PRINTLife on the Road
Being a roadie is more than free concerts and free beer. It’s late nights, difficult schedules and long months away from friends and family.
Beth Suda
May 27, 2009 | 12:00 p.m. CST
In the back of the Truman University gymnasium in Kirksville, Brad Lehmann, 26, stands, arms crossed and looking on as The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus hits the stage. He is not here as a fan; he is here as an employee. To his left stands the sound technician, and to his right sits the lighting designer, Greg Dawson, 46. They intently watch the show while making the slightest adjustments to their expansive boards, full of buttons, slides and knobs. In a corner, Staci Winter, 23, dances behind the merchandise table where she sells T-shirts and other band memorabilia to giddy fans who have no idea that her husband is the lead singer of the band. Although usually not thought of and typically not seen, these people are as crucial to the performance as the actual musicians. These people are roadies.
Breaking into the biz
Brad Lehmann got into the industry as a musician. He was getting his associate degree from St. Petersburg College in Florida while playing with a band. Brad left the idea of further education when his band was promised a record deal. When the record deal fell through, he began selling T-shirts for a friend’s band, Further Seems Forever. “I was 21, just old enough to drink,” he says. “When I first started touring [as a roadie] I was real wide-eyed, and you get really jaded.” After years of working his way through the ranks, doing everything from selling merchandise to playing the role of guitar tech for various bands, he eventually became part of the tour management. “The level of responsibility from merch to management is much higher,” he says. “Sometimes I have to be the bad guy and drop the hammer.”
In the beginning, Brad did his job but was a regular partier. “I was like, ‘Wow, free beer,’” he says. He would do his job and then enjoy the free drinks and the party. Now things have changed as he is responsible for the band in addition to reporting to the label and the promoters. “It’s like the babysitter got drunk if I party,” he says.
When Brad isn’t babysitting the band, he is starting his day at 4 a.m. for bus call. “You try and work together [with the promoter], but they aren’t on your side,” he says. “I haven’t had anything too bad though, other than demands and empty threats.” It’s then on to the details such as printing out set lists, creating day sheets (a glorified itinerary), writing e-mails, making phone calls, making sure the bands go on and off on time and making sure everything stays in check. “At the end of the day you have to make sure all the kittens are in the box,” he says.
Greg Dawson also used his music career to cross over to working as a lighting designer about five years ago. Greg has played guitar for about 30 years and has accompanied musicians such as Ziggy Marley and the band Hurt. When he got sober five years ago, he realized he couldn’t go onstage without a drink. “I’m not one of those guys who can jump onstage and shake my ass,” he says. “I need to drink before.” He decided the best way to make a living in the industry while maintaining sobriety was to do lighting for bands.
“The job is 100 percent creative,” he says. “If someone plays a chord, and I think yellow, then I hit yellow and say ‘Thank you, that’s $20.’” A good day on the job for Greg is when the band is dead on as he does all of his lighting on the fly. “I am a vessel for the band,” he says. “The best days are when they are into it.” Even on his bad days when nothing is working right, he still loves his job. “My heart can
be breaking over how bad the lights are,” Greg
says, “and then someone comes over and says they were amazing. It’s all relative.”
Staci Winter got the job as merch manager through her husband, Ronnie Winter Jr., the lead singer of The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. Staci met Ronnie in high school band. “I played the trumpet, and he played with the tenors,” she says. “I have always supported him and his music because I was into music.” Staci has been the band’s merchandise manager since their beginning. “Even before The Red Jumpsuit was signed, I did all their merchandise at their local shows,” she says. Her job entails putting out the merchandise, selling it, putting it away and then dealing with the paperwork at the end of the day and the end of the year.
Staci is one of the few members of the crew who spends a lot of time face to face with the crowd. “I get to have a one-on-one experience with the fans and hear a really honest opinion from them before they even know I am directly related to the band,” she says. “I get to report back to the band on what the fans thought about the show.”
Earlier in the day, Brad sits in front of his computer on the bus working on the next day’s itinerary and the set list for the night’s show. His legs crossed Indian-style and his hand propping up his head, he seems tired but in a good mood. He bought a unicorn painting from Goodwill today. “I paid $3 for it, which may have been too much,” he says with a smile. Duke Kitchens, the guitarist, sits across from him and rips the freshly printed set list in half with a defiant smile. They laugh. Their relationship is based on playful banter and a loving defiance. Greg and a few members of the band and crew blast out music from the band Dope and giggle as old Ace of Base tunes play from the speakers. He joins the others who are outside smoking and taking turns riding a bike. If he is not tinkering with his lighting rig, he is outside smoking or on his cell phone. The energetic Staci dances while pouring herself a drink before her husband comes in with a hairbrush. They sit together talking music trivia as she brushes his long blond hair and pulls it into a bun. She kisses him, sweetly tells him to “break legs” and proceeds to start setting up the merch table. The couple’s dog, Zoë, loyally follows.
