Who: Kevin Lyman What He Does: Warped Tour Founder Label: N/A Location: Phone Date: Thursday, May 28th, 2009 Interviewer: Bobby Gorman

Fifteen years ago, Kevin Lyman decided to try and put on a little tour that he called The Warped Tour. Little did he know that in the next fifteen years, the tour would grow and expand to become a staple in the punk rock tour circuit every summer and heralded as one of the most successful tours of all time. A full day of music with upwards of sixty bands playing in one location, The Warped Tour is a traveling circus playing close to fifty cities throughout the summer. Before Lyman kicked off the fifteenth anniversary edition of the tour, he gave me a call to let talk a bit about the growth of the tour, the changes planned for this year and all the bumps along the way. If you've ever wanted to get a better understanding of how the punk rock summer camp works, read on.

Bobby: I guess the main question is that the fifteen annual Warped Tour is about to start, are you excited to see what happens this year?

Kevin: I really am. I just think that with Warped Tour, especially up in Canada, we’ve worked really hard. Canada used to be some of our strongest markets on the tour and to be honest, in the last couple years it’s kind of dropped off a little bit up there. So we’ve really kind of concentrated on the marketing and packaging so we have some great Canadian bands up there, we have some of the old school punk bands that the Canadian market always likes and a lot of the young bands that, I think, sometimes we brought up a little early in their careers. Then we have an artist like Lights which is already becoming very established in Canada, we’re going to bring on the US tour. I think it’s a well balanced packaged and it feels really good. I know you’re economy is starting to have some of the stuff that we’ve been having happen over the past nine months but we’ve worked really hard to keep the price fair this summer. It feels like there’s a new energy.

Bobby: Like you said, our economy is starting to feel it but it’s not quite as bad as the US right now. Last year one of the big factors of the Warped Tour was the gas prices and how a lot of bands were returning to vans as opposed to busses; now that the recession has fully hit how has that impacted Warped Tour?

Kevin: I think we’re going back to almost 1995 all over again. Where people are now very early trying to realize “okay, if I want to have that tour bus maybe [I need another band].” They’re sharing. There are two bands sharing a bus. And if they have even an extra spot, they’re bringing a sponsor or a non-profit, so everyone’s starting to tour a little bit smarter.

Bobby: When you first started this tour back in 1995, did you ever imagine it would last fifteen years or become such a big part of the music industry?

Kevin: No, I mean really I was just trying to get through that first year and we barely got through that. Then when Vans came on as a sponsor in 1996, I got bands like NOFX and Pennywise. I knew these bands and worked with them in the clubs but to get them to sign on for the tour, it allowed me to get to the second year. It’s going better year after year and it’s funny because I haven’t gone out the door on this summer’s tour and people are already talking about next summer.

Bobby: So it’s always planned way in advance.

Kevin: Yeah, we work on it year out. It’s really strange but I’m like “let me get this tour out the door, let me start in Pomona in a few weeks and then we can start talking about next year.”

Bobby: The big change this year is that you’ve eliminated one of the main stages so there’s only ten main stage bands throughout the day and everyone plays forty minute sets instead of the regular thirty. What made you decide to go and do that?

Kevin: Well I was thinking that in some ways it was a response in the increase cost of touring and trying to keep the price low. But doing this it allows me to take a couple semi-trucks off the tour and a sound system and a whole tour bus of crew and 120 less people on the road. But also what it allowed me to do was increase the quality of the main stage acts. What I did was that I kept the same talent budget that I would pay eighteen bands and was able to pay nine bands so whereas Warped Tour had to count on three or four maybe marquee names, this year we have nine or ten marquee names.

Bobby: So it’s some of the bigger names.

Kevin: Just on the surface. I think the Warped Tour has always been where if you look at the line-ups there are interesting bands that are new, young and fresh – there are nine or ten names that you may just look at and recognize and realize that for that ticket price alone, just to see those bands, it’s a good price. Then you get everything else. And you have bands that have been around twenty five years playing the tour now, even though they like it – thirty minutes and it’s quicker for them to go have some fun – they have catalogues that are very big.

Bobby: And like NOFX always plays it, they have The Decline – that’s twenty minutes gone right there.

Kevin: Exactly and these bands are still putting our relevant music. So they can play thirty minutes of the hits that the kids might want to hear and then ten minutes of new music.

Bobby: You used to have a place online where fans could vote for a band to play for forty minutes instead of the regular thirty. Now will you have a place for them to vote for someone to play fifty minutes?

Kevin: No. I think we’re going to do something that involves only the second stage artists and getting one of them to play forty minutes.

