Tour Manager :: Hey Marseilles
I never saw myself being on the road, but you know, things just kind of happen and I love it and I love what I do.
SHOWTIME: What’s your role with Hey Marseilles?
ERIN: I am their tour manager, slash merch manager, slash driver, I guess. It’s basically, coordinating, scheduling and doing everything that revolves around a tour and live shows. So lots of advance work, lots of work out ahead of the tour. Getting timings – where we need to be and when.
SHOWTIME: So you are not just the manager, you are the dad of the band…
ERIN: Yeah, exactly. I am a band dad. And for Hey Marseilles, it includes making sure they are not too hung over. [LAUGHS]
SHOWTIME: How long have you been with them?
ERIN: This is only the second tour I have done with Hey Marseilles.
SHOWTIME: Have you worked with other bands?
ERIN: Yeah, yeah, quite a few. For the last three years, I have been doing tour management and road work for the last five years.
SHOWTIME: What’s the best part about being a roadie and what’s the worst part about it?
ERIN: Personally, my favorite thing about being on the road is being in different cities and seeing different areas, and also seeing friends in these cities.
It’s really nice catching up with friends and bringing them to the shows and getting to show them what I do for a living. Because a lot of people think it’s all sex, drugs and rock and roll and they don’t really understand what goes into all of it. It’s nice being able to see people who I only keep up with on Facebook or Instagram.
The worst thing is just not being home and not being in my own bed and not being in my own apartment and having a routine. I am a person of habit. I like to be in a routine and I like to organize my days in certain ways. There is no routine on the road. Every day is different.
...about a week or so before I start a tour, I watch the Food Network religiously.
SHOWTIME: Do you have any tour hacks?
ERIN: Well, for exercising, I make sure I get out and run around at least once a day to get that energy out and keep fit.
Another thing I really love to do is, about a week or so before I start a tour, I watch the Food Network religiously. Specifically, like Diners, Drive Ins and Dives, shows that showcase really awesome restaurants in different cities. I’ll make note of great restaurants in cities that we are about to go through, so if we want a good bite of food in the town we are in – and we don’t know anything other than what’s immediately around us – I’ll check my list to keep things interesting.
I'll also map out everything before the tour starts and see if there is anything cool along the way. Whether it’s sightseeing, or maybe there is another cool show in town on our night off we can check out. Things of that sort to keep it interesting on the road.
SHOWTIME: Any funny stories you care to share about life on the road?
ERIN: There have been times where I have been on lower budget tours where we try to save as much money as we can. So we try to find places to crash, whether with friends or relatives or even with fans that we have met.
I was in Jackson, Mississippi two years ago with a band that I will not name. We didn’t have hotels booked because we weren’t sure if we were going to stay in town that night or continue on to the next city. We met a really nice couple who were just super sweet. They were front row the whole show and they bought a ton of merch. And they offered to put us up at their place. They said, 'We have a big, big place. We've got a lot of bedrooms. We’ll feed you, we’ll give you drinks.”
And so, we agreed. They were really nice, and it was a free place to stay for the night. So at the end of the night, they were definitely a little intoxicated and seemingly flirting with some of the members of the band. We kind of saw that coming, but it was a little uncomfortable, as it was the wife doing flirting when the husband wasn’t around…
But we kind of brushed it off and we got in our van and drove over to their place. And when we arrived, there were 10 or 15 other people there, and they had actually brought us to an orgy. They wanted to have an orgy with all of us.
It was very awkward. And I made the executive call and said, “We need to get the hell outta here.” So we turned around pretty quickly and left once we figured out what their intentions were.
SHOWTIME: That’s hilarious.
ERIN: That’s definitely one of my favorite stories from the road.
SHOWTIME: Are there any stereotypes about people on the road that you will confirm or deny?
ERIN: The grumpy sound man. There is always a grumpy sound man on the tour. That is definitely a stereotype that exists and is alive.
SHOWTIME: What about the so-called lead singer syndrome?
ERIN: You know, I, I haven’t seen too much of that. I have been lucky to have worked with a lot of really down to earth people. I mean, there have been a few occasions where I have worked with what people would call a diva or a drama queen, but it’s never been out of hand. I have never had a 'lead singer syndrome' type of situation. I think I am very lucky because I know a lot of people who have.
SHOWTIME: So, are you a tight-knit band? Would you say you are more friends or business associates?
ERIN: I am definitely friends with pretty much all the bands I have worked with. We’ll catch up with each other if we are in the same city and check in every once in a while. If I see one of my old bands out on the road and they are doing well, I’ll call in to check up.
