is hired through companies to work on tours. The companies are like PRG, VER, and a few others. But a lot of this information got cut because the first half of this recording, it was choppy. It wasn't connecting well. So then I jumped in once everything started flowing. So a lot of this information was left out, but I wanted to include it. And I want to say thanks to Logan for being the very first recording.
But now featured on the 13th episode of the podcast. I hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 1 (01:03)
This
is the Everybody Else Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:06)
Who are the invisible people of music today? And what do they do to make music happen? Because behind every great artist, song, venue, festival, and music service, there's a tribe of people who will dedicate their lives to work that if done right, will never appear to have happened. There are those in the spotlight, and then there's everybody else.
I don't think people generally have an idea of how much a tour costs to put on, like how expensive the gear is, how expensive...
Speaker 1 (01:40)
even have like I have probably more of an idea than the average person but I can't even like throw a figure out because I don't buy the gear I don't rent the gear I operate the gear I mean the only time I know what a price tag is is if I look it up myself or if I broke something and I find out because they told me
Speaker 2 (01:56)
Yeah,
well, and these these like think about, know, I don't know, not every tour is this complex, but think about some of the tours that have these just gigantic LED boards and the stage is huge and there's how many damn crew members, how many how many semis. And I think that I'm not saying, you know, that the big ticket companies don't or, you know, haven't been gouging people with fees and, you know, profiting in ways that that I don't understand. But.
I do think that the logistics that goes into a big ass tour, paying all of these people, and I mean just the cost of all the gear, you start putting all that together, you like what you're even saying too, you have like catering, have the union guys, you have like all of these costs that go into-
Speaker 1 (02:40)
you have security, you've got venue staff and have all of that and then you've got merch and then you've got mean yeah like a medium-sized tour is like a crew of 70 people or so traveling
Speaker 2 (02:54)
Yeah. Are the tours that are put on by more veteran acts, do they run smoother than tours that are by brand new acts? Big tours?
Speaker 1 (03:04)
On average, yeah. That depends. Well, so here's an example of a tour that is not like a legacy act, but a tour that does run super smooth. And I guess I say this because I wasn't on the, NF. This is the tour I'm talking about. NF. Rapper. NF is a rapper. I didn't really, I had heard of him only because years, years, like when I was first starting at VER.
Speaker 2 (03:21)
And I saw.
Speaker 1 (03:31)
I did a festival and he was on my stage. So it's the only reason that I knew that he was a white rapper that has a drummer. And those are the two facts I knew about him at all, right? Going into that gig. I got a phone call and a text or a phone call or whatever that says, hey, I have an opening for a monitor tech position on NF. And normally I don't monitor tech. I don't enjoy the stage side as much. I don't enjoy...
the time because it's for me it's like it's more tiny and tedious. I like the I like PA. like yeah, I like filling the room with the sound. I like that that aspect of it gives me that, know, whatever. don't know. I'm driven. I'm drawn to that. ⁓ The stage is something I get shackled to sometimes and it ends up just being like, well, I just want to go to lunch or whatever. I want to walk outside and smoke, but I can't because I got
Speaker 2 (04:05)
big sound systems.
Speaker 1 (04:27)
to go, I gotta be standing here waiting just in case. And you do so much more standing by waiting just in case as a monitor tech. And I respect the hell out of the monitor tech position. Technically, it's a higher position than the PA tech. And again, I've done Rosalia was monitor tech and NF was monitor
Speaker 2 (04:46)
And like, because with the Patek, you're more of like set and forget or not.
Speaker 1 (04:52)
Yeah, in a sense. I mean, I'm set and don't forget, but also like people often be like, hey, aren't you supposed to be like working or what do you even do? And I'm like, dog, I'm at trim. And it's like, yeah, I for most of the day, once I have put the PA in the air as fast as I can, safely as fast as I can, and I got all the ground subs and I've handed my system over to the system engineer for him to time align and tune, then at that point, I'm pretty much done till loadout.
Unless it's done till loadout by a PA tech responsibility is also any sort of gear maintenance any sort of like organization type things making sure that loadout is like Gonna go smoothly like yeah So if you've got dead cases that you can get closer or whatever just again like organizing things being ready for loadout Then you go to lunch and then at that point it's a PA tech I mean you may instead of going like you might hang out for soundcheck some guys really
Speaker 2 (05:29)
⁓
Speaker 1 (05:49)
prefer that you do. Some guys, they're like, dog, your PA is up, go take a nap. So it just depends, you know, like, there's, I have, I don't even know if I put that tour on here, because it was like a two week fill in thing that I did, but I did a tour once, it's called the Trinity of Terror. was like, it was like three Warped Tour metal bands. And I don't mean that as a, trust me, I went to Warped Tour, that wasn't, that wasn't a dig or anything. It was like Ice Nine Kills, Motionless in White, and Black Veil Brides. But I went out there and me and the system engineer,
Speaker 2 (06:18)
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (06:19)
Basically
all we did was hang the rig. It took like an hour to do. And then after he time aligned and tuned, he wouldn't even hang out, which normally the system engineer would like hang out front of house all the time and be there with all the mixers. But he's like, these young kids and their barky, screamy band, like I don't, I just trained them how to switch theirself. Like I don't even need to be out there for the show, which like, Hey man, mean, sure. Again, it's like in this context, I don't see a problem with that.
Again, if it was like if it was a Janet Jackson or whatever like you could just you couldn't just do that Like as the set I see they would expect you to be well, what if something goes wrong? I need somebody out here But with them it was just like well, they've never mixed on a PA this big. So they're stoked to be here All that the standing around smoking tour because we spent more time at one point after like day three He's like we got done too fast. I said, what do you mean? He goes we can't even go to lunch yet. It's not lunchtime. Yeah, it's only 11
Speaker 2 (07:04)
Yeah, and so...
Speaker 1 (07:18)
We can't even go to lunch for an hour.
Speaker 2 (07:19)
Did, so going back to the NF tour, what makes it like we're like, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:25)
Yes, smooth versus not smooth.
that was, NF was a great combination of, right? Okay, so we had not a lot of gear, because it was a very simplified, it was a very like clean set in that sense, you know what mean? Where it's not like a bunch of additional trinkets all over. So as far as setup went, like it was a very, very clean style set, very minimal. So load in, it's a perfect storm, right? Because that's point one. Point number two is,
Apparently the last run that I was not on, all the other audio crew was on that run. They were like, yeah, that last run was not like this at all. So I guess on the previous run, some of the interdepartmental, like the video department, and I don't know if there had problems with the lighting department, but I know that there was like a couple of people within the crew that kind of like needed to go or get replaced. was a couple of other people in like management, I think that maybe got moved around too.
That I could be wrong about, again, I wasn't there for that first run. But then the run that I was on, they had kind of learned from all those mistakes. I guess the artist was also in a much better mood this tour, where the previous tour, he was, so I don't know if you know this, but NF, Nate, has, he has OCD. He raps about it a lot. It's not a secret, but he has OCD. And so I guess on the last tour, he was just kind of like in a constant state of like uncomfortable, you know, whereas
Speaker 2 (08:41)
Okay.
Speaker 1 (08:50)
So he was on edge a lot, whereas this tour, he was much less on edge. He was a lot more casual, comfortable with everybody. He was still, you know, very particular and very like, you know, he flexed that like thing if he had to or whatever, but he was much more chill. And I think he was just, he felt in a better place. So he was not anxious. So that was like another point, right? And then again, like production learned from mistakes of the first tour. So then they nipped things in the bud that started cropping up again. They,
took care of things that were a problem that didn't even show up again. then, I mean, yeah, just, and then like having a great crew on top of that, like all the people that were there on the first run that were invited back were all like, not just good at what they did and locked in and got the job done when they needed to, but they were also like, when they weren't locked in, there were a bunch of goofballs. was like, I don't think I've ever laughed so much on a tour for like that two month period. It was just, yeah, it was hilarious. We had such a great time. Like I said, we fucked around so hard that we
recorded a 10 minute podcast for the last couple weeks.
Speaker 2 (09:53)
And so the artist, like that's interesting that the, well, but it makes sense, right? Like if the artist is in a good place, the tour, I mean, it's just gonna set like a.
Speaker 1 (10:01)
He's the guy you're over backwards for. So how hard is he gonna make you bend over? Yeah, how stressed is the artist? How chill are they being right now? If so and so has a bug up their ass, sometimes like they're gonna start having complaints and like, again, this is like human psychology, right? This is, people are gonna start freaking out over little things because they're freaking out over something completely different. And like sometimes, and at this point I'm gonna eliminate any sort of like con, I'm gonna be as vague as I can here.
Speaker 2 (10:22)
Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (10:30)
But I've definitely heard of instances where it's like, man, why is he being such a prick today? And it's like, well, we just heard from the wardrobe person that this happened and blah, blah. Like whether it was a personal life thing or a happened backstage thing, but then all of a sudden he's coming out here for soundcheck being a total dick. And it's like, it's because somebody pissed him off in the dressing room or vice versa. Or sometimes you just have some sort of a diva person that if they are
Speaker 2 (10:53)
Yeah. ⁓
Speaker 1 (11:00)
if they're all chill and cool in one place and like they can't take it anymore like alright when I get to the dressing room I'm gonna unload on this wardrobe lady because I've been so well behaved up on deck because my bandmates keep yelling at me and then you get to the get to where you're the king and then now of a sudden there's no nobody else on the council and it's just you in a room with somebody that you are employing and then all of a sudden that power dynamic gets abused you know?
Speaker 2 (11:26)
was how was it well tell me about the Adam Sandler tour
And this is just Adam Sandler comedy tour, but this is music right he's playing guitar
Speaker 1 (11:43)
Yeah,
so he there was musical as a comedy stand-up thing, but there was musical elements So there was like there was some backing track songs that he would like do a little three second bit to or whatever like a minute long bit There were times where he would pull out a guitar or a bass and he would actually like, you know be playing something He had a keyboard guy. That was like his second guy He's one of the honestly like the keyboard guy is one of Adams like he's on his writing team So like he and a couple of the openers which like he had various
of his buddies come open for him throughout the tour. like Kevin James and David Spade came out for like two shows. Kevin James is there most of the time. else is there? Rob Schneider was there most of the time. Yeah. Rob Schneider was the MC for all but like two, three nights. then, but yeah, like for the most part they had, they were there and.
Speaker 2 (12:24)
travel with him?
It's
literally like seeing like grown-ups in person, like the movie, you know what mean? It's like the same guys that are in all of his movies are like...
Speaker 1 (12:41)
I mean,
you know that at this point, Adam's only doing shit to hang out with his buddies and employ his buddies, right? Like, I don't know if you've realized that, but like, look at like the last five, 10 years of his movies. Like at this point, he's kind of in his victory lap phase. Nobody's like told me this or whatever, but just like looking at the pattern, I see it as like, he's kind of in his victory lap phase. He's sort of like, all right, look, I've done, he's like, and we were kind of talking about this on the phone call the other day when we were talking about it, but like he's,
Speaker 2 (12:46)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:10)
He's as down to earth as a person who is that mega famous can possibly be. And I have to preface that because again, he lives in a completely different universe. His voice, his face, his comedy style, all of which are very recognizable worldwide. He is one of probably one of the most famous people in the world. Again, maybe that's a bit of a tall claim, but I don't know if it is because his movies
are a lot of his movies are classics so like I feel like they have a very wide reach.
