What puts a tour into motion? In this podcast episode, we sat down with live music and touring experts Kaleb Herbel-Eisenmann (Artist Manager at Abstract MGMT), Darius Zelkha (Artist Manager/Marketing Partnerships at Brilliant Corners Artist Management), and Danielle Zucchini (National Marketing Manager for Live Nation) to discuss the mechanics of mid-cap, domestic tours in North America. Tune in to see how a tour is created, from initial planning and marketing, to being on the road, and everything in between.
What puts a tour into motion? In this podcast episode, we sat down with live music and touring experts Kaleb Herbel-Eisenmann (Artist Manager at Abstract MGMT), Darius Zelkha (Artist Manager/Marketing Partnerships at Brilliant Corners Artist Management), and Danielle Zucchini (National Marketing Manager for Live Nation) to discuss the mechanics of mid-cap, domestic tours in North America. Tune in to see how a tour is created, from initial planning and marketing, to being on the road, and everything in between.
Welcome to the Drop the MIC podcast where we'll dive into conversations with some of the music industry's most established professionals. Like all of our episodes, what you will hear today has been created and curated by Stanford students who are breaking their way into the music scene. I'm Jay LeBouef and I lead Stanford University's music industry initiatives. Whether you're aspiring to launch your career in the music industry are already a music industry pro, or just curious to learn more. We've got you covered.
Sarah Ohta:Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Stanford Music Industry Podcast where we have conversations with some of today's leading industry leaders in order to offer a behind the scenes perspective on the music industry. I'm Sarah.
Peyton Chen:I'm Peyton.
Micah Drigo:And I'm Micah,
Sarah Ohta:And today we'll be focusing our episode on live music specifically looking within the context of domestic mid-cap touring in North America we were very lucky to be able to talk with a few guests hailing from different parts of the live music industry. So we'll be able to get a clear picture as to how tours are organized and operated from both the creative and financial side.
Peyton Chen:First up, we have Darius Zelkha who was previously the owner of tough love artist management, and is now an artist manager and marketing partnerships director at Brilliant Corners Artist Management. Brilliant Corners has worked with individuals like The Submarines, Death Cab for Cutie, and She Him. We wanted to talk to Darius because he is able to explain booking and the various touring logistics from the artist management perspective and he's going to help us begin to understand the decision making that drives touring before the show even starts.
Darius Zelkha:I'll talk about this as if the world is a little more back to normal so if we're talking about tours that are mid-sized venues, I assume, we mean somewhere between a thousand and three thousand capacity places. Maybe a little bit larger than that. The first thing about that is that artists that are playing that size venue, they have a track record. They have a history, they have ticket sales. That's totally different than a band that's maybe going on their first tour or has never toured the U S before, but has success elsewhere. If you're talking about those sides of venues generally, the band has history and the starting point for booking a tour is generally looking at what the band's history is with the agent and, I would talk to the agent about it and see what kinds of venues might make sense, both artistically and financially for the band. So let's say it's a band that has typically played, The Fillmore in San Francisco, which I think is 1100 tickets and let's say the last couple of times they've done it, they've sold that room out. The starting point for us would basically be, do we feel like there's enough momentum to step up to whatever the next room would be? In the market, do we feel like that's a good fit for the band's audience? For example, the next room might be a place where there's seats in it as opposed to standing room. Is that something that the band's audience would want and artistically, does it make sense for the band to do that? Just to show growth show evolution of what they're doing, or is it a situation where every time they've come to San Francisco, the show has done well at the Fillmore, but it's done about the same business each time. And so the estimate should be, we're going to about, we're going to do about 1100 tickets. Does it make sense to do a place that we know the fans want to go to and they seem comfortable, or does it make sense to do something different? That feels like a step for the band. at that point, the booking agent would go and essentially solicit offers. From the different venues in town. So generally what happens the booking agent will come back to us with a what's called a routing, which is essentially what he thinks the tour should look like. or she, we work with a lot of female agents as well. They will then look at it. We'll take a look at that and being familiar with a lot of the venues, we'll have a conversation with the agent about why he, or she feels like this is the right thing to do. It might be something where the artist comes to us and says, this is a much quieter record. So I only want to do seated places this time around, or the artists might come to us and say, I've played, larger venues for the last two tours. I want this tour to be two nights stands in smaller venues that add up to the same number of tickets. so a lot of our job is to coordinate the vision with what the economics of it would look like, and some of that might be as simple as wow, this band has a lot of momentum. We're pretty sure we're going to tour twice on this record. What's an arc of touring for the year that allows that to happen. For example, does it make sense to start at a venue that's smaller than the one that you played before? Have it sell out quickly and then immediately put on sale? Another show that's larger. To give the impression of momentum in the market. I'd say the tricky thing about touring is a lot of times are making those decisions six or eight months before the record even comes out. And so it's really an educated guess about what's going to happen with the band more than it is a reflexive, response to radio airplay or tickets going on sale in the market. So you're essentially making your best guess and you're gauging the enthusiasm of your partners. So if you're getting a bunch of offers for shows, say in San Francisco, that are aggressive, there's a sense that the promoters or the people on the ground that are putting their money. Into the show feel like it's going to be a successful show. They feel like there's some heat from the band. It's very much like getting a sense of what the buy-in is from everyone else involved in it. And our job is to basically quarterback that to then, determine based on these options, what the best path for the artist will be.