With the stage and lights set up and ready to go, Joey Westwood (left), bassist ...
Brad Lehmann (left), tour manager, and Jon Wilkes, drummer, discuss the set list about an ...
The long road to success
Although touring seems to be a good time, and the band and crew seem to be as close as a family, the road can take its toll on the personal life of band and roadie. It’s a 24/7 job. “You forget people’s birthdays, and you lose track of friends,” Brad says. “The only justifying thing is concentrated increments of time with them when you are home. You get a lot of me when I am around.”
Greg has dealt with losing friends to his life on the road, but he keeps a positive outlook. “When I finally ended up getting sober after 28 years, I had burned every bridge I had,” he says. “I burned my parents and every person who could have possibly loved me. But this is the bed I made, so I am fine with it.” Having very few personal relationships at home makes it easy and ideal for Greg to pick up and leave for months on the road. “This is the perfect job for me,” he says.
Staci sees the road as an experience of self-discovery, similar to the way other people around her age go to college and start their lives. “Somebody who is 23, the same age as me, might be in college or away from home and they get to see their family as less or as often as I do,” she says. “I think that is a part of life to break apart from the family you are raised with and the family you have been around with on a day-to-day basis.”
As showtime gets closer, the band resembles a bunch of excited kids. They run in and out of the bus, out of breath from trying to jump over a small creek on a blue and white bike that goes everywhere with them. They pester Brad for information regarding times and songs. Ronnie wants to do two cover songs. “I don’t know,” Duke says. “Consult the Bible.” Brad hands him The Rock Bible, a favorite book of the band that sits on the table and is constantly being flipped through. It contains everything from information on the qualities of a good roadie to the rules of cover songs. They opt to only play one, “Glycerine” by Bush. Brad has the band’s bio on his computer screen, and Ronnie happens to see the picture. “That’s not the right picture,” he says with a frown. “Get them to change it.” Brad adds it to his list of things to do.
Brad, who has the most demanding job, can’t see himself doing this forever. “The music business is like hot dogs,” he says. “Once you realize what it’s made of, you really don’t want to have anything to do with it.” Still, he would like to go to the promotion side of music if he weren’t going to be touring. “I feel I have gotten to do something special here,” he says. “I also feel I got here because I made sacrifices.”
Greg would love to keep on doing this. “Right now I can’t see myself doing anything else,” he says. “But God laughs at all my plans all the time, so who knows?”
The final countdown
The band has to be on stage in 10 minutes. They move from the bus to the dressing room inside the venue, and Brad tells them to stay there. The whiteboard in the room is covered in lewd pictures they have drawn throughout the day. Brad goes out to the stage with armloads of water bottles and towels. He strategically places them around the stage and tapes the set lists to the ground. He tests the keyboard. “Last night someone forgot to transpose the keyboards,” he says. “So when the band started playing, it sounded like a train wreck.” The band comes out and does a huddle while Brad paces around behind, eager to get them onstage on time. The group breaks, and they run up the ramp to the stage, lit by Brad’s flashlight.
So far, so good. The band hits their first note, and the show begins only 10 minutes late. After the second song a streak of panic shoots through the roadies, and they give each other pained looks. The band is not playing the songs on the set list that Brad placed on the stage. The roadies are forced to guess what song is going to come up next and adjust the sound and lights accordingly. “It’s a free-for-all up there,” Brad mutters. Another member of the crew runs up and whispers something in Brad’s ear. A smile runs across his face. He turns to his colleagues and tells them that the red ink he used on the set list can’t be seen on stage with all the red lights that Greg is using. “How can I plan for that?” he says with a laugh.
At the end of the night, it’s the general consensus that the show went well. The band leaves the stage around 10 to shake a few fans’ hands and retire to the bus for a 16-hour trip to Texas. But the job of the roadie is not done. “Now that was a sexy light show,” Greg says to himself. He starts taking down the lighting rig, carefully storing it in the trailer attached to the bus. Staci packs up the merchandise and starts inputting the sales into her laptop. Brad has to hunt down the promoter to get the band’s money for the night. He does a head count to make sure everyone is on the bus and plops down in front of the computer for a long night of paperwork and e-mails. He will be up again at 6 a.m. to make sure the driver is on schedule so the band will be on time to the next show. “The feeling of under appreciation is often felt, but it is the band’s show, and you have to understand that,” he says. “You are here to do a job.”
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