Speaker 2 (13:43)
Yeah, you literally say an Adam Sandler movie. It's a genre almost.
Speaker 1 (13:47)
It kinda is. I mean, again, it's like that his comedy style. You could even watch another movie with that similar style and be like, this feels like a Happy Madison production.
Speaker 2 (13:58)
Yes. Yeah, I've seen that like he has like a regular house. Like he doesn't live in like an Uber mansion. ⁓
Speaker 1 (14:04)
I mean, I believe it though. The dude walks around in basketball shorts and a t-shirt all the time. Like, that's real. It's not like... He's legit. Yeah, and that's what I mean. Like, he'll, you know, he'll walk up and if he like saw somebody in the halls, he would make some quip or a comment. He would, a lot of times he would walk in. He ate catering with us. Like, he sat in catering. He ate the same food we were eating, which doesn't always happen. But it is a nice little kind of respect.
Speaker 2 (14:13)
Was he nice to you guys?
Speaker 1 (14:31)
point that the artist earns with the crew. Like if you're eating what the same thing that you're feeding us, then it makes us feel more appreciated. It makes us feel more on the same level. also like if catering is shit that day, then catering is shit for you too. That's like, you know, it's like a solidarity. It's a kudos. It's a respect point. It's a, it's the same type of vibe that like when somebody like when an artist like Adam is very appreciative to their crew. Like for instance, you know,
Speaker 2 (14:41)
Yeah.
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (15:00)
And again, this is guess more of a joke side of things but like, you know, he'll walk up to me and I was like the youngest guy on the whole crew and he'd just walk up and make some comment like, savor your youth and then walk away like, just, you know, it was all very, he actually, had a joke in his set that had my name in it or had Logan was one of the characters. Basically, like the premise of the joke was like one of his daughter's friends named Logan keeps coming over to his house and thinks he owns the place and he's like,
digging in his fridge and eating his roast beef out of his fridge and all this other shit. And part of the joke, whatever, the kid doesn't recognize who Adam Sandler is because he's too young. He's like, you're telling me you don't know who I am? And he's like, no, man, I don't watch movies. I watch clips, like little clips. He does that whole thing. And then by the end of the joke, the punchline or whatever, Adam like...
holds him up at gunpoint and he's like, what's my fucking name? And he's like, Adam Sandler. He's like, there, now you know my movies. But anyway, the point was like, okay, Logan is the character in this joke and he was telling the joke, you know, and everything, like when it first came up, you know, of course everyone looks over at me they're like, hey, I forgot that name was in the set. Like, that's hilarious. Fast forward. I'm sitting in catering one of his, not like his entourage. I'm trying to remember what this guy's.
role was but he's definitely one of Adam's people right he's like a I don't know there was a lot of people there with movie movie set titles that I didn't quite understand as well but anyway sitting in catering and someone else brought up Logan keeps mentioning you know about having the name his name in the set and so the guy who is one of Adam's people sitting at our table with the crew turns around to Adam's table with like Kevin James and all his buddies he turns around he's just like starts just talking about it like yo Adam
Like, oh, Logan over here doesn't appreciate you got his name in the set. So they start like bantering back and forth with me about that. But yeah, it was like, you know, he's like, I'm sorry, man. It's the best name for the bit. I tried a couple other ones. It just doesn't hit the same. I don't know. But it was just one of those. It's just one of those like, I don't know, cool interactions where, you know, granted somebody else was like, put me on the spot about it or whatever. Still, it was a it was him being a human, you know, and him not, you know, just camaraderie with the crew and
and not feeling like he is some untouchable thing. Am I gonna walk up to him in the hallway and just start yapping and bothering him? No, because I'm professional and you know, it's like, yeah, and I get it. But like if he's gonna start talking to me or whatever, like I'm gonna reciprocate and it's again, it's one of those things where it's like, you're not just like, you can see me.
Speaker 2 (17:41)
Yeah. Thank you. That's cool. I mean, like that makes sense. Like given the other stuff that I've read.
Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1 (17:50)
And I guess I should kind of, it would be a little bit of a disservice to not kind of like demystify a little bit of my resume, right? So it's not like somebody from Adam Sandler's People called me and they're like, Logan, we need you, right? It's one of those things where, like you had mentioned earlier, whatever, I worked for a company and then the company gets hired by, the company gets to bid on a gig.
many companies usually will throw a bid where they're like, hey, we'll give you X gear for X price. And then a bit of against other companies, right? And then that's who will end up getting the
Speaker 2 (18:28)
Adam Sandler to get the Adam Sandler gig.
Speaker 1 (18:30)
Right. And so like, you know, maybe the reason that and sometimes, you know, you get the gig because they know the guy who's supplying it and it maybe even isn't the cheapest option, but it's like, you know, I'm sticking with this guy because this guy has always taken care of me. And when push comes to shove and we're having like a total fucking emergency, this guy has bailed me out. So I'll pay a little bit more for this reliable person. And that is something I'm getting a little bit sidetracked, but that's something that
the it's hard to explain to like the investors. like when it became a corporately invested or like a publicly traded company, ⁓ it's harder to justify like, like, look, when we can't have a show tomorrow, if this particular console type of console doesn't show up at this venue in the morning, it's like, it's gonna be very hard to have a show. And we used to be able to say that
and call somebody and be like, hey, our console died last night. We need a new console by tomorrow morning in Kansas City. And then you would show up and the console would be there maybe before you. And now it's a little harder to get that to happen. Like it costs more money. again, it's like that's, it's one of those things where it it serves the customer service. And you have to remember that like we do work for some extremely picky customers. And even if they're not like picky in a negative connotation sense, they're just,
Speaker 2 (19:49)
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:55)
particular people that need things to be a certain way or need to see it a certain way, right? That's even like a psychological bit of it too is like, okay, some people just need this because they need to see it.
Speaker 2 (20:01)
Yeah.
Well, and to like some people like think about it, dude, this is this is their work, right? This is a reflection of their work. They want to be the best in the world. Like, you know, I'm assuming that's what anybody in these positions, the greatest artists or the greatest acts, the biggest people, they have the right to be extremely picky because this is their show. It's their brand. They want it to be the best.
Speaker 1 (20:28)
Like something that I hear a lot and also say a lot is like, okay, well, let's do it right. Like if we're going to do it at all, do it right. And so, yeah, I mean, that's a very common, you know, a common thing. Whereas it's in the corporate world, I don't mean corporate audio, I just mean like in the corporate setting of like profit maximization and bean counting. It's like you can't, you will never make a bean counter understand how important it is.
Speaker 2 (20:33)
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:56)
to blow a bunch of money right here to keep the artist happy. And because we can't explain that to bean counters and they don't get it, we end up losing accounts. Because it'll go to somebody else who can or will bend over backwards when push comes to shove.
Speaker 2 (21:10)
Yeah, there's a disconnect, right? Like, which is interesting because like, VER went bankrupt. Like these other companies, it's like, I can't imagine the fine line that it takes between like profitability, making people happy and then like, yeah, be saying no, cutting it off. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:28)
Like
you do need, know, obviously like there will end. that wasn't the only thing that VER was hemorrhaging money over. There were some definitely avoidable situations. I'm not going to get into, but yeah, but like there's some definitely avoidable situations that are kind of like a, doesn't take a genius or a financial consultant to be like, that was dumb of you. aside from that, like PRG doesn't have as many people that you can.
Speaker 2 (21:39)
That's okay.
Speaker 1 (21:53)
call at 9 p.m. on a weekday or 11 p.m. on a weekday because your console shut down and we know like it used to be you had a person at the shop that you could call and be like all right man my everything's on fire and you know I don't know what to do and like they would be able to help walk you through a problem if you didn't know it or just like again if they're a specialist on that type of gear then they may know something about it you don't and sometimes it's just they happen to
Speaker 2 (22:02)
Yeah ⁓
Speaker 1 (22:23)
know that, yeah, in the new firmware update, they moved this setting or they blah, blah, or it auto-enables this setting, you have to go turn it off. Like, it could be a... I've literally had a situation where I saved the day, quote unquote, by just calling somebody who saved the day for me. And like everybody on site was like praising me up and down. And I was like, yo, all I did was call Jake. And they're like, dude, you were the one who had somebody to call. None of us had anybody in our contact list that could have solved this.
Speaker 2 (22:52)
Like that? Dude, that?
Speaker 1 (22:53)
I see what you're getting at, but I don't see how I can take any credit.
Speaker 2 (22:57)
That's
huge though, like even knowing the right person to call to fix the problem, that makes you...
Speaker 1 (23:02)
Well, and the problem was an update. It was a Mac update thing where, like similar to what I was just talking about, where like you, when they updated to Yosemite or whichever one it was, whichever state park, they went and like changed the, you needed to give Pro Tools access to your quote microphone or else it couldn't write audio. Even like it wasn't using a microphone. It was not using whatever, but in order to allow the core audio driver,
to pass any sort of audio in to Pro Tools, you had to quote, allow the microphone, because that's just the dumb prosumer word that they're using for sound go in Pro Tools. You're like, okay, that's a microphone.
Speaker 2 (23:43)
Yeah, setting up the podcast, have to, like we're doing, have to allow a microphone and allow camera.
Speaker 1 (23:50)
Yeah, and so like if you didn't allow microphone, which if you're sending tracks, wouldn't you're like in your brain, you're like, that's not a microphone. That's tracks. And you're not even being literal. Like it just in professional audio terms, we would not even those aren't brothers. know, they're both inputs, but they're that's as far as the relation goes. But yeah, so it's like it was very weird for us to go like, yeah, pop into here. Like what version are you on? OK, go to settings, go to here. Disable that. Does it work? Yeah.
Thanks Jake. And like again, everyone threw a party, but it's all because I knew who to call. Well, so some of that support is getting harder to come by.
Speaker 2 (24:26)
I mean dude, but dude if you keep that, mean think about how valuable you'll just remain as somebody who has contacts beyond the immediate people in the building. You're like, let me call this guy, let figure this out. I feel like that's what makes somebody super valuable and a leader in a lot of situations is like knowing the people. It's the people, like let me call this guy, let me call this guy. Right. ⁓
Speaker 1 (24:48)
And just
like having, yeah, it's like not every person has to be the everything. It's just you have to have a team that covers everything. And sometimes that team isn't just the people employed on the crew. Sometimes that team is like, again, like I'm sure that if I called my buddy, ⁓ my buddy Alex, who's the system engineer, crew chief on Pantera has taken me out on many gigs and will continue to take me out. Cause I mean, he literally texted me the other day and was like, are you still good for the summer? I'm like, I'm absolutely.
Speaker 2 (24:55)
Yeah.
Is, ⁓ do you still, do you still stay in touch with anybody from like the early days, like fresh out of full sale? Isn't that how you got the gig at VER? Friends.
Speaker 1 (25:26)
I did.
Was through Stefan, really. He's through my work-study boss. And honestly, no, I haven't kept in very good touch with them. I do need to reach back out to Stefan. feel like last year, the year before, he had reached out to me asking if I was busy during a certain week because he wanted, I think he wanted me to come and help with the WrestleMania or something. Which, I could give a shit about the WrestleMania part of it. I would have loved to go see Stefan again.