Peyton Chen:I can see how the decision-making process can get complicated pretty quickly. On a similar note have you ever met an artist that disagreed with you on your recommendations for festival and touring decisions and could you explain how you dealt with that?
Darius Zelkha:Yeah. That happens all the time. it's not so much necessarily that we disagree on it, but that we need to explain to them like what the logic is with it. And honestly it's a difficult conversation because no, even though a lot of bands, careers go like this It's a challenging thing to say to someone like, look, I know you've worked hard to get to the place where you're going to play the Fillmore. It didn't go that well, last time we should play a room. That's, two thirds that size that you don't like as much. In my experience, There are some artists that are very clear-eyed about that and understand that's just a part of a longer career. And as long as there's a strategy behind why we're doing it this time. Cool. That's a harder conversation. I think if there's an artist that's risen really quickly and is dipping. A bit. And so in my experience with that, a lot of times you might avoid that conversation by doing like a very creative venue in one of those markets, something that feels like, Whoa, like not that many people do a show there. The issue with those is sometimes you don't make as much money because you need to bring in production and it's not set up to do that. But sometimes you would look at that and be like, Oh, Hey, for this market where we struggled last time, this feels like a cool creative idea to do. But then there are some times when you just say Hey, that shouldn't go very well. So we're going to do this room instead, or we're going to work with the new promoter there. I think we're lucky in the sense that a lot of our artists have toured so much that they understand that's just a part of it a lot of the time. There are also always shows on a tour that are usually one or two that you hear about for years afterwards, because they totally sucked. And that's just part of the deal.
Micah Drigo:Yeah, I'm sure it's not easy to make those difficult decisions for your artist's success. what are some other ways that you've been able to make yourself an effective artist manager?
Darius Zelkha:Sure. I think I'll try to tailor the answers to touring specifically, because it sounds like that's what you guys are focused on here. Obviously the touring aspect is probably for a lot of our bands who are, tend to be more independent, larger, independent, hardest, that tends to be the thing that has been the driver of most of their careers. I'd say that's the thing that a lot of the bands start by doing is trying to get out on the road and play shows. I think as the landscape of music has changed and recorded music has become less of a driver. I'd say the touring aspect of it tends to be one of the major components of the marketing plan. For that. So I would say when we're thinking about a new release or we're thinking about signing a new artist, or we're thinking about what an existing artist is going to do for an upcoming album cycle, the touring component of it, both the amount, the strategy, how it's presented is one of the major aspects of the marketing campaign and something that we would work very closely with the band's booking agent who actually routes the tour contracts, the shows solicits offers from either festivals or clubs for that we would work. We would almost, we would be probably started working on that with the booking agent before we've even started working with the record label on the release state. So it tends to be a very primary element of an album cycle. And it's also tends to be for us as managers. And I think for the band as well, it, it has historically been a very strong economic driver. I would say more than, most bands touring as a majority of the income they would earn. And I would say it's it's also a primary driver of us to gauge the success of a given project like ticket sales and growth or maintenance of touring tends to be something we look to see if it was successful or if we felt there were things we could improve on next time.
Micah Drigo:Our second guest is Danielle Zucchini. Danielle previously worked at Live Nation as a global marketing manager, where she oversaw multiple marketing and promotional plans for artists and strategize creative campaigns for North American tours. We were so excited to ask Danielle about her time at Live Nation, especially since she's very familiar with how tours operate from the viewpoint of profit and finances.
Sarah Ohta:So an area that we really lack visibility on is how people handle tour budgets. How people coordinate with the venues and the different responsibilities you might be taking on as a marketing manager. So we'd really love to hear more about your perspective on that.
