#236 - Dan Braun

0:02 Hello there and thank you for coming on board again here today for Episode #236. Today's podcast, as you can see, is brought to you by ACT Entertainment. ACT is North America's leading supplier of the entertainment industry's principal products to professionals across six different end markets, including professional lighting fixtures and lighting control equipment, audio, video, fiber and Power Distribution cables, connectivity, metalwork, custom manufacturing and design. With ACT Entertainment, you get the industry's top performance products as well as service, education and engineering support.

0:50 To bring every entertainment professional concept to reality, visit Act's website at www.actentertainment.com and today's podcast is also brought to you by Gearsource. Gearsource was founded in 2002 with a mission to help global live event businesses to move gear around the planet. Since that time, the company has transacted in more than 100 countries, selling almost a quarter billion dollars in sound, lighting, staging and video gear. Now Gearsource has completely evolved its platform for massive global growth, enabling 14 different localized currencies, payments held in escrow to protect buyers and sellers, AI powered logistics behind a new global logistics brand, gear moves, and so much more. Visit gearsource.com today and expand your access to global markets for your gear and global gear for your markets. Some days my job is more fun

2:24 than other days. Today is one of those days. I'm really looking forward today and I'll tell you why in a couple of minutes. But first I wanted to just mention if you haven't seen them already and you're watching this live right now. This week we launched both Josh Allen who's an incredible designer who's created a really cool firm. We've launched his Episode #233 and also the brilliant Swami Richard Kadena on episode 234. Both of those were really fun, both were very informative as well, and we're starting to get some smarter people in, I guess. What's going on here? And challenging me for sure, asking or answering questions that I don't always understand.

3:10 But no, it's been amazing. I'm super proud and and grateful to have the quality of people that we've got. Yesterday I recorded #235, which will be out probably. I think it's next week, next Wednesday, probably April, whatever that is 10th, maybe that's an excellent 1. Matthias Henricks who is the head of I believe lighting engineering or product design or whatever adulation. Super smart dude. Spent a lot of time at Martin running their console console division and now is adulation and has been bringing out all these incredible new elation products and also has had his hand in Obsidian of course.

3:58 And so yeah, really great episode. I hope you like it. But for this week, listen to 2:33 and 2:34 both really good and yeah, I'm grateful. Like I said so as I said, some days are better than others. Today is a superb day. Today's guest is has a resume. I don't even want to get into his resume because it's crazy. But I'm going to name a few bands or acts or clients. Poison, Robert Palmer. Queens Reich. Tesla. Luis. Miguel. Bruce Hornsby. Andrea Bocelli. Madonna.

4:39 Rush. The Allman Brothers Band. MI Don't even know who that is. Shania Twain? Josh Groban? Desert Disturbed. NFL. Salesforce. Throw that one in there. That's a weird one. And yes, Metallica. So talk about career spans. Dan Brown started his legendary career path more than 45 years ago. In fact, this year marks Dan's 30th year working with the mega act Metallica, where he remains their show director today while delivering the best show he can to their massive audiences around the world.

5:20 Longevity in this industry isn't by accident, And I tell people this all the time. You know, if you've been here that long, you're doing something right. Dan is no exception. So please join me and welcome Dan Brown. Hey, Dan, how are you today? I'm doing very very well. Thanks very much. And good to see you. You look well. You look well. You look rested. You're in between massive stadium shows, I think, aren't you? Or legs. Big, big legs, yeah. That part of my life starts back up at the end of May over in Europe. So, gearing. Up a lot of work going on to get ready for that, and I have some corporate clients and doing some work with them, but a lot of that's on Zoom, so I've been at home and able to enjoy a little bit of downtime.

6:06 Very cool. And you're in. You're in Washington somewhere, aren't you? Cameras, Washington, The hotbed of the entertainment industry. So I'm from Calgary, Canada, just across the border there and and so yeah, I've spent a whole bunch of time in my youth in in Washington, but I live in South Florida. I have a house up there in in Alberta where I go for the warm months. Now I finally got smart and I just go up for the warm months. I don't even ski much anymore. So but yeah, I'm not that far away. I used to get your TV channels. Little transitioning away from the skiing thing, too, just. You know. Getting older and I've had a great run with it, so it's.

6:47 Me too. It was like I started when I was probably 9 or 10 years old, You know, growing up in in Western Canada, it's just one of the things You did that in hockey and I ski very well. But now that I'm turning 60 this year, like my legs just don't do the same stuff for the the same length of time. And so now I find myself nearing epic wrecks, you know, because I'm just, I'm doing the stuff I know how to do and my legs are given out, you know? So I didn't, I didn't, I didn't start early. I I firmly believe you should start anything, any kind of a risk thing like that before you understand the word mortgage.

7:28 I did not. I started in my 30s and I've had a a great time with it and I too, I've got a couple of years on you and I'm crossing into a time where it's like well. Yeah. What do we want to do here? So. Kind of. Well, you know, I I still have lots of friends up there who are in their late 60s, even 70s who still ski 100 days a year. And if you're doing that, it's OK. But for me to go up there like in November or December for a week and try and do three or four days of skiing by the 4th day, my legs are just kind of starting to feel normal. But you know, it's just dangerous. It's it's dangerous at some point, right? It's why so many of these, so many of these people my age and older, you know, get injured or die skiing.

8:14 You know, it's because we forget that we're not 30 anymore and we can't do the same stuff. And in my case, I was never as good as I thought I was anyhow. Well, is any of us, you know, I thought I was a world champion, you know, Olympic skier or whatever, but not so much. Yeah, I'm, I'm decent. But again, even though I live right there, like my house is right there, where all the great ski areas are very close to Lake Louise and all that stuff, there's. Some beautiful skiing up there. That's where Elvis has barbecues with God. That's a pretty place, that. Is a pretty place in here. I'm gonna have to village. I think it is. That's a beautiful. Place Yeah, I spent loads of time at Sunshine Village.

8:54 I actually, I broke my leg one time skiing and it was at Sunshine Village and I was about 15. So it's a long time ago. I was probably 13 or 14 actually and I think I had just discovered marijuana and combining marijuana with skiing and so I was pretty wasted. And I, they had just that week opened a run called Teepee Town. And so me and my friend who was also wasted, decide we're gonna go for it. And, you know, I had just gotten brand new skis. And so I always just get the bindings, you know, pretty much wound up as tight as they can go so that the skis don't come off. And and so, you know, I went through one of these things. It was blizzarding, too.

9:43 It was a full whiteout when we got off the lift. And I went through one of these things going probably 45 miles an hour or something, hit some rocks, started tumbling. Of course, my skis stayed on. So I broke my leg and then my knee started twisting, you know, because the skis were still on. So I was a mess. I was in a cast for, I don't know, six months or something. I've never really been the same since then. Still my leg, you can tell that it's been broken badly and stuff. But so yeah, I, number one, I never skied wasted again, I don't think. And even though I stopped doing that when I was like 20 anyways. But but yeah, I I just learned some things, you know, slow down a little bit perhaps.

10:23 I probably didn't do that then, but certainly now, yeah. So we've got a lot of stuff to talk about and I can't keep you until, you know May when you go back out with Metallica. So let me dive into it a little bit since I've never had you on I, I, I like to, you know, I like to talk about really kind of how you got into the business a little bit. That's kind of important to me because, you know, obviously our industry's looking for new people all the time. And people love to hear these stories of, you know, back in the day when we didn't go to school for production management or lighting design or sound engineering, we it just kind of happened, right? Like some of the stories are hilarious. Jake Berry's probably one of the funniest, but you know, lots of funny ones.

11:10 Chaz Harrington, I think he was sitting on his front step drinking beer or something and somebody drove up in a pickup truck and said, hey, jump in, I got a gig for you. Come work at the studio and next thing you know he's a recording engineer in a studio. So how'd you get into it? I I That's a interesting question. I was a kid. I I used to go to concerts. It's what I did. I went to concerts. The group of people I hung out with went to concerts. It's what we did. We went to concerts and saw incredible shows. It was really kind of I I think of it as sort of a a a whole different time in the business when it was a lot about music and stuff and.

11:54 Yeah. And, you know, went to see everything from Yes to King Crimson to to Cat Stevens or or. This is the 70s I'm guessing then yeah. Yeah, yeah, this is. Back in the 70s, so back in 75, I was in a place that no longer exists, called Milwaukee County Stadium. OK, and Pink Floyd was playing, and I'll try to keep the story a little bit abbreviated 'cause it's pretty long story anyhow. That's the real Pink Floyd, too, right? When? When it was still Roger Waters. And yeah, all of them, yeah. There's 100% humidity, 100, you know, 90 degrees, 100% humidity day. Everybody's getting baked.