Bobby: The pricing structure is something that I did want to talk a bit about too. For the size and scope of the Warped Tour, fifty dollars for the show is a pretty fair price but many tours of this size have been forced to change their pricing structure. Like Ozzfest tried to go free and then had to cancel, other tours have had to raise the ticket prices. How have you been able to keep the ticket price to stable over all the years?

Kevin: Well one is monitoring the cost of touring. That’s one big step I took this summer of using less people – why did we need so many people? But I think it’s also the balance of the corporate involvement. We’ve definitely pumped money from our corporate sponsors back into keeping that price down. It’s challenging.

Bobby: Like I said, the fifty dollars ticket price is not a bad price but personally when I look at how the ticket prices are promoted – particularly for the Calgary show – I’m always slightly annoyed by it. You always have the presale where it’s cheaper if you buy it beforehand. Basically you say if you buy it in the first month tickets are on sale, tickets are twenty-five dollars, if you buy it in the second month it’s thirty-five, if you buy it the third month its forty-five and then the day off is fifty or something around there. But in actuality the way its set up is if you buy it in the first month, its twenty-five dollars plus twenty-five dollars for service fees, for fifty dollars. In the second month, it’s thirty-five dollars plus fifteen dollars of service charges, so fifty dollars. In the third month, its forty-five dollars plus five dollars service charges for fifty dollars. So it always ends up being fifty dollars.

Kevin: Wow. I didn’t know that. I’m going to have to look at that. Because I don’t get involved with the service charges, so I need to look at that.

Bobby: Because I remember I would buy tickets, my friends bought tickets and no matter when you bought it, it was always fifty dollars. So to me, it always felt like a bit of false advertising because it says “buy it now and you save twenty-five bucks.”

Kevin: Well I’m going to go on and try to buy a ticket for Calgary right now and see what comes up. I’m going to check that tonight because that doesn’t sound right to me. It really doesn’t; but I will follow-up I assure you.

Bobby: So do you have any say with what Ticketmaster charges for all the service charges?

Kevin: We argue and we do fight through it. Some venues have additional charges but something just doesn’t sound right with that. I’m going to go look at it.

Bobby: It may not be happening this year but I know in previous cases that always seemed to be the case.

Kevin: I’m gonna go look.

Bobby: I guess another thing is that getting on Warped Tour is a dream for many bands and they try as best as they can to get on it and a lot of times they concoct little schemes to get on it. Like IllScarlett played with a battery powered amp in the parking lot before you noticed them. Animo works as stage crew to get on some of the side stages. What are some of the other ways over the years that bands have tried to get on Warped Tour?

Kevin: I mean they’ve had flat bed trucks in the parking lot. They’ve snuck in through the tents. They get in there; help us set up and then all of sudden come out with their gear. They start helping in catering or something and then next thing I know, someone leaves them on a stage. You have to kind of keep some handle on this but you want to still have some fun. The Warped Tour is still about having fun.

Bobby: This tour has launched some bands over the years. Are there any bands that really stick out in your mind that you remember watching just blow up and grow right in front of your eyes?

Kevin: There’s been a lot. Right now, this summer, you could talk about 3OH!3. They played one show two years ago, they were on a small stage last year and I think their song is number five in the US right now. Watching Paramore, watching My Chemical Romance, watching Kid Rock, watching Sublime, you know? Every year there’s a few bands.

Bobby: I remember one of my friends; she’s loved My Chemical Romance since I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. So when My Chem played Warped Tour, there was like twenty people watching them and then the next year they played Rexall Place. She was just fascinated with how quickly they blew up.

Kevin: Yeah. It goes fast sometimes but it’s fun to be able to do this for so many years. I also think that a lot of fans come and they go and watch the small stages and then all of a sudden they can say “Oh, I saw that band on the Warped Tour.”

Bobby: Yeah, “I saw them before anybody knew who they were” type of thing. A bit of bragging rights.

Kevin: I think a lot of people like to have that bragging right.

Bobby: The face of Warped Tour’s bands has changed a bit over the years. It’s kind of geared towards what teenagers are listening to and what’s popular right now. So Warped Tour has always changed the line-up appropriately. You still have some of the old classic punk bands on there but there are still some bands that occasionally appear on the tour that leaves me wondering “why?” Like you personally approve every band that plays on the tour right?

Kevin: Yep.

Bobby: One band on this year’s tour that surprises the hell out of me is BrokenCYDE. What made you decide to put them on?

Kevin: Controversial.

Bobby: Yes.

Kevin: I like that. That’s what punk rock was all about, being controversial; and I think they’re going to be controversial. It’s fun to see. It’s like Eminem when he was on Warped Tour. He was very controversial but you know what? A lot of people didn’t like him being on the tour but if you think about his career, he wouldn’t have made some fans that maybe just saw him at the Warped Tour.