Danielle Zucchini:It depends per artist, you know some of the bigger artists don't have a day-to-day manager help with that. Like maybe an agent will help or a marketer at one of the agencies. So it looks different for each tour and for each artists depending on how they exactly want it to run. most of it, I will say starts at the talent buyer and the booking levels. So they depending on the show, decide all the budgeting but, depending on the negotiations that happen between the agent and the talent buyer to figure out what the best Tools are, and what works best for the artists, what will make more money for both the venue, the promoter and the artist. So all of that is decided before it even hits the marketers desk. And then we get, A lump sum of money. So then we will be able to divvy up, like if Nebraska is doing worse than most likely LA, then we can put more money to Nebraska, to the markets that really like maybe the artist is trying to get bigger there or trying to feed that audience. Cause that may be not the popular, genre there. So we can play around with different markets, So we'll reach out to each individual marketer and we will tell them what our budgets are and then we'll let them know what we're doing from the national levels. So whether that's like Google display ads Facebook, Instagram, Twitter ads we'll put together like what we're thinking, and then they can either run it after we're done so that they don't compete against each other and then they will send us their comprehensive ad plan. So anything that they think that will be good for certain genres versus others. Obviously like we see very different results depending on if it's an older crowd or a younger crowd or depending on the genre. So then we rely on the marketers a lot to deal with their their partners. So if they work with A small record shop, or if they have a good relationship with the pizza place down the street, like where we can put up posters and flyers and do like a ticket giveaway and stuff, just to create some buzz about the show. So they'll do a lot of stuff like that. But it depends on the market or some people do it differently. We have a system called Roam, in which we like we'll put in all of the budgets that we have spent. And then the socials person will give us the recap of how much it's spent and The digital and display team will send us how much they spent and, the locals will input their numbers. And so we all have a comprehensive list so that we don't go over budget, or let's say the show sold out, then we can cut all spend so that we're not overspending as well. And you know sometimes the bookers like really want to impress an agent because maybe the last tour didn't go so well. Or like maybe they're really trying to get like an exclusive, Live Nation partnership with this artist. They may put some of their own bucket of cash that they put aside sometimes, and they may want to put more. But yeah, it depends on how things go. And we collect all of the marketing plans and then we send it cause we, we can't do anything without artists' permission We have to get it approved by whether, like I was saying, whether it's like the direct manager, whether it is like the marketer of their team. Sometimes we work directly with the artists, but that is rare. And then they approve each market. And then on the promotional side, as you said we have marketers or us, ourselves, a reach out to radio partners. And we asked them for a promotional proposal, which is them securing, how much play that they will put towards this, how many commercials they will run, how much they'll talk about it. They obviously negotiate to get more tickets and, you know we try to make sure that we're getting enough. Airplay and talk on the radio about it to then balance out the amount of tickets that we give. Usually it's, just really is about keeping like every diamond penny and writing it down, sometimes things happen because we are managing a bunch of tours at once sometimes. So you have to be very very careful in making sure that you aren't spending money that's not there because some of that money like can come from an artist side. Or, depending on those conversations. So it just doesn't look good. If someone goes over budget on a show,
Sarah Ohta:Yeah, that definitely makes sense. Kind of on a similar note one thing my previous manager at Live Nation mentioned is that the ticketing companies also owned venues or have really strong connections with certain venues. Does that play into how chores are routed and budgeted at the end of the day?
Danielle Zucchini:Yes. With Live Nation, because they are so big, they do own quite a few venues across the country. With those negotiations with the agent, they definitely try to push all the Live Nation owned and operated venues, because it's just less cost. Because if it's like a venue that's owned by the city, then it's just, there's a lot more costs that go into. They always of course try to push for their own venues across the country. So Ticketmaster's owned by Live Nation and access.com is owned by AEG. So usually they try the promoters, tried to only run those tickets through those platforms. Just to keep the continuity throughout tours throughout the artists. You know cause sometimes especially with a lot of the clubs and theaters world, a lot of them are third-parties So sometimes like we'll have an agent or something come back and be like, why isn't this photo updated on this website? And it's just a third party. So like it's just a lot of different steps to make sure that everything is fluid. Sometimes an artist will come back and be like, I really want to play this venue. Like I grew up in this town and it's always been a dream to play this venue. So sometimes an artist will really push for it. And it depends on if the promoter doesn't think that they're ready for that. Or if they don't think it'll sell well, or if they'll actually lose money to play there, you know we'll have those kinds of conversations, but yeah, of course they're trying to stay true to their company and their brand. No matter if it is a small, independent promoter or whether it is one of the bigger Live Nation or AEG, They of course want to put, what makes sense in the venue. But of course they also want to bring business to their employees. So if they have to staff a night at House Of Blues, they're employing their people and they definitely try to put as many as they can into their own rooms.
