Kevin Lyman

The 16th annual Vans Warped Tour kicked off in Carson, California on June 25th, 2010 and we were there to see the most famous music festival speed into gear. After the first day went off without a hitch, we caught up with Warped Tour founder and head honcho Kevin Lyman bright and early on day two in Mountain View. Once we finally found his tour bus amongst the sea of busses, we sat down and discussed the tour and the ideologies that Lyman hopes to share with the world through the travelling circus. Last year when we spoke, we examined the nitty gritty details of the tour, so this time we took a step back and took a big picture look at the tour to get a better understanding of exactly what The Warped Tour is meant to be.

---

Bobby: Starting with the basics; today is the second day of the 16th annual Vans Warped Tour. Are you excited for it?

Kevin: I’m getting there. There’s been a lot of struggles. You guys have probably heard about the American touring business and some of the stuff going down here in North America. I had just finished up our country tour, a new project I put out which was really good; but you just have to go out and see the show.

So going into it, it was a little bit like getting your head into the right space you know? It’s been like sixteen summers now. I walked around yesterday and I started getting there.

Day two, today, you get a little bit more distance from LA where so many of our people are based and up here is always a great show. I think the fans really appreciate the music in San Francisco, you’ll see that. We’ll get into it, it takes a few days.

Bobby: It always takes a few days to work out the kinks I guess.

Kevin: Yeah, I know- there’s a couple things. Like we’re missing a tent top but for the size of the show to be able to get to the second show this quick – I think that’s one of the reasons I wanted you guys to come out, just to see how big this massive undertaking is.

Bobby: Oh yeah, like we were there for the rehearsal day and just seeing everyone arriving and getting setting up was quite a feat.

Kevin: I’ve got great people out here that know what they’re doing. They come back and it feels like they’re right at home. Some of them work at our other festivals, like Mayhem down here that’s also playing in Canada – Montreal this year – and our country project.

Bobby: I was talking to Reverend Peyton yesterday and he was saying how it’s cool that the bands are always changing up but with the crew, people have been working here for twelve years, thirteen years, fifteen years or something. Does that help make it go smoother?

Kevin: Oh yeah, absolutely. We change a few people each year; a couple people come and go but just having that consistency. I also think people really care about this tour. I think a lot of time people go out with bands and you hear “fourteen days left!” or “this many days” and instead of embracing the moment and being part of the tour, they’re just thinking of getting it over with.  I don’t think that’s the way you should go through life either.

That’s the thing. As we start getting to the end of the tour, people are like “oh man, it’s over already? Oh, okay. Looking forward to next summer.” So it’s kind of a different mentality in the crew.

Bobby: Looking forward to next summer and a nice long shower.

Kevin: Yeah a lot of them but some of these guys go right back on tour. They go right back to work. I think if you’re doing this as a lifestyle and a living, the Warped Tour’s a nice break.

When you tour with one band, you’ll be out with twelve people in one bus and you start getting on each other’s nerves. Here, if you get on each other’s nerves you just go and talk to somebody in another band. People that are touring year round, they get to hang out with other people for two months and still do their thing. Its funny how many band members even look at this as a break from the routine as well.

Bobby: Yeah. It’s more of an escape from what they’re used to; to be able to meet and mingle with all their friends.

Kevin: Exactly.

Bobby:  Last year you changed the set up of the main stages. Two main stages down to one, forty minute sets instead of thirty minutes which kind of made the fans, the kids, walk around and explore the side stages. What made you decide to continue that tradition?

Kevin: I thought it really worked well last year. We saw more movement of people. They weren’t just looking back and forth between two main stages. Like you said, they’re wandering around and discovering music. Warped Tour has been, and I want it to be as much as possible, a chance to discover new music.

Bobby: That’s one thing I’ve always loved about Warped Tour is to be able to walk in and find these great new bands. Like I’ll never forget finding Oreskaband two years ago, just walking by and seeing these six Japanese girls playing this awesome ska music. It was amazing. Is that kind of what you want to get across?

Kevin: I always say you come to the Warped Tour to see three or four bands and you leave liking ten. You don’t know sometimes when you walk through that door who that could be.

Bobby: It also expands their musical palette. Because Warped Tour does have a very varied sound and style – like we were with the Grindtime group last night all the way to GBH.

Kevin: Yeah, I went out at the end of the night and I walked out listening to VersaEmerge and I walked over and GBH was there. You walk across the parking lot and you have Andrew WK and then you go across the way and there’s a more metal sounding band and then you walk by and there’s a ska band playing on stage. That’s the thing about Warped Tour, it’s kind of a melding of music fans.

Lanny: There’s really nothing else like it.