12:35 It's the old days when crowd management was sort of a we'll put some plywood up and that'll keep them contained and everybody's lined up to go in the stadium. They open the gates to the stadium. The Milwaukee County Sheriff's decided going to a a rock show was was cause for search and seizure. So there were tons of arrests. They went through all this stuff with people that all got thrown. I went to the Supreme Court and got thrown out. Anyhow, there's a huge thunderstorm coming in. They try to start the show early, so the band wanted to get the show in. They started playing the stuff that would become the Wish You Were Here album and that This storm is coming. You can. It's a Midwest thunderstorm.

13:15 You know the drops are a size of silver dollars and and so they're playing and people start pulling Visqueen over the stage, right PA stack. And I'm watching all this go on with my keen mind and I'm thinking, who does this? How do they decide this that looks like a really cool job and this guy's got no shirt on shorts and cowboy boots and you know, hair down his back. And this is 1975 and I'm like, how do you, how would you what do you how do you work in this stuff? What Who decides where all this goes Like who? How do they do this? And anyhow, the thunderstorm hits, they stop playing.

13:55 The thunderstorm clears as as it happens in the Midwest. After an hour, or whatever it is, the band comes out, plays the entire Dark Side of the Moon album in its entirety, and as they sing the line, I'll see you on the Dark side of the Moon, the Clouds Part, and There's a full moon. So perfect. Goodness wow. So perfect that I couldn't figure out how they projected the moon up there. And. It took me a minute to. Realize this was just a bizarre phenomenon. That is wild. That is why. Anybody who is there will tell you that story, if they were capable of remembering it. So she's 75. South. Here's a funny story. One of my first ever concerts was Super Tramp Crime of the Century in in Calgary, Calgary at the McMahon Stadium. And my sisters took me, I think, or my sister and her boyfriend or something.

14:52 And there was a band on Atlanta, Rhythm Section I think was on, and the skies opened up. And so that Visqueen, instead of going over the PA or whatever, was coming up off the ground and became trampolines and became an umbrella and then became fire to warm people up at one point. And I mean, I'm watching all of this along with the clouds of weed and everything else flying around. And I was like, whoa, I like concerts. This is cool. So then a Canadian band came on called Trooper and and they do this song. We're here for a good time, not a long time. And it's something about the sun is shining. And so the sun came out and everybody went, whoa, this is so cool, you know, So it was a similar story during a similar time.

15:46 It had to be probably 7677 I guess when? That so yeah that would have been the time period for that for that show. So anyhow I I had this thing where I went to school and and in my home and any of those things you know I I grew up in a home where you know turn the turn the stereo down was a was a a regular cry. I played my my stereo too loud. My dad would go in the break in the basement and turn the breaker off to my bedroom. He had no. No use for any of it. Thought I was crazy and none of the no one ever said, well, if you're interested in that you should do this or do that or anything like that. Yeah, little did he know, You know, you'd end up with in a career with Metallica, you know.

16:30 That's he shuffled off to do a little bit of time at school, didn't have any money, couldn't afford that. Had to find something to do. And I got involved doing concerts at school. Had a little bit of success and I said, well, I'll go be a concert promoter now. I'm 18 years old, nineteen years old. I know nothing about business, money, leverage, finance. I have no nothing. I just decided I'd be a concert promoter. Well, you know, that didn't work out very well. Went home, started working any I I worked in a factory so that I could eat and started hanging out and I'd already been hanging out. I knew how to help people move gear around and stuff from working. Hang out at free concert sites and got involved in the club and ran the music end of that club.

17:17 I was just basically a glorified bar. It was a 1000 seat kind of old theater place with the seats removed and a dance floor put in and which then became the floor for the the rock shows. About the same size as the Fillmore is now in San Fran. Yeah, 800,000 seats. And this was the halcyon days of clubs. Like everybody played clubs. The police played for us three times. Dire Straits, Flock of Seagulls, Boomtown Rats. I Faye McMahon was there. He was probably the oldest guy in there who still works in the business. And Faye was doing lights for the rats at the time. And I did the club and worked my way through the club and then got a job at a small sound company and that led to doing some tours with some pretty big acts. And I was just a kid kind of, you know, moving gear, doing this, mixing monitors, mix in front of house, building distros, figuring out how to build the PA, doing those things.

18:11 And and then because of my work at the club, I got to know one of the local promoters and started doing when they had two shows booked. I did the second show and backing things up and one thing led to the next. Eventually I worked for that promoter and I don't think you could take that path. I mean, I I look at it and it's like I stuck my fingers in the wall, in the cracks in the wall and started clawing my way up. Even at the club, I was always trying to make our show special. We had, you know, favorite bands that came in, tried to make their show special, ended up going on the road for a little while with one of those bands that got signed to RCA Millennium Records. Drove the truck, set up the gear, ran the lights or the sound, put the gear back in the truck, drove.

18:54 We opened for Foreigner and Cheap Trick and South Side Johnny and things like that. But after two albums, they got dropped and and as happened back then, when that occurred, you the band broke up. Yeah, and just kept following the path. Wherever it LED did. 10 years at Summerfest in Milwaukee, which? Which band was that, that, that first one that you? Were talking was. Called Yipes, they were on RCA Records. There was a band called Yipes out of Milwaukee that got signed to Jimmy Einer's label. Our. Our record Rep on the road with us. Our promo guy was Donnie Einer. She has. His. Name. That's. Wild. Chicago had a band called Off Broadway right in the same time period, kind of a power pop take off on a Cheap Trick sort of thing. And Detroit had a band called The Romantics, and the Romantics got signed, did the best of those three acts. It was a little band out of Madison, WI, which is 90 miles from where I grew up.

19:46 And certainly we knew all those guys and crossed paths. They had a drummer in the band named Butch Vig. So the music, the the music world was pretty ripe and pretty, pretty awesome in that time period. I didn't know Butch came from that area and I didn't actually even really know that he started as a drummer. I I knew him first as a producer and then as a drummer and yeah, you know, funny Side Story. So, you know, I'm pretty close with with the boys at upstaging and I get a call. I can't remember if it was HUD or Donnie called me up and said, hey, we're doing this corporate show in Grand Cayman. Do you want to come diving? And I said, sure, you know, I'll be part of the pretend crew. And it was a gig for like Gillette or something. And it was 100 contest winners for the band Garbage. So 100 contest winners were being flown onto the island. And it was just a concert for 100 people on the beach. And with full production and everything, Gillette spent a fortune.

20:48 And so they would finish, you know, working as much as as Huddleston and Don Caron were doing. And we would walk around the back of the stage, jump in the water and walk out a little ways and and you'd end up in 4050 feet of water, you know, dive in a wall or something. It was just beautiful. It was unbelievable. But I got to know Butch there, you know, we went to went snorkeling and stuff with him and Shirley, whatever her name is. And yeah. I'm very close with with. Don and and Robert. Yeah, yeah. I knew Robert before he was Robert. And such nice people. They were always wonderful to me and I've always. I'm very loyal to them. They.

21:28 Were really. Wonderful to me. When I was really, really a dumb kid, you know, doing, doing the thing with yipes opening for Cheap Trick and and that whole thing. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you quickly because I don't want to keep talking, but so I moved to South Florida to work for Martin Lighting in the very early days of Martin Lighting. And I remember the first time I went to visit Upstaging, I called Huddleston and made an appointment, and this is 1991 or something. And I called him and made an appointment and I got there and I was so nervous, 'cause this is like a real rock'n'roll touring company, you know, And I'm some schmuck with a little disco lighting company.

22:09 And I get into John's office in Mundelein and and John says you want to go shopping. And I said sure. And he goes, cool, let's go. And so we go to some like outlet mall, and he convinces me to buy this real piece of crap thing that was kind of like an Apple Newton, but not really like a Casio version of an Apple Newton. He convinces me to buy that. So I buy that thing and then we go play golf or something. I mean, we had a whole day of just screwing off, doing nothing, and then ended up meeting Donnie and Robert, I think later that day for dinner or whatever. It was one of the coolest days ever, You know, It was just like such a they, they just put me under their wing and said you're one of us now, you know?

22:52 Really good people. Yeah, I've been friends with them ever since. So I just kept following that path at around 1990. The I I was working for a promoter doing a lot of shows. I was very fortunate that I did a series of dates and the accountant I was working with sort of explained the facts of life to me in terms of my skill set and how much money I wasn't making. And it altered my life very much So and I ended up there was nothing more for me to do in Milwaukee. I couldn't couldn't really get to where I wanted to get to work Wise ended up going on the road. Scotty Ross.