Speaker 2 (25:32)
Yeah, I-
Okay.
Yeah, well that's a huge show too. mean, you know, those shows are massive and Full Sail has such a strong relationship with WWE. Not that that has anything to do with Full Sail anymore, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:00)
Yeah.
But and I hate to come I don't know how this comes across like I don't mean to just come across that way But like honestly like it's just another pepperoni sausage pizza going in the oven realistically It's just like it's just the WrestleMania part of it's like I could care less like it yeah, it's a giant show, but like so is Janet Jackson Like I don't mean to see maybe it makes me sound jaded Maybe I am jaded, but it's like I don't know at this point. I'm kind of like I don't know. That's just what the job is. That's what the job entails like
Speaker 2 (26:32)
Yeah. Well, and two, if you walked on every set starstruck and like, my god, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:38)
No, and honestly, the only time I've ever been starstruck was when I was talking to All Time Low, who's not even a very, they're not like a crazy massive artist, they're just a band that I listened to in high school personally. And I've been to a lot of their shows when I was in high school. And so to be able to put on one of their shows, to be a part of the crew that set up, be plugging in their guitars, it definitely felt a lot more, ⁓
there was a little bit more ceremony to it or something. It felt a little more personal, I guess, because I cared more, you know? It wasn't a job. It was a job. I still had to remain professional and do what I had been doing for, at that point, three, four years. So was like, okay, I'm just showing up and doing my job. But at the same time, like, yeah, that was the only time in my career that I could say I've been starstruck. And I've been around way more technically famous people than Alzheimer's.
Speaker 2 (27:33)
Yeah, but it's the it's the child.
Speaker 1 (27:35)
It's that childhood thing. it's the I'm I'm sitting here. Finally, I'm realizing that I am 14 year old Logan's hero right now. Like the fact that I could become my own hero in that sense, like in that moment even because, know, that's it's been a few years. That's worn off. You know, it's like not worn off entirely. I still relish that moment, but it's still like, OK, that was a really cool bookmark. That was a really cool moment. That was a really cool thing that I got to do. Yeah. And it makes the.
You know, having that kind of thing, even though that was only like a little two week gig and it was only three shows and some rehearsals, still like doing that gig makes that three months with new kids on the block worth it. Okay, maybe three months, I should sort of rephrase that. That was a long fucking time to be in pain. But anyway.
Speaker 2 (28:20)
Do you remember your first show where you realized that there was more going on than just an artist on stage? Do you remember like a moment where you looked up and saw a team or PA or behind the scenes people?
Speaker 1 (28:34)
You mean like before getting into the industry? Before working? Yeah, so yes, because my, okay, I had been like meeting band members when I was little. Like my mom would often, she would go to shows, like she would meet the band members. Security used to be a little more lax back then and like you'd be able to kind of like hang by the buses, especially for smaller acts. And smaller acts,
Speaker 2 (28:36)
Yeah, we were young.
Speaker 1 (29:02)
because they're trying to garner a relationship with a fan base and that was before the age of the internet. The only way to do that is to walk out and fucking talk to people. So my mom got to meet a bunch of the bands that she listened to and a couple of them ended up being friends with them. then she started taking me to shows when I was like seven or eight. And again, first show, Evanescence, fast forward like 10 years. Well, I guess, sorry, fast forward more like 20 years from that point. And I'm now working for Eddie, well,
Speaker 2 (29:11)
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:31)
on pantera at least like I'm flying the PA for Eddie who mixed the first show that I ever went to as a child and Eddie Mapp is one of the coolest fucking people on this planet I love that man he's so great he's yeah he's got a great like hilarious dry sense of humor he's very knowledgeable yeah he's such a great dude
Speaker 2 (29:54)
So imagine, so this guy that now likes you and brings you on is the same guy mixing the sound to a show that was your first concert, which to him was just another gig. But back then to you, this was your first. And I mean, when you're a kid and you go to a big ass concert or a big show, it is mind, if you're tuned in, right? If you like it, it's mind blowing in every way possible.
Speaker 1 (30:05)
today and it's another day
I remember, I it fundamentally changed the way that I looked at music for the entirety of my childhood. And I mean at that point, like eight years old onward, you know, for more than two thirds of my life I've had this viewpoint of music where like I remember seeing a guy on stage, drum and guitar, tar is coming out of the speakers at me. I'm like watching the music happen. There was something about that.
that really like, is real. Like something about that felt so undeniably real to me that, you know, from that point onward, I couldn't listen to music without trying to imagine what it would sound like live. And so for a large majority of my life, anytime that there was like heavy use of, even just heavy use of effects, not even necessarily like big synthy, whatever, like just simple effects. as a kid, I was just like, this would sound like shit live.
like this is not a good song because it wouldn't play live well. And I judged everything, everything. It fundamentally shaped the way I looked at music because every single song that played, if it didn't have good live impact or couldn't be recreated well live, I didn't think it was worth being a song. I've changed, ⁓ I've matured past that at this point in my life, but there is still a small part of me that doesn't give a shit if it doesn't pop off live. What's the point?
Speaker 2 (31:39)
Yeah.
remember in college walking into your room one time and you're listening to the first demos of Shit, I'm blanking on the name, dude Yes, yes, and then
Speaker 1 (31:53)
the front bottoms
where it's recorded on like a fucking play school keyboard ⁓
Speaker 2 (32:01)
What are you listening to? This isn't even like I can't even tell like this sounds so it sounds like people two people dicking off in a garage You know or something you're like, but you you're in I you're now I use you as an example to people we talk about I'll talk to an artist about hey, should I put out my demos as like a release? I literally bring up you as an example because I asked you why are you listening to this? It sounds yeah, I can't even understand that how this is enjoyable. You're like, well, this is the you're like I'm listening to the first version of
what we now are listening to as the front bottoms. I'm listening to them in their earliest rendition and you as a fan.
Speaker 1 (32:38)
That one microphone, a drum kit, a keyboard, a guitar, and Brian all singing into one microphone in a dorm room. That's what we were listening to. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:48)
That's exactly what we were listening to. That's what it sounded like. What's funny though is like, almost as, you know, I'm a big fan of Rick Rubin and like that's what I was listening to him recently describe. Why don't you, like, why don't you add effects to vocals or like, why don't you, why do you like such a dry sound to your recordings? And he was talking about, he's like, well, I just think effects kind of blurry the image. And he's like, I like to just get the.
I just want to, he's like, cause a human voice has so much character, right? Like he's like the clicks and the pops and the rasp and the this and the that. There's so much information in just a regular human voice, un-un-affected that he's like, it just kind of blurrers the image for me when it's too much effects. I just want to hear the real thing, the raw thing.
Speaker 1 (33:35)
And I feel like this was something not to like derail too hard, which I guess has kind of been my specialty this whole time. But I remember when we were in college, like there was many times where you and I would have like kind of deep discussions about music, but like more and more like about these types of things where like the first time that you heard the end of flashlight by the front bottoms, but not expecting you to like recall exactly what song that is. But the end of that song has like two or three.
Previous sections of vocals over each other and a trumpet and I remember you just like walking away like pissed off You're like, this is just chaos. This just sounds you're like this. I can't it's all in the same frequency It's the same. It's the same vocal voice like pitch It's all covering each and then the trumpets in the same range though And I went the way that you're feeling that anxiety is exactly what this is supposed to represent. It's doing its job
Speaker 2 (34:08)
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:32)
What you're feeling, you feeling uncomfortable right now, is what this is supposed to evoke. It is doing it.
Speaker 2 (34:38)
Yeah, I think I was mostly pissed off that there was a trumpet. I couldn't believe it. I just can't. couldn't believe why the hell there's a trumpet in this song or even in the band, you know, but now I get it. Like I really get it now, especially I watched some, I watched some live, this is years ago, but I watched like some live, some just live footage of the front bottoms and I'm like, ⁓ this is sick. Like I get it. This is, I get it now. But you, dude, you were the, you were the
Yeah, I mean, you call them discussions. think sometimes they were debates or arguments over, you know, but I think people are placed in their lives for reason. And you really opened up my eyes to just like, because I didn't even like pop punk. I didn't like any of that shit.
Speaker 1 (35:20)
I mean you opened my eyes to a lot more on the electronic side and the program side of things too, to be honest. Like I garnered a little bit more respect and I think part of that was simply being able to rationalize what is being created as less of like I was so used to that this is a music is made by a band type of mentality, right?
Because of everything I just mentioned, About the seeing the concert and watching it all happen in real time and having that coloration in my head about every song needs to be able to be recreated well live or it's not worth it. Why would you even release it? if you're not going to perform it live, what the fuck's the point? It's like having all of that in my head. And that's why like I bounced so hard initially off of any sort of electronic music at all, because it just felt so wrong, felt so foreign. But when I was able to
When I was able to start rationalizing it in the same way that I'm like, okay, look Beethoven did not play his shit. No, maybe not beta baby. Toven did play shit. Sorry. I'm thinking of but like you've got doctors composers I started thinking of it as a composer and less of a an artist that makes sense or like yeah an artist as a composer and not an artist as a musician because that's that's the distinction right I was used to artist as musician and this is not that because
Speaker 2 (36:22)
I know it.
Speaker 1 (36:39)
All the shit that wants to be talked about like that's not being a musician, whatever. There are musical skills that you would be screwing yourself if you didn't have, sure. But like, yeah, but like the breakdown of actually like the skill and the practice and the talent that it takes to play an instrument and like all of these, you know, the time. It's like a lot of that kind of stuff. Not to say, again, it's one of those things where like I was in the camp that wanted to just discredit
Speaker 2 (36:49)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's just a different thing.
Speaker 1 (37:07)
anything programmed, anything electronic for the longest time. And yeah, am I still somewhat in the camp that like when I'm working for an artist and then like most of my and most of the input list is all tracks, kind of, I am bummed, but that's because that's because that's the type of thing that I want. Like I want to be a live show, right? But like, I understand that, I understand that other people like
Speaker 2 (37:10)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Speaker 1 (37:35)
You know, like, yeah, I can understand the appeal. I can understand that other people do like it.
Speaker 2 (37:39)
Well, and think about, like you said, you're coming from experiencing music live from a really young age. Whereas like, you know, for me, I think I went to like two or three concerts before I was a teenager and started going to, you know, bigger concerts that I liked as I got older. But like, I only really experienced music recorded. And then I got ⁓ introduced at such an early age to like my sister listened to 90s electronic and then ⁓ she had an iPod.
I mean, like the iPod blew my mind. But I honestly, the first song I listened to on the iPod was Green Day, American Idiot. And so like, you know, that was rock. that doesn't really stand. I was so obsessed with electronic music and that's what I did. I DJed, that was my world.
Speaker 1 (38:25)
And so you were deep into that, whereas like I had a, played guitar and I was in a cover band in high school and like, yeah. So I mean, yeah, definitely different sides. And so I think it was like, we were both able to kind of, I'm glad that we were both open to change enough that we were able to hear each other out because we were with those two varied perspectives, right? Two opposite perspectives. You know, I was able to garner some respect and appreciation for, you know,
Speaker 2 (38:44)
yeah, I
Speaker 1 (38:53)
the more programmed side of things where like I was able to kind of, you know, state my case to you in the like, the like, no man, it's the drums don't sound right because it's just like on a fucking grid and that's not how drums are played, man. It's like, yeah, they have to be in time, but like you, you mess with it. Like you mess with it. There's some imperfections. can't sound too, or it's just sterile. And it's not even the like, it's you know.
