Keeping The Show On The Road

January 2004 saw us receive a phone call from our friend Bert Baldwin (at that time DT’s video director). Dream Theater were rehearsing in Manchester where they were due to play the first show of the Train Of Thought tour at the Apollo. Bert asked if we could get a copy of the sound effects used in the Scenes From A Memory live footage to them. When we arrive, we were met by Ray Amico, who introduced himself as DT’s production manager and thanked us enthusiastically for our help. We have met Ray on and off several times since then and always found him a very friendly guy, usually with a walkie-talkie in hand and a very busy schedule going on!

It was mid-2005 when we first thought of doing an interview with Ray. We were inspired by Scott Hansen’s interview with Rikk Feulner (DT’s tour manager) in one of the last issues of Theater Of Dreams, which had proved a fascinating insight into another dimension of the Dream Theater touring machine. We put the idea to Ray when we saw DT in Linz, Austria in June and it was agreed that we’d get together in the UK later in the year.

Fast forward to a wet Hammersmith in October: after shadowing Ray during the morning and having an insider look at the set-up of DT’s show, we sat down in the production office (the mobile hub of DT’s tour operations) and talked about what it is to be Ray Amico, production manager.

RP: People often have, or think they have, an understanding of what a tour manager does, when in reality they’re often confusing elements of what a tour manager and a production manager does. So, as a production manager – what is it exactly that you do, what is your role and how does it differ from Rikk’s?

RA: There is definitely a lot of overlap, a lot of common goals or things to be watched, but where those two circles don’t overlap is where the responsibilities of each separate. Rikk’s responsibilities are taking care of the band, literally 24 hours a day – not only their business, but their transportation, their travel, their hotel, etc. The things that he needs to concentrate on are the tour as a whole – different from (my responsibilities) because I take care of everything that happens at the venue. All the rig, anything relating to the crew, the day-in, day-out of the shows themselves. The logistics of how the shows are going to be done fall more into my lap than into Rikk’s. The tour manager has everything to do with the setup of where the tour’s going, how it’s going, where it’s to be booked, how the people are travelling. The logistics of the gear, where the equipment goes, how it fits into the venue, how the lighting, sound, backline equipment, how it’s all actually going to happen is more the production manager’s responsibility. That’s where the main area of where the difference is.

RP: So when did you first start working with Dream Theater and how did that come about?

RA: This is my third year of working with Dream Theater. I actually was with System of a Down just previous to working with Dream Theater. When I became available I was contacted by Queensryche who were doing a co-headlining tour with Dream Theater. They basically wanted to hire someone to production manage both bands. Being from New York, I obviously knew of Dream Theater, but not that much. I also knew a lot about Queensryche, so I came in as the production manager for both bands on the co-headlining bill. So that was my first experience we did that tour three years ago and after it was done Dream Theater were going back out and I was asked to stay on.

RP: So obviously you just mentioned Queensryche and SOAD, but what other artists have you or do you work with?

RA: As production manager, as tour manager, as front of house, as monitor engineer, I’ve done all different types of things. As tour manager I’ve managed artists such as Hall and Oates, Devo, Joan Osbourne, Joan Jet and the Blackhearts, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Eric Johnson – the guitar player, Michael Bolton, and the band Fastball. I actually production managed System of a Down and, of course, Queensryche and Dream Theater, I’ve done front of house, sound and monitor mixing for (among others), Chic, Nile Rogers, Omar Hakim, Sinead O’Connor and Nancy Sinatra. A really diverse group of artists!

RP: So did you start out on the sound side of things and then get into this side of the business, the production management side, over time?

RA: I started out as an audio engineer and also in my own band. I played in New York hardcore bands for twenty years actually! I started out as a little teenager, little punk kid playing in a New York band called the Six and Violence. We played for twenty years together and we had Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull play on our first album, the same year they won the Grammy for Best Heavy Rock Band. I started out as a player, as a session bass player and then I started engineering, mixing and then producing records. So my first exposure was working in recording studios – maybe a band would come in and after working with them they would be hitting the road. There was an English band called FAT on A&M Records – that was the first band who asked me to go out with them (on the road) and run everything. So there was myself and the band in a van driving all over the United States and me doing all the guitar teching, the driving, tour managing, sound – everything. I was the only crew member. So, from my own touring as a kid, when I was with my band starting out as a teenager, I progressed becoming an engineer and then finally hitting the road. I liked the recording studio element of being in a controlled environment, but I also loved the travel and always loved live sound, sol kind of drifted toward live audio and live production.

RP: So how much of your life is Dream Theater and the other acts you’ve been around? How hard do you find it to balance that travelling life and everything associated with it and with your home life?

RA: To balance with my own life?! My own life is tragic circumstances! [Laughs] No, it’s err, very, very difficult. The attention to detail needed and the timeframe is very, very difficult. For touring with Octavarium doing dates beginning in June, needed me to start advancing and setting things up by May...

KP: You’ve been doing this non-stop since May?

RA: I’ve been doing this full-time, non-stop since May. On show days it turns into about an 18 hour day for myself, being the first person in and the last person out. Not only does every detail involved with the actual show day need my attention but also the shows coming up. I need to be in touch with the venues coming up tomorrow and the next day and how the crew is travelling to them. We have two buses and three trucks – how are they travelling? In Europe especially, there’s time limits on what drivers can do – do we need extra drivers to fly in? Logistically, all of this takes up the entire day so doing other things like paying attention to my family or keeping in touch with other people – it needs a very understanding family to do that.

RP: So talking about the planning ahead thing, typically what time period ahead of yourself are you working?

