Project Description

Bird's Eye View

Interview with 

Tour Manager and FOH Engineer: Caroline Smith

(Hinds, The Hunna, The Japanese House, Only Real, Bars and Melody and more)

Interviewer: Jemma Bird

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Caroline Smith

Mixing for Hinds at Ocho y Medio, Madrid, Spain. Photo by Neelam Vela

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In the past, AMNplify has spoken to an array of incredible artists that bring us our favourite music, play our favourite shows and headline our favourite festivals.  All of this wouldn’t be possible without the copious amounts of work that goes on behind the scenes.

Amnplify Interviewer Jemma Bird had the chance to speak to some of the hardest working individuals we know and gain a BIRD’S EYE VIEW of what their role in the industry is really like.

 

Tour Manager and FOH Engineer, Caroline Smith is currently touring in America with Spanish indie rock band, Hinds. She began her career in the music industry shadowing FOH engineers as she learnt the ropes and has since toured with the likes of The Hunna, The Japanese House, Only Real, Bars and Melody and more. Check out our interview with Caroline below where she talks the specifics of tour managing/ FOH engineering, hot sauce and drunken, MIA singers and passports! 

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What made you want to pursue a career in the music industry?

Music has always been a huge part of my life. Everyone in my family plays some sort of instrument and I was lucky to have parent’s who encouraged us musically. In my teens, I used to use different recording devices to slowly layer up parts and build songs. Real basic multi-track recording stuff. I got really into recording once I got to college and that shifted my interest towards production.

Being from a rural area in Scotland, I think it seemed like such a different world…it was exciting! I always wanted to be involved in music somehow, and I think the knowledge that there were fewer women in the industry spurred me on.

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How did your current roles as a Tour Manager and FOH Engineer come about?

Whilst studying, I started shadowing FOH engineers at local gigs who showed me the ropes and got me working on my first few live gigs. Sometimes they would double book themselves or be sick, so I would cover for them.

I would take any FOH / studio job I could get, working in venues and mixing stages at events like Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. Eventually, an engineer I worked with had two overlapping tours, so asked me to fly out to Rome to take over from her.

I’ve been touring since!

Most bands don’t have massive budgets these days, so it’s common to double up on roles. An engineer I knew put me forward for my first TM role with a band called Only Real. The band were new to touring and wanted a young TM/FOH who could grow and learn with them. It was a great “in” into TMing as working with them allowed me to learn on the job.

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You are currently touring with Hinds and have recently toured with the likes of Bars and Melody, The Hunna and The Japanese House. How did you come to work with these artists? Is the process of being hired as a TM or FOH Engineer consistent amongst artists?

If you’re a hard worker and have a good attitude, people will recognise that and put you forward for other jobs. That was the case with all of the artists above. Word of mouth and recommendations.

Other times a band might hear you mix another, and want to hire you off the back of that. That’s how I came to work with Hinds. They heard me mixing Only Real at a festival in France, and a few months later we were on tour together.

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As a Tour Manager, what does your role entail?

Figuring out the logistics of the tour. Figuring out the best way to move your gear and people around. Putting together and managing the budget. Liaising with promoters and venues.

On tour, you basically make sure everything runs smoothly and that nobody dies/ ends up in jail.

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Caroline Smith Hinds

Mixing for Hinds at Warsaw in Brooklyn, NYC. Photo by Neelam Vela

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As a FOH Engineer, what does your role entail?

The job usually starts in rehearsals with the band/artist. Here we’ll discuss the technical needs of the band and put together a channel list and tech spec for them.

On tour, I’ll load in, tune the PA/wedges and run the soundcheck. Before show time, I’ll oversee the changeover and do a quick line-check to make sure everything is working before the band step onto the stage. If all is good, we go!

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Does your role differ much between artists, specifically between those who have different sized audiences or different budgets for crew?

Absolutely. Bands with smaller budgets have less crew, so that means you have to be responsible for a lot more than what you’d usually be hired to do. You might have to drive or look after the backline on top of your FOH or TM responsibilities, for example.

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What advice would you give an up and coming band when looking for a tour manager?

Pick someone who’s serious about the job and passionate about your success. Not someone who is there for the free beer and the Instagram posts.

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Do all tour managers have the same roles? Or are some hired for specific countries/runs of the tour?

That depends on the budget of the band. It’s preferable to take the same team with you to all territories, but visas cost money… If the band have a lower budget, they may have different crew members in different territories so that they save on flight and visa costs.