Micah Drigo:I see that definitely makes sense. Pivoting a little, we were wondering if you could break down revenues versus costs in touring and what steps are taken to make the tour profitable?
Danielle Zucchini:Yeah. No matter how big Live Nation is and how much they have behind their name and Ticketmaster and stuff. Sometimes tours just aren't profitable. And sometimes that comes with just, an artist is still growing and maybe they were putting into too big of rooms. Maybe they were put into rooms with too high of costs. Like sometimes, if a smaller artist wants to do big production, maybe they can't in a smaller room because they don't have the license for that. So that's a lot of production costs that go into deciding, whether something is profitable. And that's also something that when they are routing tour cars, they do make sure okay, what kind of production? Is it extensive? Is it small? If it's just acoustic and they can probably go wherever. At the stadium level and the arena level, those production costs are a lot higher. There are a lot more, obviously I'm sure you guys have been to those shows. They're just, Pyro and a lot of kind of stuff. And like I said, like even when we would have stuff at the United Center in Chicago if it was on a Sunday, like sometimes like they'd have to pay time and a half for, employees. So yeah, a lot of those costs rack up. Sometimes it can be a very successful tour and you can come out of a certain night and not make as much As planned, sometimes things blow out of the water and sell out really quickly. And then sometimes, even super seasoned people that have been doing this for 20 years will be like shocked that something sold out or made as much money as it did. Sometimes there's always a weird cases like that, but you can't always be profitable. And like I said, sometimes they're just really trying to impress an agent or that artist's team, because maybe they really do think like a star will blow up. So If you stick with an artist at the beginning, like if they're like, Oh, Live Nation or AEG, was there like helping my career from the beginning, they might be a little more loyal to them and stick with them throughout the times when they're as big as like The Weeknd or something. So yeah it's a lot of just trial and error and, you know sometimes they will even paper shows, which I don't know if you guys are familiar with that, but that is, when you're just trying to get bodies in the room. So you just give away tickets for free, essentially, because in the hopes of that, it's not only to please the artists because the room is more filled, but it also will bring more money to the food and Bev give more artists money for like merchandise. So they just hope that if it shows selling, pretty badly, at least it's giving exposure to the band in the longterm. And then maybe profit more off of some of the venue costs that, that may be the ticket sales itself didn't get to. You know, sometimes it's just whether you want to take the risk, if the talent buyer feels like the artist is worth taking the risk for. So yeah there's a lot of factors, but they're not always profitable. And sometimes they will want to put more towards marketing to really get the name out there and to really try to push more tickets. So yeah, there's just there's no tour that's ever for sure going to. Otherwise, like you're just going to lose clients.
Peyton Chen:That's totally fair. To wrap up this section, I have one more question that I think would be really helpful for anyone listening. For anyone who wants to enter live music in a marketing capacity, do you have any advice about how to navigate the industry and how to start?
Danielle Zucchini:Yeah, I will say you have to like full heartedly, love this industry because it's going to be. A lot of pain, it's going to be a lot of, it's going to be a lot of struggling. It's going to be a lot of networking. It's going to be a lot of rejection. It's tough. So you have to be like, I'm willing to fight for this. I know I'm good enough to get this. Even if five other companies have told me that I'm not. So you have to take risks. You have to believe in yourself. But I think a lot of people get into music cause they love parties and they love music and it's most people love music. But you have to like really be willing to do grunt work. And it's not fun. Like all the times I was an intern, like the things that we would have to do and I'm not telling you to ever do something that is wrong or something that makes you unhappy. There is always a line and you never should go to a place where it's uncomfortable for you. So if let's say someone comes up to you and. It seeing where you're thinking about, a part of music that you've never really thought you had an interest in, try it out, unless the people are completely terrible humans, which does happen in the industry. And you shouldn't surround yourself around that, but just, obviously from my background and what I told you, I did so many random things just to see what I liked, what I didn't like. And make good impressions, work hard, be there for people just make those relationships really connect with people, keep in touch with them through years, even if you're, I've connections in so many different states from all the events that I worked. So don't just be like, I've had so many interns that we had at Live Nation that were like, I don't want to do like this part of the industry. And I'm like, take a job, take a job that like some, if someone sees something in, you take that opportunity, it could always come back to what you want to do, but never just be like, Oh, I'm too good for this. Or this isn't my passion. Sometimes the industry will take you in ways that you didn't know. And yeah just, it's going to be a hustle and you have to be willing to hustle. And if you don't love it that much, you're probably not going to be willing to do it. If that I know that's like kind of morbid, but it's, it is the reality of it. And I think people, either realize that early on and leave or they're like, okay, I gotta keep busting my ass to get there.