RA: Generally initial contacts for things are made as much as a month or two before we get there. For instance, some of the shows we’ve got coming up in South America and Japan we’re not carrying anything other than our own equipment, so the sound equipment needs to be arranged locally, I need to send information at least a month or so ahead so they can start at least finding what they need to. So really it’s repetition as things come closer, the labour that you need, the locally hired hands, where we’re gonna park, how we’re gonna get our bus in there, what times we’re coming in – every circumstance as you draw closer and closer you have to triple check and quadruple check just to make sure everything is accurate and things are gonna be in place when they need to be. For instance, coming here to London where we’re doing a recording, there’s many things we need to pay attention to, to make sure we not only get our regular work done – there’s the tangential stuff going on and it affects everyone else’s day.

RP: What would be the best or easiest parts of your job and on the flipside, what would be the worst or hardest?

RA: I couldn’t say an easiest part! The enjoyable part is the music, very good friends that I get to travel with. I love music, so it’s great to be around music all the time. The timeframe, the amount of work is draining – that is the hardest part, because there are so many details and there’s only 24 hours in the day. But I enjoy helping people do what they do, helping musicians make their music, I enjoy helping my crew get their things done – so it’s a very maternal position!

KP: So what’s the thing you least enjoy, not necessarily a hard thing, but the thing that you think ‘God I wish I didn’t have to do that!’

RA: The hardest part is missing my family, having personal time. Because if you were working a regular job at home you could kind of do your job and put it away and get away. There’s not a real chance to switch off and even on days off generally turn into ‘what have I not gotten to yet, what can I now finish’ AND I still have to look ahead to what’s coming up. Time is everything.

RP: Is there one thing you couldn’t live without to do your job?

RA: Yeah! High-speed Internet! I remember doing it before it was really around and I don’t know how we did it! High-speed Internet and a roll of gaffer tape! They should be in the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame!

RP: Recently DT have been doing a lot of large scale tours like the Iron Maiden tour and Gigantour, as well as the festival shows. How does that affect your role? Does it make it more difficult having to coordinate with outside parties?

KP: Or do you have fewer things overall to worry about?

RA: In some ways... Dream Theater is very demanding; it’s a very involved production. Even stripped down to the bare bones at festivals, in comparison to other bands we have a very large production. So when we’ve done shows like with Iron Maiden, where their entire production is large-scale, we’ve had to mould and be malleable with our own humungous show and squeeze it into places wherever we had to. We had a similar situation touring with Yes last year.

On our own, doing the ‘Evening with’ shows like we’re doing now are the best circumstances for us – being in our own controlled environment, being able to have the lighting and sound we really, really want so we can really do a proper Dream Theater show. I consider playing in a club to be one type of show – it’s fantastic because it’s raw and we’ve done a lot of those. And then there’s Dream Theater where there’s a full-on perspective with the video coordinated with the music – that’s where you get the chance to really do what Mike and John Petrucci want to portray Dream Theater as being about.

KP: In order to work together, do you have to befriend other production managers, etc.?

RA: It’s a small circle, we have all crossed paths, and we’ve kind of all worked together. It’s important to maintain good relationships with everybody because you might be the opening band right now to them but roles could be reversed at some point so you have to be stringent on what you need – you need to be very polite and cordial about everything because you want people to deal with you that way – it’s always give and take. There are different productions and people that are a little more acerbic and hard to deal with – that’s the toughest part, trying to make sure everyone cooperates. Like on Gigantour, there are nine bands on two stages. If people can’t play together nicely in that kind of situation the show’s just not gonna happen.

RP: If somebody was interested in going the direction you’ve gone in – production or tour managing – what would be the keystone career advice you’d give them?

KP: Would you tell them to get in a specific college program or get out on the road – or both?!

RA: University and college – anything you can study as far as business or communications – all those types of studies have always helped. I’ve got a degree in communications and while it may not be very visibly applicable, what I’ve learned definitely comes into play. Studies can be very useful, even accounting classes can be useful. When you’re tour managing you have to sell shirts for example – so there’s a wide range of things if you had a basis or a background in they would help.

I personally think that it should almost be a prerequisite that you’ve played in a band. You need to understand the other perspective, what they’re going through, what they need. Any strength you have in engineering is a big plus because it helps to have an understanding of what (the crew) need and what they have to do. My background in playing music, being an engineer, having gone to university and studied – all those things become applicable.

Specifically for tour and production managing I would say starting out with a band, any kind of band, just going out and doing shows and learning to help and doing everything. Then you get a taste of every different aspect – when you’re a production manager you have to have your finger in every pie, to know what’s going on in every single aspect and having applicable experiences. No one really starts out on big tours; you experience lower tours and those are your building blocks. You get used to being away from home, your family – you have to make big sacrifices, big, big sacrifices. But there are also big rewards: getting to see the world, being with really good people, being around music.

KP: Any nightmare stories you’d like to share?!

RA: When we were touring with Queensryche, we got booked into a venue that couldn’t even fit just Queensryche or just Dream Theater. And we had both bands – for the encore both were supposed to be playing at the same time! So what we ended up doing was we came out, played, struck everything, then they came out, set everything of theirs up, played and there was no encore because there just wasn’t room. We weren’t able to do the whole show, just because of something like that. That’s not even a very good one though – I think I have blocked all the worst disasters out!

There was another time when we’d just won a $100 betting on black, because you never bet against black and we were heading out of town and the bus just died in the mountains. We had to get all our stuff off the bus, wave goodbye to our bus because we figured we’d never see it again because it was so broken, got onto the band’s bus, and travelled the rest of the way on their bus. They had to fly in, but their flight got cancelled so they barely made it in time. We barely made it because of the amount of time it takes for us to set up our show – if you cut an hour or two off that you can barely make it! But we won a hundred bucks!

KP: That’s why you struggled to remember it! It wasn’t all a bad memory because it had money involved in it!