23:36 I had a good relationship as a promoter with Poison. Did tons of shows with them. Did their rehearsals. Dale left to go do Guns and Roses and Scotty called me up and said I want, you know, we love you, why don't you come do this thing. And at that point, I was looking to get out the door anyhow, and that led to about 10 years of touring. So what? What was the role though, in that First? Was it poison you said? Yeah, I was production manager with Poison. Wow, Straight in, huh? Nice. Scotty obviously trusted you. Yeah, Scotty said. I could never say enough good things about Scottie. Ross He's a cool dude. So we did that and did a couple of those things and one thing led to the next. And a great relationship with Q Prime over the years doing all tons of their bands.

24:21 The only ones I didn't do were once I either had a scheduling conflict or turned down and and it just was a great, it was a great thing. It did about 10 years straight. I think for the 90s every year I was 300 days away from home on my taxes. Wow. Jesus. And then I tried being in a building for a little while and did very I was very successful at it. But that's way too much work for not enough money. I thought the hours on the road were bad. But you worked. The same hours in a building, at least I did at the level I was at and you have to drive home at night. And boy, that bus is, is that that bus that you didn't like Seems pretty attractive. When you're driving home. After a 20 hour day. No kidding.

25:02 And then I just kept going and finally got to a point where I could do what I always wanted to do, which was really design shows and and find great production partners to help me kind of help help artists. Have the a vision of the artist come to life in real time and and do that whole thing along the way. Picked up some corporate clients and did some fun things figuring out I could translate some skills I have into a different world. Yeah, that's interesting. So. I wouldn't recommend the path I took to anyone. I tell all my friends, children, when they say you have a really cool job, I say yeah, go to law school, get your law degree.

25:43 You don't have to practice law, but then people work for you and you can do anything you. Want. You know what though I don't know that I completely agree with you because every lawyer I know wants my job or or you know they hate their jobs right. So I think regardless of what your job is you got to take the bad with the good and I think there's more good in most of what you do and and I'll say we I mean we the collective industry you know I'm. On my path, I got to do exactly what I wanted to do. I took a very difficult path to get there, worked with great people almost almost to. There's very few exceptions to that comment. There's very few places.

26:24 I wouldn't say we're just incredible. People. And and had a great run. I got to do what I wanted to do and I got to see the world and I got to, you know, I learned how to do things. I didn't even know I would be ever be capable of doing. So fantastic. You know, I I spend a lot of time talking with with people in our industry, either on the podcast or in different groups or whatever, about bringing in new young talent. You know, 'cause obviously, I'm, I'm sure you have the same problem everybody else does, getting people. And one of the one of the first problems is people think that it's a gypsy lifestyle. You know, people think that you know you.

27:05 I mean, some of it's true. You know, you do live out of a suitcase. You are on the road 300 days a year sometimes, but you can make $100,000 a year very quickly, you know, especially now when when people are being paid a lot more money than they were being paid 5-6 years ago. And so, you know, I think for young people who are undecided on what they want to do in their life, it's not necessarily a bad direction. Like, I know a lot of kids going to law school who hate lawyers, hate the law, don't want to be a lawyer. But it's just what they're doing, you know? I don't think it's a bad direction if you're willing to work. I think the I don't want to I don't want to pontificate here but I think the thing that I see that has shifted in the business when we collectively we kind of that you know I don't know what a third generation group of people who who I'm sort of part of that that you know late 70s thing maybe that's 3rd or 4th generation whatever the heck it is people there was an an unstoppable attitude nothing was was and and we didn't order more equipment we learned how to make things work and and we died doing it. You know, I have a lot of friends who have limps and injuries and you know all sorts of of things from doing that work and it and you know the the life on the road is first work. And if you're willing to adopt

28:36 that attitude you can you can be very, very successful. But it is, you know, it's not easy. You know, they show that Metallica is doing right now is this massive construction project that goes on and it's a lot of work. Yeah, you know, it's it's funny. My girlfriend always says she's British and from the same generation and and she says, you know, part of the problem is we've wrapped our kids in. I forget what she says, bubble wrap and whatever. And you know, they they all grow up thinking they're special and thinking they're going to be taken care of forever and all of that. And unfortunately that creates a little bit of softness to where, you know, we come from a background like you said, where we just find a way to get it done.

29:20 You know the equipment has changed dramatically too and ordering equipment has become a has become a skill for a road person to have. And and you know I remember the day when somebody explained to me how digital audio was going to work. I remember exactly where I was and that, you know, wow, that's going to be unbelievable. And and the advent of the Lin Drum machine and polyphonic synthesizers. Right. And and now all of that stuff is like a cornucopia of things you can order and maybe you know how to use them and maybe you don't but you saw that your friend Billy on some other tours got two of those. So you need. 4. And I find that that's an odd thing in in our business.

30:01 It is. Is is work and excellence and striving for excellence, just striving to be as good as you can be. I think that is the the people of my generation when I think of Jake or Charlie or Dale. A lot of guys who were striving for excellence you know and and and you know the list is is endless whether it's Benny or whether it's Chris Lamb or whether it's Jerry Stickles or or and and people passed down that passion for excellence that that that thing just trying to be as good as you could possibly be and always taking care of the show and making sure that that that what what you did prepared the best environment possible for the artist on stage to present the best possible that showed that they could to their audience.

30:55 Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. That that was a passion at a level that made no sense. What? Why else would you work 22 hours a day and and do all the other crazy things and and there were tons of, you know, nobody knew how to do a lot of the stuff that was going on. The guys who were doing the rigging, the guys who were putting the boxes together, the guys who were putting the lights together were like, well how are we going to do this? I don't know. We'll we'll we'll figure it out. And you know the the, the roll call of names is tremendous. And I was fortunate as a promoter from 80 to 90 to work with all of these different folks and watch what they were doing and be inspired by that passion and that the show, the show, the show, this has to be correct there.

31:40 There has to be a rabbit in the hat when the magician puts his hand in to pull it out and and nothing can stop that and inspired by that. Yeah, I mean even down to the, to the, like, I love the early days of audio where, you know, we need more sound and they built bigger boxes. You know, somebody went back to the shop and built bigger boxes that had four eighteens in them instead of two eighteens or whatever, you know, And I loved that. Like it was just, it was not only, you know, ingenuity or or whatever you want to call it, but it was just like, let's get this done. You know, we got to do this.

32:22 And I think they were, you know, I'm very fortunate to work with, you know, with a great management company that was inspired to figure out how to make those things work. You know, kind of Jake and that whole tribe of people figured out Michael Tate and and you know, the guys at Clarin that figured out how to make it. You know, they put the roll in rock'n'roll, You know, You know, the wheel was invented a long time ago. Michael Tate figured out how we could use it in rock'n'roll and and you know it's just it's what an awesome inspiring thing that that whole story of how it came together because nobody had a book. You know what I mean? There was no book telling anyone how to do this so well We'll try this so that doesn't work.

33:04 Let's do this and and and I watched that from 80 to 90 and then when I went out I was able to do that. And I've always been inspired with photography and architecture and and other things and finding the way people like Marc Fisher married those things together in the shows. I just think that passion and inspiration. I don't know. I I hope it still exists in our business. It's all very different. People coming up feel the burn of the music. I think, you know, we'll get old and you get kind of a little jaded, maybe a little cynical, right? And and I try not to, you know, I I beg. To be reminded why I started doing this, you know, we we just did a show in DC.

33:50 The guys just played a show, the Gershwin Awards, with Elton John and Bernie Top. And being. Honored. And we were there at the show and I just, I walked out of there and Oh yeah, that's why I do. This. No kidding, huh? Yeah, that's and that's cool. And I know if the young people find that hook in the music that that it's not about the check, it's not about the 100 grand you can make. It's not about the bus, it's not about the party. It's all about those things. I'm quoting a line from the Journey, The old Journey video Frontiers, you know. Yeah, it's about all. Those things. But it's about the show and the music and and and creating something magical. When people go see it, they remember that you're talking about a Supertramp concert you saw X number years ago, and I'm talking about a Floyd show that I saw in 1975.

34:38 That's almost just about 50 years ago. I have a friend who his name is Randy. He's 65 now, I think he's one of my best friends. And he still goes to almost every single concert that comes through and he's got every ticket back to like Poplar Creek and 'cause he grew up in Chicago and he's got, he's got every ticket from every concert he's ever been to. And you know, like he's seen Aerosmith like 30 times. And like every band, he's seen them from their earliest days till now. I love that passion. I hope that the young people come. It's incredible business. Have that fire. And I worry about that. And, you know, I know people think that I beg on young people all the time, and I don't because, you know, we're counting on you guys and girls.