Kevin:  There have been people who have gone out and tried it. This year in America there was the Bamboozle and it was basically patterned after this. There’s a heart and soul that really does it for the Warped Tour. It just kind of has a foundation. The bands come in and they’re excited and they just kind of feed off of each other. The bands get excited, the crew gets excited, and the fans get excited.

I always say you can’t be bummed out being on the Warped Tour. Well, you can. There’s always some of those days. Someone’s having the best day of the tour and someone’s having the worst day and you never know who that’s going to be. That’s kind of what my job is, to help moderate all that to kind of keep the balance going on.

Bobby: To make sure there’s not too many people having the worst days all at the same time.

Kevin: Yeah, there’s always more people having a better day.

Bobby: That’s the way you want it to go. One unique thing about Warped Tour, like you said, is the energy. There’s an unique atmosphere there. It’s about the music but it’s also about the camaraderie and the skate park and stuff like that. How would you describe the atmosphere at Warped Tour?

Kevin: For the fans?

Bobby: For the fans.

Kevin: I don’t think there’s a lot of judgment going on with the kids when they’re at Warped Tour. Everyone’s judged, especially at this age, it’s a tough age – thirteen to twenty year olds which a majority of the show is made up of; they’re at a phase where they’re being judged by their peers. The Warped Tour doesn’t tend to judge them. That’s why you can see a kid walking around in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle suit yesterday. He doesn’t necessarily believe that someone’s going to come up and beat his ass. If he wore that to school, he may have some problems; but in the Warped Tour he just kind of fits in.

Bobby: Same with the guy dressed up as Super Mario yesterday.

Kevin: That’s one of the reasons why I brought the midgets out with us this year. They’re people too, no one’s judging them and kids are like “oh” and they meet them. I bring things like that so there’s no fear going on. Kids don’t come with fear; they come to have a good time.

I always believe education happens if you’re having a good time. Our school system has broken down so much – public schools in America – that kids go to school with fear a lot or hungry or not in a good place with their families right now. You can come and have a great time and it opens your mind to learning. That’s why you see so many non-profits and that’s why all the eco-tents are out there. You always come for the bands and probably eighty percent of the people, ninety percent of the people, leave here with a great music experience but it’s that other ten percent that walk out and sign up for Amnesty International, they learn about an eco-program, they get interested in working for music because they get the chance to talk to someone.

Bobby: Yeah, if you go in open minded to the show you can gain so much from the show. More than just the music, like you said, the not for profits.

Kevin: There are the naysayer’s on Warped Tour. “Oh, it’s not punk enough, it’s not this enough” and I’m going like “well, Warped Tour’s not for the hardest core.” If you’re the hardest core gutter punk, Warped Tour’s not really for you. It’s not your show. Warped Tour is for the other ninety percent of people that just love music.

Bobby: That’s one cool thing about Warped Tour because while there’s a lot of stuff going on, the focus is still on the music. With a lot of festivals, it’s turned from the focus on the music to a focus on the partying and drinking. Like there’s the Big Valley Jamboree in Alberta where everybody just talks about camping and drinking. The music, most people don’t even watch the music when they go. How has Warped Tour kept the focus on the music?

Kevin: Well I think people want to be in here the whole day. By writing that schedule the morning of, the kids are all lined up already. They don’t know who they’re coming in to see. They don’t come in and down a fifth of vodka and go lay on grass and wake up for the one band they want to see. No, the kids want to experience it. It’s sad when the few kids you see – and it’s very few when you think about it – and it’s the kid sitting there, they drank before they came into the venue and they’re sick and you gotta call their mom to pick them up and they miss the Warped Tour. You don’t want to be that kid who missed the Warped Tour if you’re into this kind of music.

Bobby: Yeah it’s something you wait for most of the year anyway and you go with all your friends and if you miss it, then you totally missed out.

Kevin: This is more of a county fair than a music concert. It is a lifestyle concert. Your parents go and see the cheese making machine and the food dehydrator and this and this and this; these kids are coming and they’re learning not only about the bands that they’re interested in but they’re learning about the clothing companies, getting turned onto non-profits and getting turned onto bands; and all the merchandise is cheaper than retail. So they come down here and buy all their back to school clothes. They’re kind of running their badge and being at the Warped Tour.

Bobby: One thing that’s great about Warped Tour is, like we walked about, is all the bands hang out and they become friends which means there’s always crazy cool collaborations where bands come on and sing with one another, play with one another. What would be your dream collaboration to see on this year’s Warped Tour?

