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 Ed Hutchison tour manager for Young Knives and Art Brut talks about how he got started in the business and gives a few tips for running a smooth and happy tour....
"The chief requirement for everyone is unfailing enthusiasm"
At 27, Ed Hutchinson is already known as one of the pioneers of a new species of tour manager: one for whom touring should definitely be fun for everyone but understanding that that entails a fearsome amount of organisation and planning. He entered the music sphere some time back when, as he puts it with characteristic modesty, he played for “a few spectacularly unsuccessful bands. We did a bit of low-level touring of the UK and Europe.” When superstardom failed to beckon, he picked up odd jobs crewing “to get into things” and couldn’t help noticing that many bands, already faced with the gruelling nature of tours, were also having to deal with a fairly shocking lack of organisation and pre-planning.
“I was working, doing some general roadying at an Art Brut show, and saw that when they arrived at the venue everything was still a complete mess. I just offered to help them out, and things built up from there. “I chased people down, got extra tickets, just generally got things sorted.”
Ed’s attention to detail immediately shone out in a profession more usually associated in popular myth with the uncalibrated excesses of Spinal Tap. He is someone who just loves to be organised: “I admit I am an obsessive. All my emails, for instance, are carefully filed in 30 or 40 different folders. In fact, I can’t even send an email unless it’s formatted nicely. “I like to have everything hyperplanned – sorting out in advance everything we need with the venue, sending on a list of questions relating to equipment and hospitality. Nothing is left to chance. “I see plenty of other bands turning up looking totally miserable because they have not been routed properly and have taken far too long to get to a venue, or because the right equipment hasn’t been provided,” he says. “I am there to see it gets done properly so that they can put on the best show possible.”
Art Brut, the ‘art wave’ English/German indie rock band, clearly knew they were on to a good thing, and Ed has now worked with them for four or five years. Word has got round of his special qualities, and he has been kept busy even when Art Brut have not been touring themselves. He has also been working for nearly three years with Young Knives, the hugely energetic English geek rock band from Leicestershire. “Fortunately, both bands have been busy enough so that I haven’t needed to work for anyone else,” says Ed. But ever the realist, he adds that he is well aware that reputation is all as “bands have a finite lifetime and you have to take that into account.”
The Young Knives work came through a chance meeting at a festival – beyond doubt one of the chief recruiting grounds for this type of job. “The summer festivals are the great mixing pots of music,” explains Ed. “The same set of people meet up pretty much every weekend at festivals for a couple of months. “After the meeting, I just got a call from the Young Knives manager looking for a new tour manager. I really liked the band and so accepted on the spot.”
Ed stresses the importance of working with bands whose music you admire, but even more importantly whose members you like personally. “I couldn’t work with a band who weren’t nice – such as that crop of bands who liked to be very lavish, and do the classic rock and roll unruly bit. I wouldn’t want to go anywhere near that. “I can have a great time partying with my bands, but then you can go off to one side and maybe discuss the newspaper with them. They basically have more than one gear and that’s great.” That said, Ed is uncompromising about the sort of temperament that thrives on tour. “You have to like travelling and drinking. You need to enjoy the fringe benefits – the copious amounts of free alcohol and food, plus the chance to see new places. “No point you or the band doing it if you’re a bunch of homebodies who only like English food. The chief requirement for everyone is unfailing enthusiasm; when that stops you have to stop.”
Ed confesses he gets a real kick out of the constant judgements he is forced to make in his job – the balancing act between economy and practicality. “Do you book the 7 a.m. flight which is cheaper but involves missing crucial rest-time or the 2 p.m. which costs a bit more but gets the band there in good form? “You have to assess the psychological effect of what you’re doing. That needs experience, planning and a great deal of thinking through. Once you’ve done it a few times, you know what works and what doesn’t.”
And that includes the financial side of things. Ed knows what a band can make from selling out any particular venue, and tailors the expenses accordingly. Luckily, his bands are intelligent and appreciate the fact that unnecessary luxury – a huge crew and entourage and the accompanying transport needs, for instance – has to be paid for out of their own pocket. “Lavish entourages was the old way and you still see mid-range bands bringing their own PA in a lorry, 15 crew and two tour buses, and you know that they can sell out a venue and still make a £10,000 loss.
“With record companies no longer supporting tours, the tour manager has to keep a lid on costs while at the same time making sure the band and crew are happy. We tend to just have me, a technician, a sound engineer and a merchandiser. Virtually all the time, that is what you need, no more.”
With a tight crew and the pressures of touring, the atmosphere can become strained. “It has a bubble effect, silly things can get amplified. You have to deal with that and make judgements on how to reduce the strain.”
Tour managers are also responsible for picking up the money – which, in the current downturn, has become ever more of a challenge. “Some of the festivals last year ended up refusing to pay. One artist I know was paid in coins, a multi-thousand pound fee. “Some promoters were refusing to pay at all. I took the approach of staying nice but persistent. It worked, because when the money did eventually come in we were the first to get paid. We were there but not acting like gits. “It was nothing like that scene in Spinal Tap where the guy gets a cricket bat. I find the understated but determined approach works best.”
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