So at the timing, there's no variation in your hi-hat. If you're hitting a hi-hat with sticks, left and right sound different, Someone who played the drums and has hit a hi-hat, it sticks out to me like a sore thumb when you have the classic trap 808. There's no variation, left and right sound exactly the same. It is incorrect. It's uncanny valley. To me, that's uncanny valley.
Speaker 2 (39:45)
Yeah.
Well, and you're not wrong. Like I remember like, you know, that sort of like in defending that sort of, I was probably defending it from a, just an unexperienced viewpoint. But even now I would prefer somebody play in the hi-hat versus right to the grid. You know, like if it's going to be an electronic hi-hat, just play it on the keyboard, trigger it yourself. And then that way it's.
Speaker 1 (40:10)
I understand, you want that, you don't want it to be like 1000 % correct. You want it to be 100 % correct, but when you do it with computer, it is like 1000 % hyper correct, and it's, it's weird.
Speaker 2 (40:31)
This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Symphonic Distribution. Look, if you listen to this show, I'm going to assume you know what is required, what are the technical steps to get your music from your laptop onto Spotify, Apple, Amazon music. You need to get a digital distributor. And look, no further than Symphonic Distribution.
Not only does Symphonic get your music onto these platforms, they offer a suite of label-like services and partner offerings that can become extremely valuable if you're an independent musician or even a big-ass artist who wants to go independent and get away from the label. But you want label-like services while still retaining the ownership of your master recordings. Symphonic Distribution can provide you with this. And I can tell you firsthand.
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platforms and for a little indie label like us who's based in southern Indiana, it's nice to have a connection to a greater distributor who can be there for us and help us understand things and help us talk through what to do. This has become a really valuable connection for our label and so we're very proud to have Symphonic sponsoring our show and if you use the code word at checkout, everybody else, you can receive 25 % off your first year of a Symphonic starter.
Again, that is code word everybody else to check out to get yourself 25 % off your first year of a starter pack with Symphonic. Check out Symphonic.com to learn more and to try out the service for yourself. Thank you to Symphonic and now back to the show.
This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Symphonic Distribution. Look, if you listen to this show, I'm gonna assume you know what is required.
What are the technical steps to get your music from your laptop onto Spotify, Apple, Amazon music? You need to get a digital distributor. And look no further than Symphonic Distribution. Not only does Symphonic get your music onto these platforms, they offer a suite of label-like services and partner offerings that can become extremely valuable.
If you're an independent musician or even a big ass artist who wants to go independent and get away from the label, but you want label like services while still retaining the ownership of your master recordings, Symphonic Distribution can provide you with this. And I can tell you firsthand, my record label, Wally Opus Records, distributes all of our releases through Symphonic and Symphonic not only provides us with DSP delivery,
with editorial pitching to all major streaming platforms, with marketing support on social media and other areas. They also provide us with the hands-on interaction that is absent from so many platforms. And for a little indie label like us, who's based in Southern Indiana, it's nice to have a connection to a greater distributor who can be there for us and help us understand things and help us talk through what to do. This has become a really valuable
connection for our label. And so we're very proud to have Symphonic sponsoring our show. And if you use the code word at checkout, everybody else, you can receive 25 % off your first year of a Symphonic starter pack. Again, that is code word, everybody else to check out to get yourself 25 % off your first year of a starter pack with Symphonic. Check out symphonic.com to learn more and to try out the service for yourself. Thank you to Symphonic and now back to the show.
It's not,
Speaker 1 (44:45)
does like i can and and and to me it sounds weird right to me it strikes is as uncanny valley it's like a it's a face that's like the proportions are not quite there's that's that's a face but it's not doing i don't know like something about it doesn't strike me as real which
Speaker 2 (45:01)
Which also probably means it's not that interesting, right? Because like something that is, I think that's like the human brain can pick up, even a hi-hat pattern, even the velocities, like this sounds a little louder than this sounds. You know, like the, your brain can pick that stuff up, but if it's just like, if it's the same velocities, same rhythm, everything's to the grid.
Speaker 1 (45:23)
I think I just thought of an example, okay maybe not the grid example maybe not but like in terms of like velocity and like same or whatever being used in a context that is I would say leans to its strength. I know you like bleachers a lot because you were the one who got me into them. Do you you know the song I want to get better? Yeah. And you know how the intro is right like just thinking of it the very like slammy like intro? Yeah.
Like something about that being the way that it is, it's it's overtly perfect. But it's like it's made messy, but on purpose. I don't know how, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (45:58)
Okay, so the sound that he's using yeah, we're talking about Jack Antonoff and bleachers the sounds that he's using are not clean They're not like perfectly clean samples, right? then with the right trigger Yeah, yes
Speaker 1 (46:10)
They are triggered perfectly.
Right? Like everything starts, you know, it's like all those hits, every, all those different elements are hitting perfectly on grid, right? Or at least damn close. There might be, because he's Jack Andanar, he may have scooted some of that around. So there is some variation, you know, but I'm just, I'm thinking of that as a very like slammy, everything together, everything similar velocity, but ⁓ me going like, if that wasn't that way, it would be a little bit weird. Or maybe just because that's how I've heard the song first. That's
me saying like that's an instance where it plays to its strength very well and it's almost because i maybe i like it because it takes it it's taking that perfection and almost being ironic with it it's taking that perfection but like here's this loud boisterous like i don't want to say annoying but it's that loud like it's trying to it's being disruptive right that's what that that element of the track is being disruptive
Speaker 2 (46:54)
⁓ Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. It honestly sounds like he's breaking it. Like it's like breaking the whatever he's pushing the gear to its limit, you know? The repeater sound.
Speaker 1 (47:17)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pushing it to its limit or yeah, or breaking it, but not breaking it in a natural way through like muting and then coming back and then muting it. But it's like a gated break, you know what mean? It's that hard cut. Anyway, I followed that as an example. Here's an instance where I wouldn't want it to be different. I wouldn't want it to be, but also, I guess, bad example because he did use elements of imperfection like we were talking about. But yeah, mean, just like going to, again,
Going to the front bottoms and talking about them as another example of something that they... Again, I remember the very first time that I started listening to them and I was still kind of on the fence, I think, because first few times I listened, I was still like, ⁓ I mean, I don't know, especially like, been taking all these audio classes. Yeah, like I've been taking all these audio classes and this thing is like the mix is like not what you would expect. And then you heard it and I thought the same thing, but you were...
You were little more harsh on it just because like it wasn't like I was going like there's something here that like people who people are telling me to listen to this band and I listen to a lot of the other music so there's something here that's like common ground and I just haven't found it yet and then I found it and obviously like you know you were there it became one of my favorite bands of that whole like era of my life. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:38)
Yeah, I think too like like college college can kind of fuck with you in the way that like
You have to learn how everything is, they wanted you to learn how everything is very, how it's done quote unquote properly, which is funny because a lot of it's just like, they've called this is how it's done correctly, and this is how we're gonna teach you, which makes sense, because you're paying for college, you have to kind of standardize shit, but it fucked with me in that regard to where I couldn't, think about that, you're showing me a band that is doing unique shit.
like the front bottoms like they're doing innovative stuff like by adding a trumpet to this this rock band
Speaker 1 (49:17)
Yeah, I would never check or tune a PA with them.
Speaker 2 (49:21)
Yeah, and you know, but I think for me, to me, I was like, this doesn't, this isn't, this isn't correct. Which is so fucking stupid.
Speaker 1 (49:29)
No, but you're right. It's not correct. It's not classically correct. not. It isn't wrong, but it's also, yeah, it's not again, but it's it's punk. You know what mean? In its own way, right? It's it's folk punk or however they want it. Like some people say that, some people say alternative, whatever. But I think folk punk is a very good terminology for it. And maybe it's not as accurate as other bands that are considered that. But it's that.
It's the sub- like punk being that whole like, you know, having that subversion of expectation of that like a message or whatever, I don't know. But then the folk aspect of it being that they're very like in lyrics, they're very, maybe not necessarily story telly, which is why folk is, I say that loosely, but they are very visceral, right? Like a lot of the, a lot of the lyrics in that are, they're like basic observations and they're nothing, but they're like, they're ordinary shit, right? It's,
Speaker 2 (50:23)
Mary.
Speaker 1 (50:26)
It's something ordinary, then like by the third verse that same ordinary thing in the chorus now becomes profound. And it's like, you know, or, and for me, one of the things that was, know, and again, this is maybe just, you know, me just liking them to the amount I did, but it's like, there were points in my life where I would sit there and be like, you know, this ridiculous front bottoms line has now become reality. Like, you know, there's a, in the song, in the song maps,
Which is why I play a lot when we're living together You know the which one is okay. No, so I'm washing my head. It's but there's one day You'll be washing yourself with hand soap in a public bathroom wondering how did I get here? Where the hell am I? And then you know when I was But I mean sure, but I you know I was I would you know when that really hit me hit me was when I was leaving Tennessee to drive across the country and my Corolla
Speaker 2 (51:13)
day on tour.
Ha!
Speaker 1 (51:26)
And I had everything, I had sold off everything that didn't fit in my Corolla. I put everything inside my Corolla and I drive, you know, about halfway through I stopped at a rest stop. I stayed there for the night and I got up in the morning and I just like, you know, my face is all greasy, especially sleeping in a car, you know, it's like trapped air and all that. It's cold. Yeah. Yeah. It's just trapped air inside. So I felt nasty waking up and I went in and I started washing my face off with hand soap. And I just like, there's another line about washing yourself with hand soap.
or washing your hair with soap or whatever. I'm like sitting in the thing washing my face off in a public bathroom in a truck stop or whatever with hand soap and just all I could think of was maps. like being such a, you know, there's a lot of other lines that can be a little bit, you know, you can draw like kind of hopeful inspiration from in that song. But it was just that, you know, that culmination of that and then me thinking of like that song in general. Like it was the first song I put on when I hit the road that day because it was just, the irony was palpable. But I'm just sitting there like.
Yeah, I don't know what state I'm in. I barely know where I am right now. I am just at a truck stop on the road on the interstate. Like I'm nowhere specific and I'm just driving but right now I'm washing my face with hand soap and just trying to get to California before the 21st or whatever because I had work. I had a gig. like it was just a it was a very wild like you know and you're you're driving across the country all by yourself. There's a lot of like
You do a lot of thinking, you get a lot in your own head, you're kind of in your own world, you know?
Speaker 2 (52:58)
Yeah, yeah, I did I just you know, this is a different time remember when you left college ⁓ Helping you get you had a u-haul. Did you like trailer your car?
Speaker 1 (53:10)
I did, I trailer'd my car.
Speaker 2 (53:12)
Yeah,
how fucking crazy was that? I mean, that was a nuts move. You're like 19, trailer in your car from Orlando with a U-Haul, like from Orlando.