Sarah Ohta:Our third and final guest is Kaleb Herbel-Eisenmann and he is currently a creative manager at Abstract Management. In the past he has worked with artists such as Xavier Omär, Still Woozy, Remi Wolf and Nao. Since we built some context around touring from an artistic and financial perspective we wanted to ask Kaleb about some of his experiences touring with artists in North America.
Peyton Chen:So for our audience at home it'd be really great if you could maybe elaborate a little bit on what is a creative manager and what your role is in that capacity?
Kaleb Eisenmann:Definitely. I think it varies really for whoever the client is. So I usually provide support more so on like a branding art direction development sort of side. And for artists who are running tours, who have label deals, et cetera, there's a lot to manage from accounting and business management as well. And so my partner that I work with right now from a management perspective, he handles almost all of that stuff. Making sure that the taxes are done appropriately. Invoicing just having all of their finances in a row, negotiating contract terms, that sort of stuff. And I'd actually been learning a lot more about that. Cause I went to school for advertising for graphic art have been, a musician and an artist sort of my whole life. And so I understand that kind of stuff. So I think with certain clients I am responsible for helping them feel inspired, making sure that. Songs worked on and going through demos that they have in studio sessions and picking out ideas that stand out to me and talking to them about that and being like, okay, how do you feel about this one? What are you excited about with this idea? What do you think it could be worked on? Who do you think are people who we could bring in to help with the drum programming for this song? Are there specific engineers that you'd like to get in the studio with? Could they offer something, and helping them find a rhythm for things like that. And then once the music is done what's the look and feel of this release going to be, do you need animation? Do you need photography? Do you need a video? What's the budget for the video? Who could we tap for whatever what's the inspiration, that kind of stuff. Which is definitely super exciting and nothing is ever really the same day twice or the same project twice, which has been really rewarding. And that being said, I still have a lot to learn about the. The legal side, the contracting, the financials which I've been learning a lot lately and would like to stress that is equally as important because there's a lot of people who have great ideas and great work, but don't have their stuff together on the back end like that and end up in a lot of trouble. Because at the end of the day, it is running a business to keep them, housed and fed. And a lot of times also keeping their families fed and in house and stuff. The financial aspect of it is also very important.
Peyton Chen:So since your role is definitely more focused on the creative side I'd really like to know where in the process your work intersects with live music and touring so maybe dealing with designing how the show is going to run or maybe you're more on the logistics side but it'd be really great to know where your work falls into place in the context of live music and touring.
Kaleb Eisenmann:So certain things that I could help with are taking the studio recordings and sitting with artists and like their friends who are in the band, or, first of all, asking, do you want to perform with the band? Do you want to just run performance tracks and sing? Helping them think about what the live show is going to look and feel like you had said, and depending on how big the tour is, that can mean set design, that can be lighting design. That can mean sequencing what the songs are going to be. And then even coming down to working with someone, to arrange the songs, I've toured with people who arrange all their own stuff, but also sometimes that's a service that people need is what is the live version of this song gonna sound like? Because you can't always access all of the sounds and stuff that you had. From the studio version. And oftentimes you don't want to, you want to play with the band. Do you want it to sound different and feel bigger in the room and have this energy that comes from having a band behind you. So I've helped with that kind of stuff with Xavier's tour. And I was definitely instrumental in helping the branding for the tour. And what's the looking field going to be the set design he had this idea that he wanted it to be that's like fake radio station that he referenced on the album a couple of times. So we had somebody design a full brand kit for the radio station, so colors, typeface logo. And then we built that out onto the set design as well. He had some friends record different interludes that kind of felt like radio commercials that were played throughout the show. So just really sitting with artists leading brainstorming sessions for what they want the shelves to look like, and then taking those abstract ideas and really figuring out logistically how that works out is definitely something that I've done and something that's exciting for me to do. And because you have these ideas, that are super cool, but they're all abstracts. And it's okay, can we build this one? How heavy is it going to be? Can we carry it in and out of the venue every single night? What's the size of it. And what are the size of the stages that we're working with? Is it going to fit on every stage? Who can we tap for lighting design? How does lighting design going to fit into the set design? All that kind of stuff, which seems very small and behind the scenes, but at the end of the day, you know if something goes wrong with any of that stuff, it can be a real chore for tour managers and ultimately for the artist. So that's how it has intersected live music.