35:23 Like we're really counting on you. But, you know, I think you lose something. Like you got into this because of that Pink Floyd show. You know, I'm in this because in my early days I was a musician and then I met this guy named Bear from Brimstone Productions in Calgary. I don't know if you ever met Bear but Bear was like the promoter in in Calgary at the time. Big, huge guy like you'd call a guy Bear, you know, furry face and stuff. And somehow I was working security for him at at the arena shows there at the Calgary Corral. And you know, I was a scrawny little guy with hair halfway down my back. And I have no idea how I was security, but I was and I just, I loved it.

36:09 I was like, this needs to be my future. I want to be in this business. And I never toured, but you know, I've I've always been around either as a musician or supplier of some sort, just love it, you know, It's just it. So I wonder, like us, we came into it because of a passion for the music and the show. I just wonder if people who went to school and for, you know, technical arts or whatever it's called these days. And I wonder if you come in with the same sort of passion. I just don't know. Like, maybe they do. Like, I know theater people still seem to have that same passion for the show and for the art and all of that stuff. But I don't know, It's hard. To say it seems to exist in theater.

36:50 I've been fortunate to speak at at some seminars at universities and and that group of people seems to have the fire for for not only figuring out how we did things and how it came about and and what the vision of the future is. I also have a a interestingly and ethical sense of of duty to make sure that all of these kind of video manipulations and AI things and and stuff like that are used correctly. I was actually going to ask you about your thoughts on that. Inspiring from from these young people that they were thinking ahead along those lines like well this, this, this technology could be used in some really bad ways and and at least the folks that I've seen in these seminars who talk about this are interested in protecting that and I think that's awesome.

37:45 Yeah, you know, it's an interesting, it's an interesting topic, you know and and I love talking about it. I actually just had a couple pretty technical people on this week on the podcast that we had fairly lengthy conversations about it. One is you know, a product development engineer for Elation and Richard Kadina. Do you know Richard Kadina? I know elation. I don't know Richard. I may have met Richard. Very technical guy, yeah, very technical guy. Worked at high end for years and now he goes around teaching stage electrics and and safety and stuff and just really, really super smart guy. But we've been talking about it and you know it's it's an interesting conversation because nobody wants to see it start to water down the business or take away jobs or anything like that. But it's coming and and so you know, where does it fit, where doesn't it fit?

38:37 All of those things. Like I was talking to somebody a couple days ago who was telling me about a show that all of the images that were going up onto the LED screen behind the band were AI generated like on the spot, you know at the console, boom. They were being sent up to the wall and and there it was. And it was incredible. And you know, I don't know like, I mean where, whose, whose jobs topple first? Which jobs go down first? It's another, you know, it's another tool. A friend of mine was at a a conference and they were talking about AI and music and your songwriting and whatnot and he was hosting the panel and he he said that Don was was in the audience and he needed to steer the thing in an interesting direction. So he asked Don was to comment, and Don said it's a tool. Either learn how to use it, you know. Yeah.

39:33 Behind and I think, I think these are tools and we have to figure out how to use them in a way that's practical. I went and saw the ABBA show in London and what do you think of that person I was with was part of the show and he turned to me afterwards and looks like, what do you think? I said, I don't know. I think I might have just seen the best concert I've ever been at in. Really. Wow. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. And I mean, we're in the entertainment business, right? So our job is to entertain. And and the idea is to to find platforms that work to do that. I feel blessed. I I always say I get to work in the best sandbox in the world because the four guys I work for play as a band and we use Pro Tools to record. So you know, other than obvious intro tapes and things like that we use Pro Tools to record.

40:20 And I think all of us who've been around the guys for a long time love that thing, that they're a band. They're a same place guys that we're all lies on the block. No tracks, No tracks other than. Intros and stuff here are obviously tracks. They're. They're wow, that. That are intros to the show. That's impressive. That's really, really impressive. By all that. Yeah, I certainly do. The vocals, everything, it's all live. That is, that is really. Interesting, including the clunkers. So few bands are doing that now as you know, like even the bands that we think are are doing all live, you know there's. Stunning. How many people are? Well, you know, I don't know if it's rumor or what, but like the stuff that was coming out last year about Mötley Crüe where the entire base, every bass track was all done on track.

41:13 It wasn't played live and stuff. Yeah, I don't know. Either I don't want to know. No, no, me neither. That was part of that. I've been involved in. I've been involved in some shows years ago. Yeah, where there was a lot of that. And I always thought that's that's wrong. That's just me, right? I'm not. I'm not certificating to anyone. I just felt like, oh, that's that's weird it. Feels really inauthentic, you know, unauthentic. I like live music. Yeah, but I mean, you can understand it. And I'm not suggesting this is who you were talking about, but you can understand when it's Madonna or Shakira or, you know, somebody who really is doing this super intense dancing and jumping around and all that kind of stuff.

41:53 Like it's hard to hit, you know? Every. Absolutely. You know, you watch Janet Jackson. It's like, whoa. Yeah, are. You going to sing and be able to breathe that? There is some truth to that, right? There is some truth to that. It's an entertainment thing. You know, I saw the, I remember when *NSYNC was in their heyday and and that kind of stuff. And I thought, you know, these are fantastic shows. They're they're not Eric Clapton playing something for you, but they're fantastic shows. Yeah, yeah. And I kind of like the Eric Clapton thing, you know, like I've always been one who loves live music, you know, and and you know, I have some fairly unpopular thoughts on the size of some of the shows and how distracting they are, you know, to to the band. And you know, Mark Brickman was saying to me one day, he had just gone out and seen the Stones when he was on the podcast and you know, the the one with the four iPhones behind them, the big video screens that looked like iPhones. And he said, you know, the problem was those big screens made Mick Jagger look small.

43:04 And I completely got what he was saying, you know, like the if they were imag, it's one thing, you know, but when there's a bunch of visual stuff going on and it's it's why I have mixed feelings on the U2 thing. The sphere, you know, it's it's spectacular. But I had to, I haven't seen it live. I just saw it on video and when I watched the first video of it, I had to sit for like 30 seconds trying to find Bono. I couldn't find him. You know, where is the stage? Where is the singer, you know? And that to me is just that's not seeing a band. Let's think. As a designer, that's part of the challenge. I think it is. It certainly is. Is first and foremost in my thinking of stuff we do now. That's coming from a guy who has a pretty big show playing stadiums right now, backing up another big show that played stadiums, backing up a big show that played arenas and stuff. But I think people want to have a spectacular experience. Yeah, but for that, for my core kind of thinking and design, first and foremost has to be the band. You know, and I would say that's. Important to me.

44:20 It's going to sound like I'm blowing smoke, Dan, but you've done a tremendous job of it. Like for you, the show is big, but the band is always. You never have to look for the band. You can find the band quite easily. That's a huge compliment because that's to me. The band is central on your big designs, you know, like I remember the one where the the guy fell out of the Truss and things were blowing up and all that stuff. I forget what that was. But I'm, I'm close with John Broderick and I was hanging out at front of house with him and he didn't tell me what was going to happen or anything. And I was like. Holy shit, John Jesus. We got to do something, you know, and like looking for radios and stuff so I can help.

45:01 And he's like settle down, man. But you know that show, like, you know, it was almost like a rehearsal because the show seemed so secondary, but it was such an incredible show, the lights and and video and everything, right? You know it's not in the way about. That show, that was a That was the high end. What the heck was a studio color? Yeah, yeah, lots of them. Yeah. And we had. 108 of them. Yeah, from Obi's I think, wasn't it? I believe they came from Obi's. Yeah, I think Wiseman was at Obi. 'S yeah no. Wiseman was. So Wiseman and I both started at high end systems. We started at high end the same day and it was it was during right when you were getting ready to go out with that show.

45:48 Right and. That's where the that's where the wash color wash color wash beam. What was it anyhow? Was a John did a great job. Studio colors. Yeah, yeah, Studio colors. Yeah, it. Was a. It was a great show. But but again, like, yeah, I mean every time I've seen Metallica. The first review I read of of of M72 when we opened in Amsterdam, The first English speaking review I found was talked about the making the stadium feel intimate and that's exactly that's, you know, we're trying to make a club, but how do you reach 80,000 people and make it a club? Well that's that that's and that's that's the magic, right. I mean, I don't know if there's magic, if I'm good at something.