Speaker 1 (53:21)
I had to be very careful and cautious about where I got gas. mean, luckily I just kept going to like truck stops because I figured, you know, anything a tractor trailer can pull into, I can figure out. But yeah, I did not put my car in reverse one or the U-Haul in reverse one time that journey because I was afraid. It's like, I don't know how to back up and I don't want to jackknife my car.
Speaker 2 (53:37)
Yeah.
Did you, did you, like I'm curious about this, cause I've kind of had thoughts about this in my own life a lot, but is the stuff that you learned at Full Sail, did you, was it useful? Was going to school useful for you to then go and work in the professional lives audio world?
Speaker 1 (53:59)
For me, yes, it was crucial.
Speaker 2 (54:03)
Why? To get a gig?
Speaker 1 (54:05)
or to get a gig? Because the way that I say this to a lot of people is like, know, especially sometimes I get stage hands and they'll be like, how long you been doing this? And I'll tell them, they're like, how'd you get, you know, how'd you get hired, you know, so young and whatever. Like basically asking, same thing you're asking. ⁓ And I would always tell them this and say, here's the deal. I was like, if you've got a crazy uncle, you do not need to go to school for this industry. You need to have a good work ethic and a way in.
I was like, anything? And obviously, they're kind of unspoken. Sorry, I turned the sink back on. wasn't thinking. But as I was explaining, it's like, you need a crazy uncle who just gets you into the industry. I like, I didn't have one of those. I didn't have a family member or a friend. Like, I didn't really know anyone who could get me a job at a warehouse or whatever. Like, I could not get my foot in the door in any other way. So I always say I had to buy my crazy uncle.
And you know what? I paid a tuition fee to go learn things from class and I did learn a lot from class in terms of formal learning because there are tons of things that you just don't have time to like sit down. Yeah, like you would want, you'd need to read manuals and stuff in your off time but that's basically what class is, right? So class can teach you very specific, proper things or maybe like best practices and whatever and you're in a context where you just sit down and drink in the info. You're not like,
Speaker 2 (55:00)
huh.
Speaker 1 (55:29)
You don't have the pressure of scheduling or timing or anything in the way. But then if I had only done the classes and I didn't do work for Stefan or I didn't go mix the church on Sundays, I wouldn't, wouldn't, I do, gave up every Saturday night from like the last half of my schooling there because I couldn't, I had church in the morning. As somebody who like never went to church or cared about it at all.
Speaker 2 (55:56)
Yeah, not because you were going to, you know, for Jesus.
Speaker 1 (55:59)
Yeah, my joke during that time period was I used to say you couldn't pay me to go to church and now I'm getting 50 bucks just to touch an M7, which is the console that they were using.
Speaker 2 (56:09)
But even that, like the fact that, you know, I think that it was useful at Full Sail for me. It was like sitting at a console, which, you I haven't even used a console since then, frankly. To like get, to get the like hands-on experience of, or yeah, for you, touching a PA, getting these like, those are unusual experiences, or like really hard. You'd be hard pressed to find those experiences without like getting a job, like getting into the world.
Speaker 1 (56:37)
Yeah,
if you're a lighting guy like the fact that you know, we did an entire class about we did a couple You know one about regular conventional lights and the old-school ones to learn the basics and then we had a moving lights class if you were in for lighting like Dude, the only way that you would have been able to practice programming lights in the same way is if you knew a guy Right if you had a crazy uncle that worked at some club that had a lighting rig and a console that you could dick around on otherwise
you don't have access to the types of things that you would want practice on. Now, you know, again, to drag everything down to reality, like at Full Sail, they get it in everybody's head that we're gonna be these big fancy mixers. And the reality is they don't, know, only a couple professors or a couple instructors here and there would occasionally be like, you guys know you're gonna be pushing boxes for a couple years, right? Like no matter what. if you want a job, you're gonna be pushing boxes and running cable. You realize that, right?
Speaker 2 (57:35)
Yeah, the real reality of the situation.
Speaker 1 (57:38)
And a lot of people didn't, man. And a lot of people I graduated with, I have no idea if they're even working in the industry. I have definitely, when going through Orlando, I have had my classmates as stagehands before, many times. And they're like, hey, how's it going? What's up? And I'm like, you know, catch up a little bit. And I'm just like, yeah, man, well, I guess we better get running these cables, huh?
Speaker 2 (58:00)
That's
interesting. mean, everybody will say it's about all about who you know. I mean, it's cliche, but
Speaker 1 (58:05)
I had to pay for who I knew in a sense now if I if I would have not busted my ass and impressed Stefan Which I still love my first interaction with him a second interaction technically the first one where he recognized me I guess the first interaction was just he was like I followed Clayton who you know you remember Clayton I followed him to some volunteer gig that he was doing and I just jumped in and started helping I didn't really talk or whatever like I don't even know if Stefan knew that I was there technically
But I just knew like apparently that's the guy in charge of like getting all this gear in this truck. So whatever he says, I just listened to and then fast forward. I follow him to volunteer with WWE. He runs in the door, drops his bag. He knows where to go. So he just takes off. Well now he disappeared and he was, I don't know what to do. And who do I talk to? Who's in charge here? Who do I get a task from? Like I'm just at the sign in sheet and you bailed. So I walk, I'm walking around like lost.
And like just walking through the live venue at Full Sail and I'm like, I peek over into the side room and there's that guy from that other volunteer gig I did. And this is how it went word for word. I walked in, I said, hey, you're a guy with stuff to do, right? I am. Cool. I'm a guy who needs stuff to do. Perfect. Now go do this remedial thing. Like it was like run a cable or grab a thing and whatever. So okay, I do a five minute task and I come back to him and I went, all right, what's next? And he goes, you're back.
Hmm. Is that not normal? And he goes, you would be surprised. And from that moment on, like I, that interaction was accidentally the best first impression that I could have made on him. And similar to the whole Adam Sandler thing where everyone was throwing me a parade when I was just doing my job. In my head, I was just doing the minimum. I was just doing a job. Like I wasn't intentionally doing the minimum, but I wasn't like, I was just here, you know, you told me run a cable. ran a cable. Yeah.
But the fact that I came back apparently and that's not and when he said you'd be surprised dog I would be in five ten years when I'm leading stagehands and I give them a task and they don't come back I think about that. Yeah, cuz I'm like damn Stefan was right
Speaker 2 (1:00:03)
It's like.
think about the lesson being, and I think this is just like in any part of life is showing up is 80 % of the work, right? Like showing up, but that doesn't just mean showing up to the gig. means like showing up to the role or to the task or like the people who are, yeah.
Speaker 1 (1:00:37)
up to the roll not physically putting your body there because if you're just a sandbag then you're probably in the way. have I have kicked stagehands away from my area that are just a sandbag and I have no problems doing it. I will do this with one last person if it makes it safer and smoother and honestly you know it's like there's a there's a lot of this I could do myself so yeah yeah if you're a danger to those around us I am kicking you out. I did like there was one guy
Speaker 2 (1:00:59)
You are in danger!
Speaker 1 (1:01:06)
In this last run when I was in Europe, I don't remember what city we were in. This one dude just kept yapping to the guys that were flying the PA with me. And I'm like, dude, was like, are you supposed to be, because I counted and I was like, I have an extra person here. I was like, hey, are you supposed to be like with somebody or not or whatever? Like, you, you want audio? And he's like, no, I'm not audio, but I can help. And I was, you I let him go for another couple of minutes and he just continued to keep. I was kind of, that was my like.
non-verbal, non-direct warning of like, hey man, what are you doing here? ⁓ And then he continued to just keep talking and distracting his buddies or whatever. And so at that point I was like, all right, man, give me your pins. I just need you to leave. What? Yeah, no, you're just talking and being a total distraction. You're also not on audio, so you're not even supposed to be here. I need you to leave.
Speaker 2 (1:01:53)
Logan, can I ask you, early, do you remember early in your, and I'm not trying to call it like a mistake that you made or anything, but did you have moments like this where you had to learn the hard way from somebody jumping on your ass about doing things wrong or like. So you know what I mean? It's like you had to go through it to then like recognize, cause like I think even having the confidence as somebody leading a group.
Speaker 1 (1:02:10)
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (1:02:19)
who's young, by the way, like you're younger, you know, you're a younger guy and these are big productions, but to have the confidence to and the wherewithal to be like, dude, you are screwing shit up for us. Cause like having those crucial conversations, those like addressing that isn't something everybody can do, you know?
Speaker 1 (1:02:37)
You are not being respectful of the fact that somebody could lose a finger or an entire hand right now or a foot. So I need you to step away from the 3,500 pound PA. Sorry, I can't convert that to kilos for you, but you know, I ain't smart. I'm from the States.
Speaker 2 (1:02:54)
Can you tell of any stories of when you got your ass jumped for something that you did wrong?
Speaker 1 (1:03:00)
I don't yes sort of I kind of only remember the vague like outcome I don't remember the very specific right but the point was this is on my very first tour and So this was I was still super super green I'd only done like some one-off festival stuff prior and it's my first tour tour and I got and I still wasn't very great with Leading stagehands honestly that was a skill that it was one of the first things where I realized like wow I have a lot to learn and it's not about gear
Speaker 2 (1:03:29)
⁓
Speaker 1 (1:03:30)
But anyway, I was, you know, at that point I'm like 20, so I'm even younger, you know, like I'm a baby and I'm leading people, right, that often they're older than me. But yeah, there was, I had whatever task I assigned, I just assigned it and then either assumed that it was done correctly or assumed that it was done or whatever. And then when somebody like called me on like, hey, why is this portion of your responsibility not done or why is it done improperly? I was like,
Told the stage hands to blah blah blah and he cut me off mid-sentence and it was my crew chief and again He probably did this because he knew it was my first tour But as soon as I started trying to blame the stage hands, he goes no no no no no no I guess your work their work is your work because full stop their work is your work He goes whatever you tell them to do you have to either double-check them or make sure he doesn't there is no that is not a viable excuse and so like from that moment, know, and what's funny is I have now been on other people's first tours and
And I reference that a lot where like they'll start, well, I told the hands, I go, hold on and look, man, their work is your work. Whatever you're delegating to them, you are in charge of. You are in charge of it being done safely and correctly and last aesthetically. Like safety, functionality, and then aesthetics. Like those are the things that you are in charge of in that descending order. And it's like, if somebody's gonna be doing something unsafe, you can't delegate that to them. Like obviously,
Speaker 2 (1:04:33)
was good.
Speaker 1 (1:04:55)
And you're just risk mitigating, right? But it's not like you're gonna eliminate all risk. But then yeah, it's like when you've got... You know, again, it's over time, I got a little bit more confident in like, speaking with the hand. And then I will even say that because I had a lot to learn, I even probably got a little overconfident and I was probably a total dick. And you know what? There's a lot of times where I do end up probably being a little bit of an asshole sometimes, but...
I always start every day with we're gonna, it's gonna be a cool day, we're gonna joke, and we're gonna have fun. And if we're joking and having fun and it doesn't result in success, then I gotta start stripping back the jokes. I gotta start stripping back, it goes from me making sarcastic little jokes about all the tasks we're doing, it turns very much into I need you to do this. No, I need you to do it this way, thank you. All right, you, need you to do this. I need you to do the,
Speaker 2 (1:05:37)
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (1:05:52)
becomes a very, very strict, I can get strict when I have to.