Sarah Ohta:Yeah. So on a similar note, I wanted to ask about. If you could break down some of the mechanics of what tour looks like when you're on the road. You know, maybe we could talk about Xavier Omär show in particular.Since that's where the two of us got connected But yeah I know that you were doing a lot of the day-to-day for Xavier Omär's tour so I think it'd be cool to show our listeners that perspective
Kaleb Eisenmann:Obviously I've worked on tours from an agency perspective, from a management perspective and then like actually been on the tours themselves. And the agency and basically contracts all of it and we'll do all the routing and they're working with management to figure out what's going to work best. And then obviously a ton of things that, that need to happen to make sure that you have all of your shows confirmed and contracted and finalized, and then you can announce it. And then on sale as a whole different thing, you have to communicate with each of the promoters in each region or each. Venue sometimes to make sure that on sale is working and ticket sales and you're getting updates. And from a management perspective, you're trying to figure out what's selling, what's not selling what you can do on social media to get people more engaged. That sort of stuff. and then, okay, are we gonna have a bus or we're gonna have a Sprinter, what does the staff need to look like for the tour? So on Xavier's tour we had a bus; Xavier is a big bus guy. He likes having the comfort of the bus, you know every tour I've gone with him, he likes to have that was fan. We just do it in a Mercedes Sprinter and there's only five of us. So it was super comfortable. And we stayed at Airbnb's every night, or hotels. And then. I think that actually being hired to go on a tour is a pretty like you don't put out applications like, Hey, we're looking for, or whatever, it just like works through nepotism, honestly through referrals And so by me working at a venue, I knew people who were touring and then obviously when I got into the management side, I was able to be hired to go out and work on many, I was just like on Xavier's tour filling in different gaps that needed help. So sometimes it would be okay. Load in is taking a while. So I would, help move all of the cases in and unpack everything and build the stage and that sort of stuff. But like you said, I was also running point for anybody who wanted to do interviews. So getting that cleared by Xavier, finding time, scheduling it, asking, what are the questions going to be? And talking with the other people on the management team about, okay let's not talk about this, let's do this instead. And oftentimes people are pretty flexible on what the interview's going to be in, asking what is this going to be used? How long are you going to have it up for, that kind of stuff. And then, we always wanted to make sure that we had, Photographers there too to capture the show. So we had our own photographer on the tour and he had certain tasks to do, and we were shooting video a YouTube series that I helped edit and produce so there would be certain shot lists that I would give out every day. I was like, okay. Here's so Matt was the video guy. Matt Heifer is super talented. So helping him with like shot lists and being like, okay, we need a. And Instagram recap in one, one aspect ratio, we need a nine 16 aspect ratio for this and this, and it needs to be six to 10 seconds long, and it should feature XYZ, So keeping on top of that I would put the tour manager to run guest list stuff and make sure that guests came in. Some people got different access depending on who they were. So if it was like Xavier's friends or family or collaborators, I would be meeting them at 2:00 PM and giving them like all access credentials and they could do whatever they wanted for the day or photographers who would be showing up right at doors and I'd have to go meet them and give them their pass and in that kind of stuff. And then during the show usually would just hang out and edit video and relax. And then afterwards also helping with. With whatever really needed get done again. So it's never the same day twice. It's always moving and, problems are coming up that you never could have predicted, and you have to be light on your feet and flexible, I think, for anybody on the tour, that would be true. I think that like the schedule really depends on having a good management and tour management team. Having a good tour manager can provide a way better experience for everybody.
Sarah Ohta:Yeah. What does the tour manager do? Exactly, because I think I met him briefly, but I remember he was so busy that entire period of time.