46:29 I I always love reading intimate. I always love, you know, I always love elegant and simplicity and and things like that. And I mean there's no simplicity in the show we're doing right now, but we're trying to make it so that people can have a an experience with the band and not every band is doing that, not every band. That's not the goal of every band and you have to design in context. When I'm working with a corporate client maybe they want that maybe they don't what what are we trying to do here what's your message and and certainly in in my world you know that's why I love working in the round because I was that kid who went to concert. So the only way you can take the worst seats in the house and make them twice as good as move the stage. So, so let's move the stage to the middle and give everybody a good shot at this thing And and it creates some magic that that if if the presenter or entertainer can work in that environment can create some real magical moments. You know with Metallica it's an interesting thing because we're working with a long term fan base. You know I think we're probably there may be some four generation people.

47:36 There certainly are three generation people in the audience, and. That is incredible, really. You know, where did your experience begin? Where did your journey with the Metallica family start and what's meaningful to you? Because the the guy who found Metallica on M72 isn't the same guy who found Metallica on Ride the Lightning. How do we make the show special for all those people so that everybody who comes can have an experience and and I think we found some great magic I work with. You know, I mean we've been blessed with great sound people. Currently Greg Price is just crushing it. Rob Koenig is, is is my partner in crime. I like to say I do the architecture and Rob does the art and we've been able to create great things together and and and I've hopefully given him that given him the layout and the tools and the number of instruments and all those things and we go through long processes, sweating through it. Gene McAuliffe our our Video Director is stunning. Dave the guy who puts the stuff on the screens in time because we're not running the time code.

48:45 We're not doing all of the cues are manual so all the videos are cut into little tiny snips. So if the band's playing a little faster, slower the cues were and Dave Leonard is is stunning and and you know Joe Cabrera and Cat W, the folks who programmed the show and we have this magical team that we're trying to create that journey, we're trying to create a narrative. So no matter when you join the Metallica family to use Hetfield's words, we have something there that's going to bring you along and make you feel special that you're having a one to one relationship with the band. Well you're having this huge communal social relationship watching something you love.

49:26 And I'm lucky I get to work for a great band. Yeah, for a long time now too. So the where, you know I read somewhere that you're you're like a big fan of of art like specifically Michelangelo type of art or whatever and so does that. Is that part of the inspiration? Absolutely. I I think you know art architecture certainly drives certainly drive a bunch of a bunch of what I'm doing. I'm always looking at architecture. I'm looking at things and trying to find a different point of entry, if you will. Yeah. You know, I don't want to do so.

50:12 I have this picture that Jim Marshall took, which is the inside gatefold of the Woodstock event. It was taken upstage, center at Woodstock, pointed out at the crowd. And it's the gatefold from the album thing. I actually have a a print of it that that Jim Marshall did and signed and whatever, and he's a great photographer, a bit of a a segment of our history and you have a band on stage. There's a turntable stage, which I'm told didn't work at Woodstock. It worked once and fell apart. But but somebody like Chipmunk or someone like that had this idea we can do these changeovers faster if we have this turntable. It didn't work because it was too heavy and that, whatever. I don't know the whole story of that, but.

50:55 Sounds like a good idea though. We've got this turntable, we've we figured out how to do it now, but we have this turntable and you've got some PA column stacks and there's a little bit of lighting, but the lighting never worked, 'cause they couldn't get the roof together, 'cause they moved the site too quickly. And you have the spotlight towers and you got this crowd in front of it. And I look at that and I think that's a long time ago. Yeah, we have to do something better to deliver this relationship of band and audience. Because, like with Metallica, the show is about the band driving some energy, spilling the energy into the crowd, the crowd amplifying it, sending it back to the band, giving them a kick in the pants.

51:35 The band then re amplifying it, sending it back to the crowd. And that cycle is a Metallica show, yeah. So as a designer. Always has. What can I do to not get in the way of that? Yeah. It's a funny approach that I take. I I I had James really confused explaining it. I was like, I don't want to get in the way of that. You. See, because they do that by themselves, I'm trying to create a great platform for them to have an to have an interaction with their fans. Nobody's buying a ticket to see me, right? What a great thing. To see James and Lars and Kirk and Rob, OK, so how do I create a platform and get Rob Koenig and Gene and and and Dave and and Greg Price and and our monitor guys?

52:19 And I'm like this whole thing. How do we make this environment so the band can do what they do at the best possible level? It can happen because if we do our job well, the band will do theirs. Yeah. And so it's a really fun environment to work. In you know they're they're one band that like you know if I had to to describe a live Metallica show you know with one word it, it'd probably be energy you know and and like that energy is is 2 directions like you said it's the fans feeding off the band. The band feeding off the fans and like even and I'm sure you were heavily involved in this process but the the thing that that you guys did during COVID with like the I don't remember the number but two or three thousand video, 22 or 3000 little video things and you know like Hatfield was going you right there, Bob in Wisconsin or whatever.

53:15 Right. And I mean what a like I hated virtual shows. I hated them with a passion. That one was incredible. That one was so cool. Wiseman actually is the one who who I think invited me into that or something. I don't remember. How I got it We wanted to do something different. My work in the corporate world is with tech people, so I knew what we could do. I found some people who could help me do it and and the folks at Firefly were amazing and pulling it off. I mean you know you call the company like can you do this? Oh yeah, we can do that. We can do that. Not everybody delivers and they get it out of the power and as the band was walking into that 4 sided video wall enclosure they looked at me like is this going to work or is this going to be whatever And I was like all you need to do is go play from it. The longest time that I talked to Lars about this, and we determined that the longest time in their history that Metallica had not played live in front of their fans was between the show prior to that and that show.

54:22 Really. Wow. So that's crazy. I knew that the band was desperate to get in front of their fans. I don't mean desperate, like freaking out about it, but they are a live band that thrives on their audience and having that communication. You, you called it energy. I call it communication, OK? They're communicating back and forth. And I assumed in the middle of COVID that the Metallica family was in the same place trying to get to Metallica. And so I looked at the guys and I said just go play. And they walked out there in 15 seconds into it. You could see the look on their faces. We're playing live in front of our fans and it was a special, special.

55:05 It was a very special event. Well, because let's. Get it? Great, great, great technical team. I am so fortunate to work with the people I work with. Yeah, most of those sucks so bad though A roll. Call because nobody does any of this stuff by themselves. Most of those. Come from great, great, great teams and I'm blessed. I've mentioned a couple of minutes but I have so fortunate to work with the people I. Work well, yeah. I mean, you know, Metallica is the top of the food chain. Obviously you get to pick whoever you want to work with at this point I'm guessing, but you know that again, I can't. We have a lot of home. I have to. I've got to compliment some of my guys. We've got a lot of homegrown talent.

55:46 We've got a lot. Of Oh yeah. We we we came together and we found a way to make 1 + 1 equal 3 and and then we found a way to make 1 + 1 + 1 equal 4 and then we found a way to make 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 7. Yeah, and I'm real proud of it. One you keep just, you keep just going like this. Like you keep raising the bar. Everything you guys do, every, every new tour, every, whatever. You know, regardless of what the album does, the tours are incredible. You know, every single one of. Them. That's really kind. Yeah, well, you know, I'm not blowing smoke. I I wish I had something to complain about. Like even your virtual show, like I said, I can't state it enough. They all sucked.

56:29 I hated every virtual show I saw because number one, there was no energy and there shouldn't be like a band is sitting there playing to cameras. It's really hard to do, especially when you're a band like Metallica. You know, you're a rock band that is like in your face rock, right? And but but you know the way that you guys did that gave them that energy because they had people giving them feedback on these screens, you know, and and I saw like Tony Robbins did that, Tony Robbins did that. He created that whole studio, right? Yeah, that communication is is the deal. Yeah. So. Yeah, no that that was very cool.

57:09 I I really again, it's the only one that that I thought really did it well and I told I told the guys at at fire play that and and yeah you know it was done well. Bravo. You don't. You don't actually. So sorry. Going back to the creative process. So you were saying that art and and architecture and I'm guessing architecture is like the the shape of the trussing, the lines and things like that. That's where that comes into play a lot I. Guess a lot of it in what I'm trying to do is proportions, you know? OK, so you get a clever idea. How do we make it so it's fits in the building correctly? We had a really rough rehearsal schedule on M72 and never really got to do production rehearsals the way I wish we could have. And I was really nervous.

58:05 Not a little bit. I was petrified when we were starting the first night and I was, if if you do this, you understand pressure and nerves at a different level, especially something on the scale of what what this thing was. And I just was like, I don't know if we have this and it's the first time I've ever felt like that. I I I've done other things where I didn't know till I saw it put up when we did S and M2 with the rings at at the Chase Center when I walked in and I just stuck my head, the rings were all about 10 feet off the ground. They were just hanging there with a little bit of of test pattern on them. I just poked my head around the vomitory and looked them. I went, Oh no, this is going to be fantastic. I knew.

