“I’d say this applies for any crew-
fix it before it gets toxic.”
person on the road, which is to be
“A lot of touring is personality-
somebody who is able to handle stress
based,” adds Brunet. “You can be the
and not show it,” laughs Beckwith.
most diligent person at advancing the
“If you’re showing stress, the band is
show and everything can go as well
seeing that you’re stressed, and then
as possible on the load-in and every-
they’ll get stressed and it’s not the
thing, but anybody who is crew would
ideal circumstance. That’s one, and
know that sometimes you lose jobs not
then of course there’s organization. A
good way to avoid being completely
stressed out on the road is to be overly
organized.”
“Oh, totally,” agrees Duffee about
the need to quietly and calmly handle
stress. Drawing on her experience on
bigger-budget tours, she says artists
may, for example, say they want to
change their flight at the last minute.
“You never say ‘no,’ and then you go
back to your office like, ‘How am I go-
ing to make this happen?!’ Again, even
though there is more money at your
disposal [on a large tour], you still can’t
order up a private jet. So, it’s also just
knowing how to talk. It’s almost a sales
job in a way. Like, ‘I can’t do that, but I
HENRY BECKWITH
can do this!’” she laughs.
As such, Duffee says the
top qualities of a good tour
manager are curiosity, re-
sourcefulness, and flexibility.
Like she says, it’s not like hir-
ing someone for a technical
job on a tour, like FOH or
lighting director, where they
are essentially doing the same
tasks in a different venue
each day. A tour manager,
in addition to all the other
logistical, financial, and orga-
nizational tasks mentioned, is
really a manager of people.
“I know my crew and
know my artists and know
MAXIME BRUNET
– or try to know – what’s
important to them. Everybody has their
because you’re not qualified, but just
thing, so you know people’s little quirks
because you’re not the right person-
and you cater to them as much as you
ality fit. If you’re out with an artist who
can,” explains Duffee, adding that a
loves to go out and party every night
tour can be a lonely place over time as
and you don’t go out with them, some-
everyone, from the artists to the crew,
times people will judge you on that.
starts missing their friends and family
And vice versa, if you’re a big partier,
back home. “Yes, the artist and band
maybe you shouldn’t be going out with
are really important, but I also think
people who aren’t.”
you have to build that relationship with
your crew. You know, when you see
So, how does one find themselves
things going on that are sort of out of
in this odd role? After all, there’s no
character, it gives you the opportunity to
school for tour managing. Given its var-
open that door to find out how you can
ied nature, there is no one route to the
40 C A N A D I A N M U S I C I A N
gig. Many, like Brunet and Beckwith,
came into the tour manager job via
audio engineering.
“It seems that the state of the in-
dustry these days is that everybody is
taking on more roles. In particular, with
smaller budgets, people hire a lot of
front-of-house engineers who will also
tour manage and that is how I kind of
fell into it,” explains Brunet. “Even in
my own bands, I have always been the
organizer, the one who will talk to the
promoters and stuff. So, it just came
fairly naturally.”
Duffee and Lukas, on the other
hand, took different paths.
Duffee was a music-obsessed teen-
ager growing up in New Orleans and
fascinated by the behind-the-scenes
aspects of the music business. She
asked her friends in the jam band Ga-
lactic to go on the road with them, but
recalls getting the reaction: “‘Nonsense,
there are no girls on the road.’ It’s like
seven dudes in a van and they’re like,
‘What are we going to do with you?’
Then I worked in the jazz world and, for
sure, there it was like, ‘Yeah,
no girls on the road – that just
messes up our groove.’ So, I
kind of took a circuitous route
to ultimately getting into it,
but I think it’s funny and ironic
because now Galactic has a
female tour manager,” Duffee
laughs. She then worked at an
L.A.-based record label and,
being willing to take on any task
and solve any problem neces-
sary, she eventually found her-
self where she originally wanted
to be: on tour.
“My route started as a mu-
sician playing in bands,” says
Lukas. “I made the switch to
working behind the scenes and start-
ed touring by basically taking any gig I
could – merchandise, PA work, back-
line… I did anything I could do.”
Lukas later got a job at New York-
based Anthill Trading, one of the top
tour merchandise companies, which
saw him working merch on major tours
with The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd.
That gig connected him with Steve
Earle & The Dukes. When Live Nation
bought Anthill and subsequently laid
off most of its staff, Lukas began work-
ing for Earle directly, again taking on