Kaleb Eisenmann:So you're responsible for, basically everything. Like you have to make sure that. The venue knows what time you're coming. So advancing all of the shows, making sure that the venue is prepared for the kinds of equipment that you need to run and use for the show, making sure that there's stagehands there to help you, or if there's not stage hands, knowing that you don't have them so that you prepare accordingly to stay on schedule. So the tour manager, it needs to keep you on schedule every day. They. Work with the bus driver to try to figure out, where the bus driver is sleeping at, I don't know if it's like a union thing or a contract thing, but they only have so many hours that they're legally permitted or contracted to drive every day. So working with the bus driver to log those hours, make sure the bus driver gets paid out, make sure that everybody on the tour is getting paid on time and the correct amounts, making sure that we stay on schedule. Running guest list, making sure that they settle the shows every night, obviously huge, right? Like a small thing to do, but if you don't settle the show you leave and you don't get paid. What, that's a huge mistake. So making sure that happens, making sure that merged splits are determined before the show. So some venues will take 10% of your merge cut. Just making sure that everybody's staying informed and that everything runs smoothly. And yeah, there's a ton of stuff that you have to work out, doing all the accounting with flights. So Xavier's lives in San Antonio, Texas, and his band all lives in San Antonio and tourist started in Seattle. So we have to get the band and all of their gear from San Antonio to Seattle, we have to make sure that the bus is waiting for us in Seattle. So everybody, arranging flights for everybody, arranging shipping for all of the gear, making sure that we get everything, on time at the bus. And obviously things go wrong all the time. So being able to solve put out fires, come up with solutions to problems on the spot all the time. And it, it can make or break a tour sometimes. If the tour manager messes up and you miss soundcheck and you don't get to soundcheck and then the artist comes out and hasn't even really used that like sound system and you know the engineer, like then they have to figure out what the hell is going on and it can be late and the show can go poorly. So tour managing is difficult. Shout out to everybody who are seasoned tour managers out there. Cause they're like, hard-ass people like have so much respect for all of them. All of those people for sure
Sarah Ohta:Yeah I can imagine that sounds like such a difficult job I remember that I was chilling with most of the other people on your team so I think it would be good if you could overview who exactly is on the staff when you're traveling on tour
Kaleb Eisenmann:if you're touring and playing rooms that are like a thousand to 2,500 people, your staff will be a bus driver, the tour manager, the artist, anyone who's like in the band. So that could be a drummer or a basis to keys player, a guitar player. So you have the band, you have your merch seller. Sometimes you'll have a lighting person, but you can also use like the in-house or the venue lighting you'll have a sound person. So they're, running the whole production mixture. Everything's miked up. Everything sounds good. All the instruments are sounding good, having the proper equipment and, that can take hours to get. And I think I'm getting off topic here, but Nao, her like production crew in her band was incredible like immaculate, they're so talented. And they would be in the venue at 11:00 AM before the 7:00 PM show and just sound checking and just, running everything. And they're so professional and so talented. And having good production people on the tour is huge. So usually that's like a sound engineer. Some artists have what's called like in, in-ear monitor tech so that, have you ever seen them like have like little, it looks like like little ear pods in, or little headphones that so that they can hear themselves and hear each other. And so sometimes you'll have another person who's just running that system And then you'll have a photographer sometimes and a video person. I'm trying to think if I missed anything that usually would be. Like a a pretty full tour staff. And I know that just, through talking to different people, like somebody just took it with a personal assistant or a stylist or a makeup and hair person. It's really up to you Xavier took his wife on tour. So she was there, helping out with merch and just providing good energy for everybody. it's really up to the artist depending on what they need as well.
Sarah Ohta:Okay. Awesome. So what's been the most enjoyable part of touring, but also what's been the least enjoyable part because I think it's good to keep a perspective of realism when we're talking about live music because I know at least in the photographer community for music industry a lot of people tend to have a very idealized vision of what touring and what working in the music industry looks like.
Kaleb Eisenmann:I think, obviously touring gets like very glamorized, I feel like, but it's definitely, I've said to people like the worst, best thing ever it's super enjoyable and fun obviously, and the shows are great. And I was just telling Peyton, a lot of the memories that I hold like very close are, you know, going to Whataburger at one in the morning after a festival slot or after a show or, you know, just. Having an off day where you're just parked in a Walmart in New Jersey and you'd take an Uber into the city and just, you know, having a good time with these people that you maybe just met last week. And, you definitely get really close with those people because you're seeing them every minute of every day. it is long hours, you know? Usually would work from like noon to two in the morning, sleeping in a little teeny bunk on a bus. Yeah, it's winter time and you're going 60 miles an hour and hitting bumps and turns and that it takes some getting used to, you know, there's eight people, but living on this bus, or I think we had 11 or something on the last tour. And so it's really crowded and you don't always know if you're going to have a bathroom or a shower or, your diet gets pretty bad. Like my body would just feel really gnarly sometimes. Cause you know I just worked for 10 hours and it's 1:00 AM and I'm in, I don't know, like Sacramento and I'm like, okay, what the hell is even open right now? And so I have to go to seven 11 and get whatever I can find for food. And then I don't eat again until. 1:00 PM the next day. And I wake up and the first thing I do is pull up in Google maps to figure out where like, where the hell I'm even at and what's around me and, so that can be, can definitely wreak a lot on your mind and body. So I think, me and the engineer and the tour manager on Xavier's tour, we'd go and do yoga a lot. We had a class pass kind of thing. So taking time to really take care of yourself and drink a lot of water and that kind of stuff good. And, definitely the people that you're with where you're touring at, it has a big effect on it also. But, you know, waking up and not knowing where you are and how you're going to eat her salad. It can be stressful.