58:48 I knew we had something magic and this one I did not. And right before the show started the first night, and I was, I was, I was physically nervous and I looked at the thing and I went, man, this stadium is really small. And I just went, oh, OK. All right, we got this. That's. Cool. Because it's the proportions and and trying to get it all to fit right. Because again, nobody's coming to see what I did. Everybody's coming and everybody sees what I did. Everybody sees what the creative process was. Everybody sees what Rob does. Everybody and everybody sees what Gene does every night. But they're not buying a ticket for that. We're just. Supporting these four guys who do what they do and it's about getting the proportions right, and then hopefully you come up with something a little bit clever, like how to put speakers in a place where there's no ceiling. Yeah, how so?

59:40 When you're doing in the round? This is a really dumb question because I've just never been involved in the technical aspects of a system for in the round. But are you using twice as much audio, or is it more than that? Well, we did something very unique on this show, which is also you can blame on me, Greg Price is is an incredible partner to work with. And I have for years wanted to create near field monitors in an 80,000 seat stadium. So the first thing we had to figure out how to do was create stereo sound throughout a stadium.

1:00:23 So we have a very large PA trying to create stereo images and we're capturing about 84580, eighty 5% of the seats in stereo. Wow, so is that just a lot, a lot more smaller speakers? Is that how that works? Or. It's it's something different than putting up a big pile of speakers and pointing them down the field and turning them up really loud. Yeah. And which is my reference to that Woodstock picture? Yeah. And So what we've done is we've created stereo imaging left, right, left, right, left, right. As you go around the stadium, the the image might be backwards but it's still a stereo image which opens up a ton of things because it allows Greg to do a bunch of of the the the soundscape is this big stereo image instead of this mono thing that you're trying to ram everything down this pipe and and and Greg is, you know, it's been we, we've been blessed with Metallica.

1:01:28 Mick Hughes was there forever and a tremendous sound engineer. He retired and and Greg is is there and and he's a great partner to work with and we kind of took this thing on and created this stereo image around the around the football. Stadium, yeah. So when you, when you have, you know, new album, I'm guessing you know, you sit down with the band, they tell you what the album's all about and what vibe it is or theme or whatever. How does your whole design process work? Like, how far in advance of the tour actually going out? How much is the band involved? When do you get the rest of the team involved? Like what's that look like? That's a tough question.

1:02:11 I'm always thinking about what's next. Yeah. You know, I'm always thinking about what's next. I've got a project that may or may not happen with another band, and I've got all sorts of kind of ideas floating around with that and what it might be. And and with these guys, I kind of know give or take some number of months what the, what the cycle of where we're going to be, what we're doing, what's when's the next recording cycle this and that. So when when you know when they started M 72 recording you're you know, I know where that coming out of that is going to be a tour. So the process really starts then it's coming up with a lot of iterations, talking about stuff, eventually getting some tracks to listen to and see, you know, what are we doing and trying to think about what we've done in the past and where we're going. This one was a pretty big curveball because it came up where we're going to go play stadiums in the round. It's like, OK, well, everybody understands what the scale of that is, right?

1:03:13 Let's not have anybody get surprised halfway in because this is going to be huge. And and the sound thing is something, you know, the stereo sound thing is something we've wanted to get to for a long time. And I think we will be, if we go back indoors, we have a masterful plan for how that's going to be the folks at Meyer Sound, starting with Helen and John and Josh Freeman and Bob McCarthy and Michael Maxim. And I mean, you want to talk about having family to work with. It's unbelievable to have people like that to work with. And so we have a plan for that. But one of the big things on this was trying to make the audio special, you know, You know, we always have bad Mick Hughes suffered in this thing where we had unbelievable sounding shows and people would say, well, they sound really good for Metallica.

1:03:55 And. John Broderick suffered for years with this. It's a really good show for Metallica. Yeah. And and so one of my goals has been to break that mold because because the band is a great band and I just want it to be a great show. I don't want you to say it's the best Metallica show you ever saw. I want you to say it's the best show you ever saw. Yeah. And so messing with the audio, getting the lights in the right place on this thing, getting all that stuff proportionally correct, getting the screens correct and having something that we think is special, that, you know, we don't want to be anybody else's show. Yeah. Then I take some of those ideas and talk to the band a little bit. On this particular one, I got a pretty big curveball because something I'd wanted to do forever.

1:04:41 One of the guys in the band was willing to do and I was really taken aback by I said well, if you're willing to go for it, I this is what I'd really like to do. Yeah. And I've never pitched it to you because I didn't think you would do it. Because why? Well, it's it's working really well so far. So let's go there. And I said, OK, well, rehearsals were interesting because. Because all of a sudden he'd realized what he'd committed to and realized, well, this is going to be hard. Was that because of the scale of it or real hard? What? What? What was the what was the concern, the scale, the cost, The world? Wired to For the first time ever I moved Lars and we put him at the end of the snake pit and at the end of the show we had Lars come up and play at the end of the snake bit. We'd never moved.

1:05:34 Lars had moved a little bit of moving drum kit back in 90 on the Black Album tour, which he really to this day we'll talk about how much he hated it and after that experience he never moved. I started with him in 94 so we'd never been able to move move liars. So I moved him to the end and we had a drum kit come up and he played right next to the people and rehearsals were very difficult with it. And Peter Mensch, my dear friend from the management company who we have a, we have a rather animated relationship. He's a great he's, he's had some great design ideas himself. Peter Mensch came up with the snake pit, which I believe is the biggest change in the stage since the Romans raised the Greek stage off the floor to put it on a platform and people were never in the stage before.

1:06:22 So the yeah, the Snake pit was the snake pit was actually a late, like a little VIP pit in the center of the stage, right? And that became, if you look at any TV show now or anywhere else, they're all full of having people in the stage. And that was Peter. That's true. And so Peter thought it was crazy to move Lars and put him down there and all this nonsense and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I said just watch. And Lars went down there the first night and played, and he had an experience he'd never had before. I mean, he's he's literally a couple of feet from 80,000 people at Forest Soul in Mexico City. That's wild. So that developed and then as we moved into the festivals from that cycle, he started opening the showdown there. That's how much he enjoyed it.

1:07:07 Really. And then he kind of felt like, well, after we moved, after I moved back to the stage, the energy doesn't seem the same. I said, well, let's do this. And so that came. That's where the circle with the four drum kits came up. Is is the big challenge there security or like? I think we, you know one of the other things, we're fortunate we're very we're capable of designing the show. We keep the crowd in mind. We have very, very few problems with crowd and stuff, another great part of our team. But also the design is meant when you take a stage and make it 400 feet around, you have a 1200 foot diameter. So you're able to create a lot more front row seats than you can.

1:07:49 When you take a snake bit and stick it out into the audience and you add 160 feet of front row seats, it eliminates a lot of pressure on the barricade and those kind of problems. And so some of this stuff is practical. We don't talk about this a lot, but some of this stuff is practical as well as as theatrical staging things. The reason when we do the festivals that we go so wide and create that is to make all these front row seats and stop people from pushing this incredible pressure into the front center of the stage. And and as you are painfully aware as I am, there's been tragedies in our industry because people haven't been able to eliminate that pressure.

1:08:29 Yeah. And so it's something always, first and foremost in everything we do. Yeah, yeah, that's good. So you know, again back to this this process, because I'm just curious, you know, show the size of MMM 72, how far in advance, how far back? We took. It like you're touring. Let's say tour starts March 15th of 2023. When do you start? You know or. 72 started in earnest OK, forget about my musings about this or that. I was actually working on an indoor show because I thought we were going to go indoors and I was playing with the cylinders for an indoor show, trying to figure out how to do something. I was really going down these rabbit hills and trying to figure how am I going to make this work.

1:09:12 Let me see, I I like shapes and I had these cylinder things and I said they were going to go in the round and then it was like, OK, well how do I take these cylinders and make them work in a stadium? It it in earnest. It took about a year and then there was a pretty big shift in the stage element. And then, you know, we got into this thing when we played the night before the Super Bowl back in San Francisco of playing without a roof. You know, I I like work with the with this band that says, well, if it's raining, the crowd gets wet, so we'll get wet. Wow. We don't. We don't need to be protected. That's. Cool. We won with our fans, huh?

1:09:52 And so we got into this thing and not using a roof well. How do you play in a stadium without a roof? And and there's a lot of engineering. That's challenging, Yeah. In the round, in a stadium, no roof. Yeah. Where do you hang? Lights brilliant people at Stageco. Yeah. Again, I can't say enough about the team. Chad Kaler, our rigger. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. So well. What does a rigger do when it's in the round in a stadium with no lights hanging above the stage? Well, there's little towers that are holding up all that light, which kind of work with the crib towers. If you look at the album artwork and stuff and you'll see that the towers kind of work in that whole thing. And yeah, and the the circle theme carries through the whole thing.