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Caroline Smith

Behind the main stage, FIB Benicàssim, Spain.

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What does a typical work day on tour look like for you?

Load in. Find coffee. Make sure the band are up and ready for any press they might have. Run the soundcheck. Find solutions for any issues that may arise during the day. Advance upcoming shows. Make sure everyone is fed and watered. Manage the guestlist and make sure the people on the list are looked after. Oversee things at the box office and at merch. Settle up at the end of the night with the promoter so that everyone can get paid. Make sure the driver has parking instructions for the next city/venue. Get on the bus, have a beer.

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What does a typical work day off tour look like for you? How long do you start preparing before a tour?

Before the tour begins, the booking agent will send me all of the contracts for the shows which contain details of the show fees and whether the promoter is covering any other costs for us (i.e backline hire or hotels). I then start looking at the logistics of moving everyone and the gear around, finding hotels, booking transport and booking other members of crew. Then I put together a budget for the tour and send it to management for approval.

Next comes advancing the shows, which means liaising with the promoters for each show along with the venues, gathering their tech specs and sending them ours to make sure that they have what we need to put on the show. The basics can be done a couple of months in advance (i.e can we park the bus at the venue? Will there be shore power for the bus? Sending over your tech spec etc.), and then the finer
details like show times will be confirmed a couple of weeks before show day. If you’re on a long tour, you may have to do advance the later shows whilst you’re already on the road.

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Does your role differ much when the band or artist are playing a festival or support slot in comparison to a headline show?

You have more luxuries when you are headlining a show. Having more time to make sure everything is perfect before the show is the biggest difference. When you are support, you get what you’re given, be that 10 minutes to soundcheck or having the backstage corridor as your dressing room (if you have a dressing room at all).

Festivals are always slightly busier than your usual day on the road. Times absolutely most be adhered to so you need to make sure you have the best team possible in place to pull off the quick change overs.

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Top 5 essential items for any tour manager to take on the road?

Printer, pain killers, Throat Coat Tea, sharpies, hot sauce.

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Caroline Smith

Hinds at Koko, London

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Being on tour is not your typical 9-5 job. How do you go about balancing your career and personal life?

It’s hard! I don’t think I’ve quite mastered that yet! Facetime is a huge help. People also love receiving postcards, if you have the time to send them (some venues/ festivals will do that for you).

When you’re out, it’s easy to be completely wrapped up in the tour and forget that there’s a life outside of the bus/van. Accept that to people at home, it’s a pretty alien life that you lead, and that they can’t really relate to what you do. Be patient with people’s frustration at you not being around and really appreciate those people who understand that you may only have a few minutes in the middle of the night to talk.

You’ll miss important birthdays and weddings, and that’s hard. I’m a bit better now at not sacrificing everything else in favour of my job. It’s easy to feel like you have to say “yes” to everything, but you have to remember to take time for you and your family.

Call your mum! She worries.

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Being on tour, you spend A LOT of time with the band and the crew. Is it sometimes hard to separate friendship from business?

Sure. You experience and go through so much together that you do become very close. I think that’s normal. If you didn’t get on with the people you toured with, you’d go crazy. However, it’s important to retain a level where the everyone on the tour respects each other’s roles and understands that and the decisions each crew member makes are in the best interests of the tour.

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What has been your biggest career highlight so far?

That’s a tough one! I’d say maybe FOH for Hinds on the main stage at FIB
Benicassim, or my first arena tour TMing The Japanese House as support for The 1975.

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What has been your biggest career blunder and how did you deal with/ overcome that?

Don’t cement too much of your identity into any particular project. It’s easy to get carried away with the hype surrounding something, but don’t lose yourself in it. The pressure to excel when you are with a successful artist, or an artist you care about, can create a subconscious emotional investment, which can lead to a dependence on a project/ job.

Of course it is important to care about the job and the people you work with. A passion for the work, the people and the music is why we do it. But check in on yourself every once in a while to make sure that you are happy with where you are, and that happiness isn’t dependant on how well the tour/band is doing or your role within it.

You meet a lot of different people in the music industry. Good and bad. Go with your gut.

Oh. And there’s more than one Frankfurt in Germany…

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Caroline smith

Cabourg Mon Amour Festival, France

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What’s something that people would be surprised to know about your job?

It’s not glamorous. It’s pretty rare that you get to see any of the places that you’re travelling to because you’re either in the venue, in the hotel or on the bus driving to a new place. You gather lots of unexpected skills along the way. Like the ability to sleep anywhere and becoming very good at opening beer bottles with almost anything.