Speaker 2 (1:05:55)
Which I mean, honestly, like we said earlier, think about it, like there's a shit ton of money on the line. There's a shit ton of people looking at, I mean, if everybody is doing their job, this is gonna go great. But as soon as you guys are under the gun or things aren't going well, yeah, you gotta put your boss hat on, bring that CEO energy to the table. What is a, what is a, what is a,
What is a typical day like give us the like the you know, I don't even know if it's you walk in, you know earlier you said stuff out but give me like a day in the life of a PA tech or just somebody on a big tour who's on a crew. Does that mean you're traveling right? You're kind of like part of the band like your part or you're part of the traveling circus.
Speaker 1 (1:06:30)
Yeah, ⁓
Okay.
Yeah, no, it's referred to as a circus all the time. ⁓ It's always funny. It's one of my... I'm starting to get all these like old man built-in responses to shit. You know what I'm talking about? The dad responses to every time someone says a phrase. One of my built-in dad responses is anytime someone on tour mentions that somebody else on the crew or someone else on the tour is weird or a little weird or something like that, I just look at them like they got three heads and I'm like...
Speaker 2 (1:07:00)
You have an answer, yeah.
Speaker 1 (1:07:15)
Dude, we all joined the circus. None of us out here are normal. Not one of us. That's why we all fit in. Like, yeah, and some of us, yeah, some of us are weirder than others. ⁓ I'll definitely side with you on that, but we all joined the circus, buddy. You joined too. And that's usually the implication. It's like, hey, buddy, you think they're weird, but like, we aren't, we're all birds of a feather, dude.
Speaker 2 (1:07:26)
chosen
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (1:07:42)
But, okay, so normal day, right? You walk in, so in the morning at the very, very earliest call, that's gonna be your production manager, stage managers, your office people, and then also- The leads, right? Your crew chiefs, yes. All your department crew chiefs. And they'll all go in. Production's gonna start getting back a house ready. They're gonna start scoping out dressing rooms. They're gonna start scoping out where the production office is gonna be for the day. They're gonna start getting all of that sorted.
They're going to talk to the venue about catering. They're going talk to venue about labor. They're going to talk to venue about forklifts and probably a bunch of stuff I don't think about like merch and probably going to think about other sales things that I don't think about. And then they're going to talk to them. then on the floor where I do care more and I'm more involved is the like the, the crew chiefs and the house riggers and the house electricians now have to go. The crew chiefs basically are walking in and saying, I have to hang this much weight.
and this is where I would like to hang it and this is the shape that our show is and then the building guy for that signs off and says you may hang your show here and this is what it will take to do that or they say wherever you're trying like you know you got to cut weight here you got to cut weight here because our beams don't support that much weight in these corners so sometimes you got to make concessions and that's a discussion between them and the crew chief and then you've got the electrician which most houses these days that I'm in at least like big arenas or even B tier in smaller areas
You're fine for power, you've got plenty, but it's not you're doing anything weird, but you do have to talk to the electrician, which sometimes even as a not crew chief, I'll do that in the morning before I go to breakfast, just to help take it off of my crew chief's plate. Plus I'm the one running the power, so I should know where it comes from. Usually like, so I'll walk up and be like, hey, do have power both sides or we have power one side? Sure, whatever, figure that out. And then I go tell whatever he told me to my crew chief. So that can be part of the daily plan of how we're going to get in.
Sometimes you gotta make a little bit of a game plan on how are things getting into the building? we have truck, do we have docks for most of our trucks? Do we have no docks? Are we just forklifting from the parking lot? Is there multiple entries to the floor or is it just one vom, like upstage center where there's a massive traffic lane now for hours?
Speaker 2 (1:09:47)
Mm-hmm.
And this is at this point of the day. Yeah, there's nothing in the building yet except like. Yeah, no, OK, you guys are just coming up with a game plan.
Speaker 1 (1:09:59)
there's no
No, local labor is not on call yet.
We're coming up with a game plan and you've got like one or two local guys but the laborers like the stagehands and whatever are not on call yet usually. It's probably another half an hour to an hour of walk and truck and then after that when labor call starts that's when we start dumping trucks you always start with rigging because obviously can't hang anything if you don't have the steel to hang it so the rigging truck dumps and starts getting placed while they're still marking the floor.
And then slowly after that, other trucks will dump and trickle in. At some point during this, before the trucks dump or before audio dumps, I will sneak away to go grab some breakfast. Sometimes that's just me going and like putting like some potatoes, some scrambled eggs and some bacon into a cup and walking back to the floor and eating it out of a cup. Sometimes it is me actually sitting down and getting made to order eggs. It just depends on how much time I have, how early I woke up, what's going on that day. And then...
Speaker 2 (1:10:57)
Are
there other people at this point already up in the rafters like doing shit?
Speaker 1 (1:11:02)
If I'm at breakfast probably not yet, maybe. It depends on the tour. depends on how... because everything's a little different.
Speaker 2 (1:11:09)
Isn't there another set of people who are up in the light, like hanging, like.
Speaker 1 (1:11:13)
Those are locals. Those will be local labor crew on the upriggers in the rafters and then have downriggers on the floor that build what's called bridles and basically that's when you take like a piece of steel, another piece of steel and you join them. You're able to like kind of make a Y shape and then hang. So like for instance, I want to put a motor right here but if you look up, the beam is there's a beam to the left and a beam to the right but there's no beam in the middle.
So you make a Y shape and that allows you to hang it effectively in the middle. So then that's part of the whole rigging process. But you're trying to like kind of glaze through the day. So we've got people marking the floor, people determining where to hang the motors every day, and then people start dumping the truck. That's going to be stage managers, crew chiefs, and local laborers are to be the ones pushing it. Stage manager is usually on the dock directing as the truck's getting dumped, or maybe a respective crew chief is going to be dumping their truck.
The rest of the crew for each department should be on the floor catching it. So I'm usually stage right PA. So I'll be standing stage right or I'll be standing at a point in the middle where it splits and I'll be directing, you know, helping when everything comes off. You know, we don't want it to just dump in a big pile and it's a big shuffle because this ain't a corporate game. We got time, you know, we gotta get this done tonight. And so as it's coming out, you know, all of our cases will have colored tape on them or something usually some label designation.
So they go, that's a blue case, take that left. Red goes right, all right, red goes right, cool, and you split that and then you go to your area, right? So now the truck is dumped, now I've got gear on the floor, now it's time for me to start building my portion of the show, right? So I'm at the mercy of the rigging team to have my motors hung so that I can hang things off of them. There's usually some prep things I can get done ahead of time. ⁓
Not usually. There are always some prep things I can get done ahead of time. I usually try to do those while I'm dumping the truck because again, time efficiency being such a big deal on the road and I point that out because like even in other live show aspects like there's not as much of a time constraint on corporate or TV and those two industries really love to milk over time and there is no such thing as over time on the road. Yeah, right. You get paid for what you do, not how long it takes you to drag your feet and I...
enjoy that about what I do because it makes me feel accomplished when I can knock out my job quicker and I'm now rewarded for it because technically I just made more per hour.
Speaker 2 (1:13:47)
I mean, and two, like the nature of the show, you're literally there for a day and then tonight you're packing all this shit up and then tomorrow you'll be somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (1:13:54)
Right.
It's like, well this show doesn't, it's not like this show needs set up by doors at 8 o'clock. This show needs to be set up by like 3 or 4 o'clock PM so that we can have, you know, focus with lights, we can tune the PA for 20 minutes, and then the artist maybe can come in for 30, 40 minutes, maybe longer if they want to do rehearsals. So like, yeah, the deadline is not doors. The deadline is whenever the artist wants to walk on stage. Like if they, if they want to have a sound check at 3 or 4, then
Guess what, bud? You gotta be show ready by three or four. So, anyway, I'm now ready to start building my show. Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (1:14:29)
Well,
so you said you're the mercy of the riggers and they are giving you motors, like on the motor, is it attached to the truss at the top and they send down, it's like a winch kinda, isn't it? Or am I wrong?
Speaker 1 (1:14:43)
Nope. it's a, it is a chain hoist. There's I guess another word for it or another technical term, I guess. You see these in like auto body shops to like lift a engine out of a car. Like, yeah, it's on those big A-frame things. And it's all it is is a big like, sometimes they're square. Sometimes they're a rounded rectangle square thing, right? There's a fucking block. And then coming out of the block, there's now you can hang them the normal way.
is the body of the motor is at the ceiling permanently kind of a fix there. It's got a hook, you know, so it's not technically permanent, but normally if you're installing it for long-term use, like in an auto body shop, you send the chain bag and the body to the ceiling and you run the motor and it drops the chain out of the chain bag and it'll descend down, right? Well, in entertainment, it's so much effort and so heavy to pull that like 80, 120 pound, whatever size motor you've got. For the upriggers to pull that to the ceiling,
That is ridiculous. It's cool and unusual. And you should not do that to people unless you're 21 pilots. I sorry, no, I say that because you can technically pay extra. It'll cost extra because you've to book more people, more humans, because you're making them do twice to three times as much physical labor. But if the artist says, want it to be whatever, like, sometimes a couple motors do need inverted because of aesthetic reasons. Like if it's something that drops in a prop.
Speaker 2 (1:15:40)
cool
Speaker 1 (1:16:06)
you certainly don't want to see a motor body if you're dropping in a prop. However, in entertainment, we call it entertainment style when you hang it body down because it doesn't matter. Again, we send, keep the chain fully extended or while we're keeping it stored. And that way they can pull the chain and the, just the hook out of the box with the chain, the long side and take the chain to the ceiling, which, you know, maybe that weighs 40 pounds.
that you've got to lift 60 feet or whatever versus the motor body that probably weighs like 80 to 120 pounds. It's like, it's way better to just pick up the chain. It may not, it probably doesn't even weigh 40 pounds, probably more like 10, 20 pounds of chain to go up to the ceiling. But anyway, it's way easier to pull up than the motor body. If you were, if I was able to point at it, you would, it'd be very obvious why. ⁓ But so anyway, the thing is, is yeah, we send the chain.
up to the ceiling, they use ropes, they'll lower down ropes and they'll pull everything up with ropes like pirates and put it around the beams, know, put the steel around the beams and then you clip the hook with the chain side that with the motor attached, whatever, you put that hook onto those steel pieces that they put on the beams, steel rope kind of thing. And it almost, you know, you can almost think of it like a crane, like a crane hook that goes up and down except it doesn't move, it's just affixed in one point. And so
Like for me to fly, my ⁓ one main hang of PA, most main PAs for an arena, regardless of brand, are going to take a two ton motor on the front and two one ton motors on the back. And heavier PA might use two tons all around.
Speaker 2 (1:17:49)
Cause you're, cause it's the, the reason it's a front and back is because it's like the, like when we're looking at the, the PA it's a, like a waterfall, it's like a crescent kind of thing, right? Like a J shape. like the back of it's held up, the front of it's held up.