SHOWTIME: Anything else you'd care to share about being a tour manager or being on the road?
ERIN: It’s a very fulfilling career. I have been doing music my entire life. And I never saw myself being on the road, but you know, things just kind of happen and I love it and I love what I do. I have a great job and I really can’t complain. I would like to be at home more and sleep in more, but I guess it’s the price I have to pay.
Front of House :: Jamestown Revival
I get to wake up every day and either go into a studio, make a record, go on tour with bands, or just go do music every day.
SHOWTIME: For those who may not know what Front of House is, can you explain your role?
TJ: I am mixing the show that the crowd hears. Making sure it sounds good and everything is moving right. And that it represents the record in the best way it can.
SHOWTIME: I have heard that the Front of House is the most important job, because you are ultimately responsible for the sound.
TJ: Yeah, but depending on the level of band, you can get thrown into a lot of other responsibilities too. Like, with Jamestown, I end up doing a lot of production management stuff. Making sure we are at the shows, and everything is getting done right. And working with the local crews, making sure they are on top of everything.
SHOWTIME: Which is harder, production management or mixing the show?
TJ: Well, it’s different. I honestly hate production managing. [LAUGHS] It’s a lot of e-mails and I am not the best at that.
The funny thing is, I do a lot of studio work as well and make a lot of records, and I have a manager that deals with all of that stuff for me in that world. But when I get into the touring side of it, that’s me as well, so I have to deal with all those logistics.
That’s a little harder for me, because I hate e mailing back and forth and trying to sound polite, but be stern with things, you know?
But when you are doing the show, I don’t think I have done a show where I am not nervous, because you want it to sound the best it can. You want people to go away thinking, “Wow, that was a killer sounding show and the band crushed it.”
SHOWTIME: What's your relationship like with your band? What kind of conversations have you had about South by Southwest?
TJ: Well, I am not your typical live sound engineer. I bring a lot of what I do in the studio to it. When I want something changed, I prefer to not have it done on my end, on the desk side. I try to help them get their sound perfect coming off the stage. Then my part is going to shine that much better.
I’ll say things like, “Hey, tune this a little bit differently. That four tone doesn’t sound quite right, or the snare needs to do this a little more.”
I let the singers have more free reign though. They are the main focus of it, obviously. They are the principals in the band. So I just let them do their thing.
I am focusing on the instruments sounding right. So there is a lot of chatting back and forth about getting the balance to where they are happy on stage with their sound and where I am happy out front with the sound.
SHOWTIME: Have you ever worked for a band you didn't really like?
TJ: This sounds a little douchey, but I generally try to price myself out of it. And if they still go for it, I feel like, cool, I’ll just have fun with it anyway. Because even if I don’t like what’s going on on stage, they are paying me right?
The bottom line of it for me is, I get to wake up every day and either go into a studio, make a record, go on tour with bands, or just go do music every day. My girlfriend goes to work every day in a cubicle. I love her to death for it, and she works hard. But that’s something I could never sit there and do.
There's definitely going to be stuff you don’t like to do. But you just try to have fun with it as much as possible.
SHOWTIME: Is it hard to maintain a relationship with your job?
TJ: It can be. Before I met her it was really difficult for me, because I’d be gone or I’d be in the studio for three months at a time and I’d be on tour for a month and a half.
I think it’s harder for us when I am on tour. There are times when something is going wrong at home and you can’t be there to fix it and you are on the other side of the world.
It's especially hard when I am out of the country. I was touring with Thievery Corporation, and I am sitting in Romania. Just to turn on my phone is going to cost me 50 bucks or something ridiculous.
But if you keep an open line of communication, it’s pretty good.
SHOWTIME: So talk a bit about the hierarchy of the crew. Where do you fall
TJ: We don’t have many other road crew besides me and our tour manager on Jamestown Revival. They handle a lot of their own teching. We’ll jump in here and there and everyone pulls their weight.
But with Tievery Corporation and others, the Front of House is like part of the band.
Then it's your monitor engineer. He is the guy who's going to get yelled at. Because if something happens and the sound blows up and hurts their ears, they are going to freak out.
And then you get the techs after that. To me, the guitar techs are the unsung heroes. With the really good ones, there is that extra 10 percent. They are really anal about their world and keeping it clean and keeping everybody away from their stuff. They are taking care of the artists’ guitars and a lot of them aren’t cheap.
And they tend to be the guys that like to party and smoke a lot of pot. They have more time to do that. If you are Front of House, or are doing monitors, you kind of have to be the sober guy. And then you have to learn how to tie one on really fast after the show to catch up with everyone.