Sarah Ohta:Yeah. Like when do you guys even sleep? You know, I remember low key when I came to the Xavier Omär show, I pulled up at around five, but the show wasn't till nine and the majority of the staff just said, I'm gonna go take a three-hour nap on the bus.
Kaleb Eisenmann:And it's way easier to sleep on the bus when it's not moving. But usually, what would happen is we would have a call time for when the bus is leaving the city to go to the next place. for example, say we're playing, so this is a common routing. It'll do Chicago and then Detroit. So that's about maybe like a five-hour six hour drive. So we'll play Chicago, load everything out of the venue by 1:00 AM and then the bus will leave at three or whatever. The bus drivers are usually driving all night and sleeping all day. So we'll get them a hotel room that Uber to their hotel asleep all day, come to the bus at three or six in the morning or whatever. And then most of us would go to sleep at between one and 2:00 AM and then you'd hear the bus start up and, you know, you wake up and you're like, ah, all right. And then the bus takes off and we would be driving until about like 11 or 1:00 PM the next day. You wake up and sometimes you're still moving. Sometimes you wake up and you're at the venue or I'd wake up and I'm thinking I'm at the venue. Cause we're not moving. And I go out there and see what's going on. And we'll just add some gas station, in Southern Michigan or something. But yeah, I usually sleep from three in the morning until 11 or so.
Sarah Ohta:Oh, God, that's really chaotic.
Kaleb Eisenmann:Yeah. And that was the bus. Like with Sven, on the Still Woozy tour we had Airbnbs, so oftentimes we would, just go right to the Airbnb after the show. And we would sleep from like midnight. We usually would get up at six or seven in the morning and we didn't have a driver. We just took turns driving. So we'd get up at six or 7:00 AM and drive to the next place or. I don't remember if there was any times that we drove after the show. Now there definitely was where we'd get a couple of hours of driving in right after the show and stop somewhere and get a hotel or whatever, you know? I think that like the schedule really depends on having a good management and tour management team. Having a good tour manager can provide a way better experience for everybody.
Sarah Ohta:Okay so our very last question for you is whether you've had any crazy or memorable moments from touring maybe the craziest thing that's ever happened to you I think would be kind of a fun story to end on.
Kaleb Eisenmann:Let's see. So Sango, who's a producer really dope producer. He executive produced two projects with Xavier. He was touring at the same time that we were touring and we were actually both in San Diego on the same night. And so after our show, we all went over to San Gusto and we got to be in the DJ booth with him during the show. And that was a ton of fun. He is somebody who I definitely respect and admire his work. he did drum programming on, in my room by Frank Ocean and has just, contributed to a ton of really dope records. And so just like being there in the booth with him while he was DJing and, you know, show off a little bit and look at you and be like, yeah. You know, like having that interaction with artists is really fun. And you know, just like the people I've met for sure. Everybody on the Still Woozy tour was super dope and. I still have relationships with a lot of them. And, Remi Wolf is somebody who is absolutely taking off right now. She just played, Fallon her song got placed on a global Apple campaign. Like just seeing that kind of stuff happen after, you know, she was chasing us in her. Toyota Prius and like getting parking tickets and shit like on tour you know like just making it through the day. And now she's in positions where her song is on an Apple commercial, that's airing all over the world, you know, that's really tight to see. So those relationships are definitely really special. And, you know, there's certain people who will like instigate random ideas. Like Hey, let's do this. And you got nowhere to be like, you did your job for the day. So you're kind of like cool, let's do it. And you just get into a lot of super random and hilarious situations. I think like behind the scenes that ended up being the most fun part.
Micah Drigo:Thank you again to our amazing guests, Kaleb Eisenmann, Darius Zelhka and Danielle Zucchini. We hope you've gained takeaways about the world of live music and touring in the music industry. We'd also like to give a huge thank you to Jay and to our class Music 150P: The Changing World of Popular Music.