Speaker 1 (1:18:04)
Well, so it depends on what kind of PA but normally unless you're using a pullback system then you're you're not attaching the second motor to the bottom of the PA that style does exist like not to say that you know I'm not saying that never happens because sometimes if you want to get it's you do first of all you need two motors usually because most people don't have four ton motors so just for like weight reasons you need you need a lot because modern PA systems that are large-scale 15 inch driver boxes are gonna be
anywhere from like, you know, 28 to 35 hundred pounds. Having a two-ton on the front allows you to, it makes flying it a lot easier. Like in some situations, you get away with a one-ton, technically, but you're more likely to overload the motor while you're flying. It's just, it's more safe to have a two-ton on the front. And the reason that you put two one-tons on the back, you attach them at the same point. There's this little triangle, big fat metal triangle piece called a Delta plate that we'll use.
If you try if you imagine the triangle it's the two of the corners are at the top and one corner at the very bottom because what you're doing is you're clipping a motor onto a corner a corner and then the low point between those is what attaches to the PA frame and then the front is just a single point Why do we use three motors and not two because you know two you can get your up-down tilt And that's why that's another reason to use two instead of a single point single point your PA needs to be tied down
because the wind will blow it around and it'll rotate. So front and back point keeps it from rotating. But if you do a front and two back points, what that now allows you to do is steer. So you've got your front point is affixed, your back two motors by putting, by making them, if you're even, then it's straight on. If you put one motor higher than the other one, you will start to steer the PA. And we use that so that way we can either, if we want the PA to be like bang on straight every day,
It's easier to hang a third motor and be able to bump it and fix any sort of like rigging mistake. Because it's, you're not always gonna get, and this is also, sometimes it's physically impossible to hang front and back points exactly in line with each other. Like sometimes you just physically cannot do that. There's other times where it's just like no matter how bang on it looks, like by the time you've put 3,500 pounds on it,
Speaker 2 (1:20:06)
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (1:20:24)
the metal has shifted and you would not have known. And so to send somebody back up just to move that point, it's very annoying. It's time consuming. Again, speed is key, right? So you hang a third motor because now you can rotate around. The other thing that allows you to do is if they, if the venue sells over sells and they sell wider than you expected, you can bump your PA off stage a little bit and widen out your, your coverage and account for, Hey, by the way, we actually sold to the 180 line, not the 120 line.
Speaker 2 (1:20:54)
So we need a broader stereo image.
Speaker 1 (1:20:54)
Yeah, so like basically Right.
So yeah having Delta plates kind of covers your apps to able to help with that Not that I kind of sidetracked really hard on the Delta plate point of yeah, but anyway, yeah, so that all
Speaker 2 (1:21:08)
Okay,
well hold on so take us back take us back to where you're at before because are you there's a point in your journey where you're putting all this together on the floor right before it ever leaves the floor
Speaker 1 (1:21:20)
Kind of sort of we see and also in live you try to keep as much as you physically can together from the day before So if there's like so like for instance, the PA is gonna ride in in carts vertical for high Okay, come in four by four by four, know in stacks Gotcha and they're there most of the time they're gonna be riding flat So then they won't have any of that curve that you'd normally see that's a broad statement There's a lot of other boxes that do ride curved but the whatever the point is is like they're gonna
they're going to stand in a weight centered straight up and down situation. You know what mean? Like to pack on the truck for high is generally the situation. And one of those per hang is going to have what there's many names for it, but it's basically the giant fucking metal piece that attaches the PA to the motors. And you you can call that, call it a grid. You can call it a fly bar. can call it a lot of shit. Anyway, so the fly bar, it's
Speaker 2 (1:22:17)
frame. It's like the framing.
Speaker 1 (1:22:19)
If you think of like a puppet, like a marionette, it's the little X thing that all the strings hang from and the strings are your PA. Maybe that's a worse example, whatever. But the point is, it's a big metal frame that goes on top and the rigging is, it's always built by the same manufacturer as the PA brand so that the boxes that are meant to clip into each other are meant to also clip into this grid. The grid is rated for a certain number of boxes.
Speaker 2 (1:22:26)
Yes, I can follow you.
Speaker 1 (1:22:47)
So all of this is within the same company thing. The motor is not made by L Acoustics, but if you're using L Acoustics speakers, you are using an L Acoustics fly bar frame, all that stuff, because it's part of the PA. So anyway, one of my stacks per hang that I have to do is going to have a bar on top. And usually, again, in terms of speed and fluidity, all those boxes should roll and hit the floor with labels on them. I should not have a stack of PA and I don't know where it goes.
I should roll in and it should say main stack 3 and I know that that's for the main hang stack 3 this is side 2 this is whatever they all should have labels of what hang they are and what area of the hang that they represent because consistency is key if you if you have a problem last show with the third box from the top well now when stack 1 hits the floor
you know that you can look at the third box in stack one and that's your third box from the top, that's your problem box from last night. We couldn't stop Loadout to examine it after the show, but now that we're at Loadin, it's time to open that thing up and see if we blew a driver, see if the amp needs a place, see if whatever. And so like, that's why you try to put the same speaker in the same place every day because if a speaker has a problem or something, you now know where to look for the problem to fix it. Again, we don't have time to like sit and have a tech day.
So all of this is while you're doing everything else normal, you are now adding in maintenance things on certain days. anyway, that's just to point out why it matters to have everything labeled out. I can, with most PA systems, I can pre-angle on the ground. So my system engineer, will, in the morning during walk-in truck, so that was before the truck's dumped, he will make a digital drawing of the room that we're in. He may also have one already. And then he will virtually place
PA where he thinks it will go and then he's able to render what that will look like in the software. Each PA manufacturer has their own proprietary software that helps as a prediction for where your coverage is going to be, what it's going to look like. So you see basically a heat map of the sound that you're thinking about doing. It allows you to do a little bit less guesswork and get way closer to where you want to be before you actually start flying the rig.
Speaker 2 (1:25:06)
You're almost like pre-tuning your setup to fit the room, right?
Speaker 1 (1:25:14)
Kind of I'm gonna make the essay I'll make a distinction from tuning because deployment is like 90 % of a good system Maybe not maybe it's 80. Maybe it is 90. Maybe it's more like 80 but deployment deployment deployment There's only so much you can fix with DSP. You can only fix so much digitally Think about recording right the source is what matters. Yeah, this is the output the source of your output matters think about studio speakers and
your sweet spot, your placement, all of that and the dimensions of your room, all of that matter, right? Like your acoustic treatment for studio room. Yeah, totally. Where you sit, where your speakers are aimed. So anyway, that stereo image is all determined by where we hang the PA. So they're able to do this in a software ahead of time. And then they say, OK, well, we had to go one foot further off center than we normally do. So now we're at 32 off center, so our normal 31.
So I have to like change a couple things there maybe. And then I'm, okay, we're actually five feet higher or maybe we're five feet lower, less trim height than we had on the last day. So we're further apart, we're a little bit lower than yesterday. What do I need to do to the inter box angles today that makes that to compensate for that? Because that's, know, I don't and should not be flying the same angles every day. That's just, I mean,
There's a handful of times where that could apply where you go like this room is damn close to yesterday, just use the same angles, but that's not good practice.
Speaker 2 (1:26:52)
It's a well, yeah, because not every venue is the same. one size fits all doesn't apply. Correct.
Speaker 1 (1:26:57)
So it's again, it's not good practice to do that So most people are going to draw a room and make a prediction every day and then again so that gets translated so now I can take those angles that he either drew on a napkin or Made some nice little whiteboard card that he can hand out or maybe just texted him to me or email them Whatever. I have the angles me and the other PA tech on the other side have the angles And so while we're catching it from the truck
That's a good time to like, okay, yep, put that right here. And while I'm waiting for the next stack, I just start putting the angles into that stack. then so that way when I all the PA is dumped, hopefully I've got some motors. Let's just assume that I do. And so nice smooth day. I got my motors ready. All my gear is done. I no longer need to catch things from the truck. I can start putting my rig together. Maybe I've got a cable bridge. Maybe I don't maybe whatever just in the sake of being as broad stroke as possible, right? You'd get
a lot of your cabling infrastructure down, make sure that you can power your motors because you can't do anything until you can power your motors. Get all of that down. Then you get your infrastructure for the PA, whether that is a separate power and signal or whether that is amplified signal. You get your next layer of cable infrastructure in place and this is all while still sitting on the floor. And then, you you've got your motor power, you've got all this, you'll do a little safety check and all that for your motors.
You'll get all your chains run out and you'll get everything floated off of the ground because you may have just slacked chains sitting in the box, whatever. Cool, we get it all floated. Start attaching it to the big metal grid that I was talking about on a single stack of your PA and then at that point you can start taking it up. You roll the next stack underneath. Each one has its own nifty little clipping system where it rigs together and pins in. It's extremely satisfying to do efficiently and it is my favorite part of the day.
And the worst part is, the better I get at it, the less time I spend doing my favorite part of the day.
Speaker 2 (1:28:48)
At this point, do you have a control on your hand?
Speaker 1 (1:28:51)
Yep, I have a motor controller in my hand so I have a thing called a controller, called a pendant, called whatever you want. It's got a bunch of up and down switches and a go button and a kill button. And I set whatever things to up or down and I hit go and then whatever I have switch wise initiated will happen. part of the skill is being able to know exactly when to let off the button.
having finesse, motor finesse is a term that people will use a lot and like a good PA tech has motor finesse. Like I love, it makes me so happy when I'm like cruising and I'm like locked in, I get the PA up and I'm floating to get the next stack underneath and I stop just perfect. Because when I can stop just perfectly and the stagehands are like, I don't know if this stack's gonna make it under there boss. And then it does and it just slides under there with like
a micro like hair of space and then they look at me like damn dude I'm like that's right damn dude like let's fly this rig like it gets me all pumped like yeah it's like yeah just to do it efficiency you know because then you start flying especially if you got hands that are like getting with the rhythm and like then is at that point you're working as fast as they can because if they're able to follow with your speed then it's just you just go and honestly
⁓ along the same kind of theme when it comes to flying the rig. If you are able to fly the rig with somebody that you aren't directing, but somebody who also knows, like another tech or another, crew chief, like a lot of these Pantera things that I did, lot of load in and load out, there'd be a portion where Alex wouldn't, my crew chief wouldn't really have much going on. So he would just come visit me. Cause I had, for Pantera, I had the normal stage right stuff that any other tour would have. But we also,
Did I send you pictures of our giant sub cannon in the center?
Speaker 2 (1:30:46)
No, you should send me pictures.
Speaker 1 (1:30:48)
Okay, so we did a little unorthodox thing. Okay. What did you hear?
Speaker 2 (1:30:54)
No, no, no, I was gonna say the sub cannon, did Metallica have a sub Is the sub cannon like a thing that people do?
Speaker 1 (1:31:02)
No,
it's a name I gave it to it. It's basically, we, you put the subs in what's called an end fire configuration and the long and short of that fancy word just means you put subs in front of subs in front of subs with particular. Yes. And you, because you physically place them in a specific distance and all has to do with whatever the physical wavelength is that you're trying to reinforce. you pick, you know, you want to, you want.
Speaker 2 (1:31:17)
Or compound each other.
Speaker 1 (1:31:32)
this thing to really blast 60 or whatever. Cool. So then you would do, you know, a half wavelength or a quarter wavelength or something that is compatible. we did, we did, well, full Stonehenge, which is what we called it was, was it, it was eight, 16, 24. It was a column of eight times three. And that was hung dead center all the way up in the ceiling. Subwoofers? Fuck yes.