1:10:38 But those lights and the sound and all that stuff is rigged on those towers, Yeah, of course. And then there's a Canton Mary system of cables that hangs the speakers that cover the field. Yeah. There's a There's a whole bunch for Chad and his. Team to do Yeah, yeah. It's just different, you know. It's not like, you know, rigging points in the ceiling. It's, it's. No, we're hanging stuff where there's no. Hanging. So those those towers were quite a quite a creation then, right? Like that was quite an engineering feat, I'm guessing. The the engineering was, you know, we went to Stageco and they're like, you're crazy. But they told me I was crazy when I wanted to paint all the towers white for the World Wired Tour too. Yeah, yeah. And then then they sent me a picture of Chanel doing the same thing, 'cause they saw our show and they thought it looked good. I thought that was that was a nice compliment. But you know, the folks at Stageco, just, just they're at this level.

1:11:32 We're able to work with really, really talented people, yeah. Who? Have worked with this enough to go. That guy's crazy. Let's figure out how we're going to do this. You know, that's got to be a really. Cool thing and Adam Davis. Yeah, of course. Yeah, you. Know. I don't know. It just it. We're really fortunate. We have a great, great team. As I said, none of this happens from any guy doing something. Yeah, right. But if I set all humility aside, I can say it was a clever idea or something like yeah, but to make the clever idea sit in Amsterdam that first night in in in the stadium in Amsterdam, it takes an enormous number of people firing on all cylinders at a really, really high level.

1:12:18 But it's still. It's got to be really cool to be Metallica, because you could go to Intel and say, hey, we need this cool technology for our tour this year. Or you could go to Apple computers. Or you could go to like whoever you want. And you're going to be able to get a meeting at a pretty high level to create something unique for you to use on your. Tour this year that we have is that we only want one. Yeah, it ain't going to be profitable people. Are in telling those people they're like, well. How many of these are we going to sell? One. Yeah, but it goes to their marketing budget. It goes to their marketing budget 'cause they'll do 1000 commercials that show. Look, this is the thing on Metallica.

1:12:58 Metallica. Is not big with sponsorship and things like that. So we run into some some things there. But yeah, we we're it's it's a great bunch. It's a great band to be able to work with and there's great resources available and we have a great management structure. You know, people like Tony Di Chacho figuring out are you out of your mind, You understand what this is going to cost. I told you it's going to be big. It's going to be expensive. And he's got to figure out how we're going to make this thing actually, you know, how to take this, this kind of crazy idea and and hopefully make it make sense or better yet, make dollars. You know, I mean, you know, even, you know, just getting the machine to be running correctly is very challenging at the level that this thing plays at. And it takes everybody, It takes the folks at Q Prime, it takes tone, it takes Mark, it takes all the people at HQ and Metallica.

1:13:50 But you know, there's people that never experience the joy of the house lights turning off and the roar of the crowd who are such big contributors to this thing. I have to thank them because they all make this possible. Of course, yeah. Well, and then you know as well as anybody, because you've been a production manager for a long time as well, it needs to come down and it needs to go back up again tomorrow, you know. So like you can design whatever you want, but if you don't have the budget to build it, or if you don't have the ability to get it in and out of a building, you know and then you got to start while you guys probably leapfrog, steal or something, I'm guessing right? We we've actually got it. They're not playing that much.

1:14:31 You're playing, you know, they're doing 2 shows in a city with a different set list every night. So there's no repeat songs, there's no repeat lighting cues or video cues. It's. Just it's two totally different sets. That's wild. That's a big challenge right there. Yeah, no kidding. Not just for the crew, but for the band. And so the schedule works out OK with with we're not doubling that much gear, we're able to move the production and not double that. And you know, tower bases are doubled or tripled sometimes and the towers we've got, there's so much of The thing is bespoke. I I'd be really honest, we can't afford to build two of them or three of them.

1:15:13 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that stuff's all expensive. And that's where you know, the team that puts the whole thing together, even figuring it out. The routing is a huge part of making it possible. Yeah, yeah. How soon were you guys out after COVID? We did a movie theater thing during COVID. We did a there was somebody who had this idea to do drive in theaters, and we filmed the show at. They wanted us to use one of these XR stages, and we looked at some of that stuff and went there that we're not. That's not Metallica. So we went up to a winery in in Napa, in the middle of COVID and at full lockdown we bought out a wing of a hotel, a motel, and you know, did the whole thing, testing every day back when the swabs went all the way to back of your head and felt like somebody was killing you. And we tested every day, went through that whole protocol. We did that.

1:16:06 That played in drive ins. Then the next we had done S and M2 was the last time they played live. We played that show at the winery with no people. We just filmed it and I was stunned at how the band performed really. And we talked a lot about visualizing their fan base and they were they pulled it off and then we did the the show you reference for the for the fundraiser, for the Bennett, for their foundation And that's when I knew we had to have people on screens. We had to have that or they weren't going to be able to do what they did at the theater. And then we went out I think the next spring. I don't remember the exact dates, but I think the next spring when we do live shows, so probably 2021 and and very careful and and.

1:16:51 And then it just. Went. Batshit crazy after that, you know? It's just been kind of nuts ever since. But you know at the end of the day, it's been non-stop since I got here in 94 and about two weeks into that tour when we were doing it, I looked at him. I said, you guys, this isn't a new tour. You just took a longer break since the last one. Because that's just it's it's they. Just all blend together. Ocean, you know, ours is a lot of mind. That's just it's always going you know next year and the year after that and he's thinking out he's he's really creative and has an incredibly, he's smart as hell and he's really creative and the combination is is really dangerous because he knows where he's going creatively and he can project that out into what the practicality of delivering it to to in the future.

1:17:41 Is well, and what does that look? What does that look like? As far as like, does the band just agree whenever Lars comes up with a wild idea? You know what? That That's their, that's their world. The four of them are very much like a family, you know, I mean, you think about it. You know, Lars, James and Kirk have been together forever. And really, Rob's been there now so long that he's been there forever. Yeah. And most marriages don't last as long as those guys have been together. So they have their process and and you know it's not that Lars dictates what's going on. It's just he's got a vision hey we can do this and we I don't think that we ever really hit the marks It's not like a it's not like a a prescription of next month this next month this next month this. He's just thinking ahead.

1:18:28 If you if you listen to an interview with Lars and ask him what his favorite album is, and James as well, they'll always tell you the next one. They don't know what the next one's going to be, but they know there's going to be a next one. And they don't know exactly when it's going to happen. But they have a kind of a thing like, well, we're going to do this. Then we want to go play here and we want to go to these places and we want to take the show here and when we get all that done. And of course, none of that ever works on schedule because availabilities and routing and shipping, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then when we get through all this stuff, maybe we'll we'll, you know we'll start kind of thinking about another album cycle. And it's a it's yeah, it's been remarkable to be a part of that's. Yeah, yeah, it sounds like it.

1:19:13 Are you ever surprised by their longevity? You know, like, I guess the problem working so long for a band like Metallica is you have to stay as fit as them. Like you have to. You have to be right there alongside them, right? Regardless of whatever your age is versus their age or whatever, like. Surprised. No, I think I'm more impressed with it. I look at the way they took care of themselves. Maybe better now than they did when they were younger, out of necessity. Yeah, I think all of us. I look at the commitment they have to playing and delivering a show. And the one of the things that is always humbled me with them is it is their relationship with the audience and the the precious level they hold that at.

1:20:03 And the fact that we don't have AB Show to take to Bismarck. I'm not picking on Bismarck. And I noticed, I didn't say which state. There's a lot of Bismarck, Oh. Are they? We don't. I only know what we don't. Have AB show to take to Bismarck. The Bismarck show is the same show that plays New York or Chicago or wherever. Now there's some logistical things that become impractical to try to You know, you can't take that stadium show and put it into a place that doesn't have the the infrastructure to deal with. But there isn't AB show. They'll put out the same energy, though. The other thing that is it's a, it's a show. It is a dramatic big Metallica show. And you know, many times ours is like make sure it's Metallica.

1:20:46 There isn't AB show. And the other thing is I've seen them sick, I've seen them going through personal crisis in life. I've seen them with kids being born. All of the things that in 30 or 40 years you go through, I've never seen them phone it in when they get to the top step of the state. Oh. Really. That's cool. I've seen them. I've had a difficult time getting them up those stairs sometimes, but when they hit the top step, it's on. And that to me is, is. That's the money. That's the magic. There's no like. There's no end like. There's no like, OK, we're going to do this until here I. Don't know how much I have. You know I'm an old man.