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What advice would you give to someone who wanted your gig? 

Be the most useful person you can be to any perspective employers. Strive to learn as much as you can about as many different areas of the industry as you can, it helps in the long run. For example, even if you don’t want to be an Lighting Designer, it helps to have a basic understanding of what an Lighting Designer’s job entails so that you what they might need/ understand what might make their life easier on the road.

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What’s your favourite part about your job?

When the lights dip before the band goes on stage and you get that big “here we go!” feeling. Seeing the crowd respond to changes in your mix, like pushing the bass a little, is pretty dope too.

I get to go to some amazing places for free! You get to experience some amazingly crazy wonderful things with people you didn’t know a week ago, but after living on a bus together, feel like you’ve known forever.

There are moments where I have a moment of realisation like, “this is my job!” and laugh because it’s such a ridiculous thing to be able to do with your life! I’m very lucky.

It’s a job that can drive you to the extremes of emotion every day. There are times which are really hard, but they are immediately forgotten when the band and your team pull off an amazing show. I think the camaraderie is my favourite thing.

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Lastly, just for fun – what’s the most memorable tour story you can tell us about?

Hmmm… there are so many! But off the top of my head –

On my first trip to the U.S, I took a band to SXSW. On the very first night, our singer got super drunk and called me to come and find him. I tried to call him back but his phone kept ringing out, so I had to try and find him.  In Austin. At 2am when all of the bars close and thousands of people spill out on to the streets…

After a few hours of trying to contact him, I eventually got a call from his phone. Someone had found his phone at a party and could call me from the lock screen due to the missed calls. He said he’d wait for me at the party he was at, so I drove uptown to the address he gave me.

When I arrived it was like walking on to the set of American Pie. Red cups, people in bikinis, a crazy band playing in the corner…It was a college dorm complex centred around a pool. I found the guy who had found my singers phone (thank you, mystery dude!), and then I set about trying to find the singer. I eventually found him next to the pool. He said that he had lost his passport too…sigh…

We got up super early a few days later to drive to the Embassy in Houston to arrange an emergency passport the flight home. We were just about to leave when I got a call from an unknown number. It was from a manager of a band who were also at SXSW. Apparently, our artists must have seen each other a few nights before because my singer’s passport was in his singers jacket pocket, and he found it just as he was about to leave town! Disaster averted!

I told that story a few years later to Hinds…turns out that they were the band playing at that party!

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Caroline Smith
Backstage at SXSW, Austin, TX

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10 Questions with Caroline Smith

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What’s your favourite swear word?

Definitely fuck. It’s a really fucking versatile word.

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What was the last musical thing you did or created?

I do a lot of my own music and have been writing an EP for a while now.

What was the last thing that you felt uber proud about?

Maybe you contacting me about this interview haha.

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What period of your life would you like to relive?

Either just starting to tour because that was really new and exciting or when I was 7 because I didn’t have to worry about responsibilities or making money.

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What period of your life would you not like to relive?

Not high school, that was not fun.

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What’s one subject people take too seriously?

Themselves haha.

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Is there a quote you find yourself going to most?

Well usually if I am freaking out about something, I think to myself “nobody has died, everything is going to be okay”.

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What is one thing you would take a bullet for?

My best friend and my family.

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What makes you cry and why?

TV commercials – they get me every time.

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If your life was to follow the plot of a movie, which movie would you choose?

Something fun. Maybe like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He just has such a good outlook on life. Again, don’t stress, nobody has died, let’s go and join a parade in New York!

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BIRD’S EYE VIEW

My name is Jemma Bird. As a reviewer and interviewer, I want to place some light or focus on a different part of the music machine. Everyone focuses on the artist, and rightly so, but most of the time, nothing would happen unless the people behind the scenes get the job done. So my feature ‘Bird’s Eye View’ will be doing just that. I want to talk to the people who make the music industry tick. Experienced or just starting out, heavy hitters or even the people who get the coffee. Without publicists, artist and tour managers, booking agents, merchandise managers, personal assistants, sound technicians, stage managers and many others the music industry just simply wouldn’t exist. Our mission is to create honest, informative and entertaining pieces, revealing stories from people whose stories aren’t usually shared.

Want to be featured here on Bird’s Eye View? You can be. All you have to do is contact me here, at Amnplify – [email protected]. I want to break new ground, something Amnplify has been doing for years now. Let’s break it together.