Speaker 2 (1:31:40)
So cool.
my god.
Speaker 1 (1:32:02)
And the states were on last year, also had a center hang of like boxes and stuff in front of that. So all of our subs are in the air. Sorry, all of our subs are not just in the air, because that's not unique. All of our subs are in the middle, which is not normal.
Speaker 2 (1:32:19)
Did that produce like what were the results different from what typically?
Speaker 1 (1:32:23)
Buddy,
I'm so glad you asked. what that does, okay, are you familiar with the concept of a power alley in acoustics? So whenever you've got two identical sources that are separated by space, two propagations of the same thing separated by any amount of space in between, there's going to be, you already know that there's going to be periods where they sum and periods where they cancel, right? ⁓
Speaker 2 (1:32:30)
I know. I don't know.
Yeah,
what are they called? Nodes? Nodes and anti-nodes?
Speaker 1 (1:32:55)
nodes and antinode. They could also like the empty spots could be called a null. Yeah. But yeah, so you have you have instances of addition and subtraction physically throughout your room. Now, when you do that with high frequencies, it causes comb filtering. You know what comb filtering is, right? Okay, probably the bane of your yeah, bane of your existence, right? So comb filtering, when you take it down to the low frequencies, it's still doing that.
But it doesn't look as much like a comb as it does a big old phallus. Because you genuinely have one giant what's called the power alley. And the power alley goes right down the center and it's fat on the end and comes in and then right next to where the stage would be, you know, like right at that frontal point at the base of that power alley, you have two smaller, shorter little nodes.
to come out on either side.
Speaker 2 (1:33:55)
So in that area, there's no sound. It's like...
Speaker 1 (1:33:59)
No, like the power alley is like ramped way up and then it just falls way off on the side. It's not necessarily zero.
Speaker 2 (1:34:07)
Yeah, it's silent, but it's...
Speaker 1 (1:34:10)
Bro, sometimes it does. Sometimes you will get full fallout portions of the floor where you're like, this is not right. There's no low end right here. You walk five feet and all your low end came back.
Speaker 2 (1:34:21)
Well, I mean, I've experienced the phenomenon of bass of like this sort of thing where when I was at Louder Than Life, I saw and the reason I keep using that because the sound system is probably the biggest I've ever been around. They keep both. They keep both main stages on. Like, so, for example, Jelly Rolls performing on the left stage, but the right stage, they leave the PA on. And so it's two gigantic PAs at one time. And we were we were at a point in the back. We had to move to the back because like
You know, I'm like the sensitive boy when it comes to sound. I'm like, oh, it's too loud. We got to get back. But like we got to the back, I'm like the PA is quieter, but the bass is about to make my head blow up. And then we like moved a little and it went away.
Speaker 1 (1:35:05)
Yeah, so you were just hitting you were standing in a really big summing point for the low end and low end has fuck Yeah I mean so so okay a power alley is Normally if you've got like left and right subs you'll get a really big power alley for your low end and it's kind of unsatisfactory So a lot of times people will you know a very common sub deployment is you've probably seen stacks on the ground across the front state Yes, a lot of times that might be all your sub
We had some subs in front of the stage with Pantera, but those were effectively front fills. Those were those we had like four stacks, which is like nothing for ground subs. We had four stack and they were literally more about canceling low end on stage than they were for the audience. They were for they were for the first like 10, 20 rows of people because when we hung all 24 of our flown subs in the very dead center between our two arrays,
What we did was we created a single source of low end. Now again, it's three columns, but each column is spaced physically and then timed digitally so that the rear wave hits the next column, that column takes off with it. Then both of those sound waves hit the front column and then that one triggers. So now you've got three columns of eight subs all working as one transducer. They are all.
summing with each other to act as a single source and because there's no left now we did do end fire configuration on The Metallica run that my very first tour But it was end fire on the ground. This was and it was left and right So there was a left on the ground right on the ground There was also flown columns because when you have all of your subs on the ground the low end tends to just not you you you run into this problem where in order for low end to hit the back wall with
everything on the ground, you've got to beat the shit out of the people in the front and it's not cool. So the only way around that is you add flown subs and your ground subs give you the best impact because of coupling with the ground and physics. But again, you risk like beating the piss out of the people in the front few rows. Flown subs allow it to shoot over the audience a little bit more. There's more distance for it to fall off and you know half space. Sorry, half space. Double the distance, lower the...
Yeah, yeah, it's like the inverse square law. Yeah, whatever. So there's a there's you know, every time you double your It loses 60 be a while since I've it's been a while since I thought of the actual terminology for it But I do think about this all you know I mean like it is a fundamental part of like when I look at things and I think about sound I'm like, okay. Well doubling the distance is gonna lower this
Speaker 2 (1:37:35)
I thought about that.
Speaker 1 (1:37:53)
I think about how directional high-end frequencies are versus how omnidirectional low-end frequencies are, which does kind of play back into what we're talking about because with the high frequencies, you know, they're much less likely to just rumble around the room where like the reason low-end, a couple of the reasons low-end just rumbles around is because A, it's very omnidirectional. You need to use other low-end sources to turn it into something directional. Like, you know the concept of cardioid subs?
Speaker 2 (1:38:23)
Is this, does some of this tie into Metallica? Like I feel like I have like a reference for this with Metallica.
Speaker 1 (1:38:29)
I
⁓ mean a lot of are just audio principles. Okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (1:38:34)
But I, cause like, I'm just thinking like at what point in the history of running live sound do people begin this, you know, like understanding that, well, the only way to control the sound, you know, to control the sub is to add more subs, but they're gonna, they're gonna combat it in this special way. And it's just so interesting. Like that, that, the physics of it is like insane. I feel like an idiot talking about it. Yeah. Cause I don't understand it.
Speaker 1 (1:38:59)
like magic.
And that is one of the things that is why I enjoy doing what I do. it, on that, you can get into the deep nerdy, yeah, sure, love music, love concerts, that's a big part of it. But the reason that it really stuck with me is because as well as being that person my whole life, I've also had a very big interest in physics and science and like those sort of things. And so whenever I was learning about acoustics and all that in high school, even,
It was mind blowing to me. I loved learning about acoustics. And so now to be able to work within those principles, you know, work within like, okay, yeah, like the inverse square law is not just something you memorize. It's something that I employ. It's like the Haas effect is not just a fun napkin fact. It's something that I use.
Speaker 2 (1:39:53)
Or if you don't, and if you don't think about those things, the sound's gonna suck. like something, you know what I mean? Like the experience, it's not just a matter of like, yeah, like these things being like...
Speaker 1 (1:40:05)
Back in the day we used to set up a bunch of drivers and aim them at people and turn them on and it was very very hell yeah brother but it's a little less like that now you know it's very much less like that now it's a little less hell yeah brother and a little bit more
Speaker 2 (1:40:21)
technical.
Speaker 1 (1:40:22)
Yeah, exactly. It's like people in like, you know, it's like laboratory level, you know, things. are, know, you're designing the enclosure around this driver to resonate a certain, like the specifications and the size of it matter for the resonance of the box. It matters for the acoustics and it matters for all of
Speaker 2 (1:40:43)
And it's actually not that crazy to think like, why would you need to go to college to run live sound at an event? Well, you don't necessarily have to go to college to push boxes around, but it would be very nice to understand some of these basic audio technical principles as, you know, when you're setting up just to create the best listening environment in a big ass building that wasn't designed for the sound system that you're bringing into it.
You know, have to, yeah, that's so interesting. So, okay, so let's get back. Yeah, zooming back to the day. ⁓
Speaker 1 (1:41:18)
to the day. Yeah, sorry.
flying the rig, know, I'm clipping together, I'm stuff. Hopefully, if we're still on the assumption that today is going beautifully smooth and everything is fantastic, and all things are great, then I'm joking with my stagehands and we're having, you know, we're getting things done, we're laughing, we're moving at a good pace. I'm not, you know, having to wait on anything. Nothing's having to wait on me. Then everything's great and cool. All right, cool. Well, now we're done. And now, you know, get the ground, so we have the PA fly.
We got ground subs in, lighting has hung their rig, video has hung their walls and got their rig installed. Over on stage right in my world, know, another part of my day is getting along with the lighting folks over there, which normally is not a problem at all. Normally I make good... On top of each other, yep. Where my amp racks and my control and stuff like that is for all of my stuff. It very much runs in all kinds of cables that I have to get to or whatever. Like a lot of this is going to be intersecting paths with lighting.
Speaker 2 (1:42:03)
guys this stuff is like in this
Speaker 1 (1:42:18)
And so it's a very, if you're me and you're oftentimes a stage right PA tech, you're kind of that interdepartmental liaison in some ways. Like granted, that's technically the crew chief's job, but on smaller scale things, you are the guy who they are seeing more often probably than your crew chief. You're the guy who is in their way or they're in your way. So it's like, it's good as a stage right guy to get a good relationship with your lighting friends over there because you are.
you you have the ability to screw each other over. And if you make a good impression on each other and you get along great, and especially if you hang out outside of work extracurricularly, well then you're certainly not gonna wanna screw over your buddy, right? And we all get out of here faster if we don't screw each other over, right? And it makes us all have a nicer, easier day. So why would we, and I gotta see you tomorrow. So don't screw me over, because I'll screw you tomorrow. It's like, yeah, so there's a very much a like.
You know, work together. There used to be much more of a, like, interdepartmental hostility before my time. Where it's like, oh, it's a lighting guy, fuck that guy, blah blah blah. But, you know, it's hilarious because, like, I've had stagehands try to kind of do that with me before. They're like, oh yeah, always waiting on lighting. You know why the truss is made of aluminum? Because if it was made of steel, it would rust before it got up. I'm like, hey man, that's my smoking buddy. Don't talk about him like that.
Speaker 2 (1:43:47)
Thank you to my buddy Logan Bell for taking time to be on the show. Logan and I met when Logan was 17, like fresh out of high school, I think 17 or 18. And I was like 20. And we both moved to Full Sail from our hometowns, not in Florida, and became, you know, brothers. We relied on each other for everything down there for a couple years.
And it's, it was funny reflecting back on that in this podcast. Yeah, a little less of a interview and a little more of a conversation, us, us guys catching up over life, music and work and other things. So if you listen to this podcast regularly and if you enjoy it and you want to help grow it, I'm going to ask you for a favor. If you could go to Apple podcast, the app and give us a star rating and review. It takes, you know,
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Wherever you listen to podcasts, frankly, that would be huge. Also, if you're a recording artist or a music business person who's building your own little entrepreneurial adventure or who who's trying to, mean, you know, hell, like Mel Curly from Amazon Music said, we're all entrepreneurs up in this music industry game. Everybody's doing their thing. So if you need help doing your thing, you need clarity. You need a strategy that is tied from where you're at.
Aim to your North Star, aimed at that great ideal place that you want to land or just exist in more so it's the ideal, right? If you want that, great vision, that great strategy that's going to help you get that vision, please consider checking out ThruLine Development Company. ThruLine is my coaching and consulting service where I provide independent and emerging artists with the support and the clarity that is needed to find
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