1:21:28 I don't. I don't. Know I was going to ask you that. Like, do you plan a life after Metallica or or is it? Is it when Metallica stops, I stop? That's my plan, you know? And I know. That's a personal question. I would hope, you know, I hope I have the opportunity to that they would keep me around that long. I don't take any of it for granted. I'd be very fortunate in this whole thing, but I think I think that as long as I'm enjoying what I'm doing, the team we have right now, the creative energy when we're on, that's like that's what I love. Like at this point. It's it's not that it's not interesting now because we're going to go back and redo a bunch of things. There'll be a bunch of, I'm, I'm guessing Lars is going to insert a bunch of new songs for this year and then so that will start the creative process.

1:22:13 But when we're In Sync as a team, working together on trying to create a show, that's that's that kid who was sitting and watching Pink Floyd. When I wonder how we do this, that's the. That's. Really cool. Oh, this is how we do this. Watch this. I love when I have a design together that's kind of, it's sort of. It's no longer a nebulous gas cloud, if you will. It's no longer scribbling. It's like it is. We're going to send it to Rob and I'll send it to Gene and I love that first Test text back. You know, WTF? Explanation, point explanation. What is wrong with you? What are you thinking? Yeah, well, I think you have to think big. Oh, is that bad thinking?

1:22:55 You know those moments, that's that's that's magic. When Rob comes back to me and goes, I want to use this slide and here's why this is going to do this. And I'm like, well, I like that, but what if we did this? Oh no, we're not going to do that. We'll do this and it it. It's that same process I talked about in the Metallica show of taking the energy, taking the communication and building in a positive way. And you know, we're lucky we have a team, and I've been on teams where it's not this way, where everybody is pushing towards the good of everybody else and for the good of the show, nobody's selling. No one's selling anyone out to kind of elevate their position at someone else's expense. It's pretty special. So we try to keep that going for as long as we can. I have a super important question for you. Did the Did the Metallica Lego set ever get approved? I don't know if it made it or not. You know, I think Gene found that thing and he started populating it and I was blown away. That guy has what we call the cube show, which was the World Wired indoor show.

1:23:56 OK. He has the, what we call the five screen show, which was the world Wired outdoor show. Yeah. And the tower, the the M 72 Tour, he's got the whole thing. He's got Mick in Legos like it's unbelievable. That's wild. That's too much time in the basement with flamin Hot Cheetos in red Mountain Dew. No kidding. No kidding. But somebody was telling me that there's over 10,000 ideas that were submitted or something. Well, you have to get 10,000 likes for Lego to consider it, I think. Oh, I see. And so, so Gene took this thing. We all started reposting it because we all cracked up when we found it. No kidding. At first we're laughing about it. Then I started drilling down on how much of this stuff the guy had and I was like, this is unbelievable. So we we tried to push him over the 10,000 number to get Lego to consider it.

1:24:44 I have not heard whether we got that'd. Be really cool. We were close. We were really, really close that. 'D be cool, I think. Last I heard, we were at 9500 and sure, then there'd be some logistics involved in that. Yeah, there'd be some lawyers involved in making that deal. The funny thing about Metallica is like, as popular as they've gotten and the longevity and the multiple generations and how big they are, they've never really jumped the shark. You know, like they've never. I've never seen them anyways. Maybe they did, but I've never seen them. You know, go on America's Got Talent Oregon or, you know, some of the things that some bands have done where I call it jumping the shark. So did the fawns.

1:25:29 Yeah, I think. I think they are underrated in a lot of ways. And I'm not talking about as virtuoso players. I'm talking about as a band, as a creative group of four guys. They have taken incredible risks. They have shown their truth to the world in in video documentary form, in a place that very few people would go. They have shown their truth. I don't call it vulnerability. They have shown their truth to their to the world unabashed. They have taken on musical projects like S&M and then coming back and doing S and M2.

1:26:09 They have collaborated with Lou Reed and done some things. They took a hard turn to do Saint Anger in the middle of great turmoil and I think eventually Saint Anger will be recognized for for what? For the passion that is insane anger. Maybe the audio quality is a little rough sometimes, but I think it will. Will will stand the test of time over that. Over over time, yeah. And they've taken incredible risks to turn things. But what they haven't done, what I have never seen them do, is be untrue to themselves.

1:26:50 And that's that thing about never phoning it in when they're on stage. Yeah, When you're talking to a band member and you know they're sick and that they go out and they do an incredible job and you're talking to them after showing you like Matt, how did you do that? And they look you straight in the eye, and from their heart they tell you I was really dying up there. And I looked down in the front row and I saw this young kid there. He was there with his dad, obviously, because he was too young to be there alone. And he was just rocking his ass off. And I figured, if that kid can rock, I can rock. That is awesome. OK, when you hear that, it's pretty easy to go run through a wall for him. Yeah, you know, it's funny because I I'm probably the person who original Metallica fans hate because I jumped on the bandwagon on Black Album. I wasn't a fan before that.

1:27:39 They were, yeah, they they were a little too heavy. Like, I loved, I loved Judas Priest. I loved a lot of the heavy bands, but Metallica was just a little too garagi for me before that, right? And it just wasn't the genre that I was into. But Black Album, I just went, wow, this is good. Like because of the production quality on it and not because it was his probably. I hit it well. And I'm Canadian. I'm Canadian, he hit. It out of the. Park so. And the guys hit it out of the park with some songwriting that. Yeah, Dan. Again, I think we'll we stand the test in. Time my cousin was Bruce Fairburn and so my name is Marcel Fairbairn.

1:28:19 My cousin is Bruce Fairbairn was he's he's passed away. But so you know Bruce Fairbairn, Bob Rock had a very good thing going on there in in Vancouver and and so yeah, I mean I just thought that album had the sound it it had it you know and and plus a ballad, you know like wow, a Metallica ballad that became like a huge hit and stuff too. So so yeah, I mean but I I love that they've reinvented themselves like that. Like they went from being like this sort of garage metal band to being top of the charts. You know the most successful rock band, one of the most.

1:28:59 Well now the most ever probably. But you know just incredible and and to have the career that they've had, it's it's incredible. It's just mind blowing. So it's. Been a great journey, you know, I think, I think that they were always more musical than some of the folks that they that they're they're you know associated with. Yeah. I take, I have so many people come to the show. You know I'm 66, right? So And this, my friends are like Metallica. You come see the show, I'll give you some earplugs. Just watch your show. And almost to a person they come to me after the show, they're like, I had no idea. Yeah, they're unbelievable.

1:29:41 Yeah, they were probably tired and worn out by the end of the show, right? It's like a it's like a workout. What just? Happened this on the road with them. Not for luxury for. Necessity. No, I meant your friends. I meant the fans that were there watching. My friends. They were probably worn out at the. End they're just, they're like, I had no idea that it would, that it's this good that there's this level of passion. Yeah. You know they're like, man, I the only thing I can compare that to is Springsteen. And I'm like, yeah, because it's from the heart. Yeah. Do you still tour? I go out to a lot of shows. If I have work to do with the shows, if I if there's something for me to do, yeah, I'm there. I'm we're in.

1:30:22 We're at the point now in the in the cycle where if there's nothing for me to do, to be there. You don't know. I don't. I don't need to be there and take up space and be another person to move around and hotel and all. That. Stuff and I got stuff I'm working on for you know, we're going to be with the foundation will be doing another benefit coming up and you know the the machine doesn't stop working. The stuff on my plate doesn't stop. So that's that's a great blessing. Yeah, that's very cool. I, I appreciate you taking so much time today out of your your schedule. I know you got a lot going on. You're going back to Europe soon and it's been very interesting for sure. Like, I I love it.

1:31:06 I love, you know, everybody I meet from your camp are just amazing people and and such a successful machine, you know, it's great. It's it's been a great journey. I'm very fortunate to be part of it. I've enjoyed the time with you. I'm glad we got to know you got me an e-mail and the other stuff. I will, yeah. I'll e-mail you as soon as we're done here and and if I can help you with that, great, and maybe I'll catch you somewhere with. Us on the road absolutely show, but if you want to do this again sometime and get into specifics, we can talk about. Absolutely would. Love to and and stuff like that and would love to. You know, no thanks for your interest in our show. Thanks for your interest in what I do.

1:31:48 Yeah, I'm very interested and I'd love to do it again. I'd like to get into some of the the specifics on the gear that we were even talking about before we started recording. So yeah, that would be fun too. Cool. Well, thank you so much, Dan. I appreciate you. And you know, again, if I can ever do anything for you or you know, whatever, just reach out to me. You've, you've got my. Info Now I've enjoyed the time and it's nice getting perfect for you a little bit and let's keep going. Thanks.