Kevin: I haven’t really had any dreams about this year’s Warped Tour but I’d be interested to see Reverend Peyton do some stuff. Angelo from Fishbone comes out. He’ll join us for a few weeks here and there and he’s almost like the maestro of Warped Tour because he goes in and he can play with seven or eight different bands. You walk by and he’ll be playing with Oreskaband and then he’s with Less Than Jake and then he’s playing with Fat Mike. He’s an old friend of mine from many years ago but he’s also like the essence of what I’m trying to show these kids.

Unfortunately, most of the kids out here aren’t individually great musicians. I just did this country tour where there’s great singer-songwriters and great players, these kids are playing with their emotions most of the time. They’re getting their chops; some of them are becoming musicians. It’s hard for them to get together and play with other people. This last tour I did, everyday it was Jamey Johnson bringing up Heidi Newfield and then it was Little Big Town and I wish it was more of that. But a lot of the kids who are playing this kind of music don’t quite have the chops to be able to up and play another guy’s song. Some of the drummers can. I know past years like with Josh Freese – the drummer from 311 broke his wrist, Josh could get up from the Vandals and play the songs within an hour; but he’s the exception in our world.

Bobby: Okay, just one last question. This is, of course, the sixteenth anniversary of the Warped Tour so what are some of your fondest memories from Warped Tours long gone?

Kevin: I think it’s a lot of the stuff you do, not necessarily the musical side. The musical side is great – you know seeing Rancid on stage when they were really hitting it. But most of it is just stuff you do on days off – the fishing, the boating, the hanging out.  Enjoying your summers because I pretty much did give up my summers. I worked on Lollapoallza before this and then I came out here. So I jam a lot into my days off to make sure I have a summer vacation. I take people with me and we enjoy ourselves and make a good day of it.

I remember some of the big storms. The horrible border crossings getting into Canada. Those are the things we remember.

The border crossings are way better now. The best part about the border crossing now is most of the people who work at the border grew up with the Warped Tour. So they’re kind of fans of the Warped Tour now. When we first hit the border sixteen years ago, we were this scary situation of punkers and people coming across the border. Now it’s funny because we know all the people who work at the border. We’re starting to send our paper work right now, so usually we know exactly who might have a problem at the border and fix most of them. We know who’s not going to get into Canada before we even get there. So we can make the arrangements versus being lined up at the wall like we used to be, spending hours and hours at the border.

Bobby: It’s a lot smoother now.

Kevin: And then they all come out to the show, we give them some tshirts.

Martin Atkins [drummer for PiL, Ministry, Pig Face, Killing Joke and author of the book Tour: Smart]: I just want to tell you what I saw. This is my first forty-eight hours on the Warped Tour. When you talk about the spirit, it’s easy to look at all the band names on the poster and other people [try to copy it and] go ‘oh, we’ll put some band names on a poster.” But what I saw yesterday was Kevin gets up and vacuums the bus. It’s like “what the fuck? Kevin’s vacuuming the bus.” Then you saw Lee Ving wandering about with a huge backpack and Kevin goes “you can put your backpack over here.”  People come and go and everybody’s watching out for everybody and that goes onto the stage. That’s what happens. We picked up twenty kids this morning from a radio show so you think the tour’s giving to these kids; well they brought an acupuncturist [for everybody]. So it’s that.

Kevin: That’s one of the things that you don’t see in this world a lot. People give a crap out here. Sometimes I see that people let go and you lose their mind sometimes. I try to be very patient but I found myself at a Subway and I’m watching this guy making a sandwich and he didn’t give a crap. The mayonnaise was gone and there was eight people in front of me and seven of them asked for mayonnaise. He makes the sound for mayonnaise [Kevin moves his arm, imitating squirting mayonnaise onto a sandwich] and it moves on. That’s where I lost my mind. I said “stop this line.” I said “people buy your sandwiches. I know that you don’t own this subway but give a shit about your job.” Then I said “get the manager.” I said “look, it’s all reflective if you don’t give a shit.” That sandwich isn’t going to taste good because they didn’t get the mayonnaise because he was too lazy to bend over and pick up a new thing of mayonnaise.

Martin: I was in McDonald’s the other day and the guy’s like “no ketchup.” What do you mean? I’m here with my children, go next door and buy some. “well, it’s not the right brand.”  Ahh!

Kevin: Out here you can kind of see it everyday: people really giving a crap about what they do. It takes adjustment when you leave this tour because all of a sudden the pace slows down, the attention to detail slows down, and you find yourself going “okay, this is the real world.” You have to be careful not to get lost in this world because this is a really temporary situation. I found myself almost lost in this situation where I wasn’t going home, I was living on a tour bus and going to shows because I got so frustrated with the rest of the world and that’s not healthy either.