Bobby: Yeah, he has the cross-over fan base.

Kevin: I was writing about that. If you look at the website I was talking about the band The Millionaires. Very controversial. But I also said in this world, you can’t be a hater all your life. If you don’t like it, go find something you can rally around and make it better. That’s the good thing about the Warped Tour. You don’t have to like bands. There’s so much going on that it’s not mandatory to go see someone. If you don’t like them, you don’t have to go watch them.

Bobby: There are multiple stages so you can always walk over and go see another band.

Kevin: Yeah, go and get a hot dog. Another thing I wrote was “go get a hot dog, go look at a non-profit, watch another band.” That’s really what Warped Tour is about. I don’t mind it. I think there should be a little controversy.

Bobby: Did you ever imagine when you first started it, that the style of the tour would grow and encompass so many subgenres of the punk one? I mean, you had Eminem, you had K-Os, and Katy Perry was one of the biggest draws in Calgary last year. Did you ever imagine that when you first started that it would have such a wide spectrum of bands on it?

Kevin: The funny thing is I booked Katy Perry off her demo tapes. I booked her back in October a year ago.

Bobby: So way before I Kissed A Girl.

Kevin: Way before that single. I just liked it. I heard the demos and I went “this is awesome; she is going to be on Warped.” People went “what?” But she had a great time. That helped her become a good live band.

Bobby: Yeah, with some many bands out there, you have to prove yourself.

Kevin: You have to be a good live band.

Bobby: Otherwise, like you said, people will just wander off and go watch another band.

Kevin: And she’s doing very well on her own with her own touring now. Everyone says her live show is very good and she gives Warped Tour some credit for making her become that live band.

Bobby: Over the years there’s always been some controversy with bands on the tour. Like in 2006 there was the whole Fat Mike/Underoath story and a lot of bands seemed to drop off the tour that year. One reason you explained that was that “some of the more seasoned bands were irked by newer bands with rock-star attitudes, and also that there was some tension between punk bands and Christian groups." How are you able to handle that tension to make sure it doesn’t grow and just blow up in the middle of the tour?

Kevin: Well I think there was that moment in time where some of the older bands were like “hey, who are these young bands? What are they doing on this tour?” But that was that year. Underoath leaving the tour, it got fuelled but they left for many, many other reasons than Fat Mike. Fat Mike. He’s a controversy when you think about. But it also the crews but you know what, now the crews - since that last year - have sort of realized that the Warped Tour is a great place for them too. I was kind of going “look guys, I’ve known you all your life. You can’t come out and be a dick on my tour. If you’re bummed out, don’t take it out on anyone else or guess what? You’ll be leaving.”

Bobby: It’s their choice to come out and do the tour.

Kevin: Yes, it’s their choice but it’s also my choice to not have you out. I don’t think the bands who these people worked for wanted to not be asked to be back on the tour. We’ve been through this a long time together if you think about it. They’ve supported me and I’ve supported them and it’s been great. So we’re not going to let a crew person – and I knew the crew as well as the bands – disrupt the bands. I’m not going to let anyone come out and ruin someone else’s time out there. Ninety-nine percent of the people are having a great time. All through the years, people go “hey, you’re going to have that guy out there? He’s not a very happy person.” But you know what, when ninety-nine percent of the people are pretty happy then you know what, you can go hide in your bus. You’re not going to bum everyone out.

Bobby: One of the things people talk about when they talk about the Warped Tour a lot is how it has changed the summer touring structure, particularly of the punk scene. It used to be so that some bigger bands would go on tours and take a few smaller bands with them and smaller clubs would have good sized shows once or twice a week. Now, a lot of the big bands all go on Warped Tour and all the smaller bands are on there too. They’re in town for one day, which means venues don’t have as many shows to put on and kids don’t have as many shows to go to since it’s all done in one day. Do you think Warped has had an effect like that on the touring scene?

Kevin: I think what they do they do is a lot of people meet out on the road out of the Warped Tour parking lot. A lot of people meet and they decide to tour together. Does that make sense? It’s kind of strange. A lot of people come to me and say “Kevin we can’t go out on the road because Warped Tours around when we need to be out on the road and everyone goes to Warped Tour.” It wasn’t really meant to do that but it was also meant to take some of the traffic off the road and make the scene strong. So maybe the rest of the year’s touring is good for some of these bands. But the music industry is a lot different now where so many people have to be on the road a lot. You know?

Bobby: Yeah, now you don’t get the income from the albums. You always have to be touring and get the income from that.

Kevin: From t-shirts and everything else.

Bobby: That was another question I wanted to ask. I’ve been asked this a lot and heard all kind of comments but for Warped Tour, the bands who are on the side stages and not on the main stages – do they get a per diem or what?

Kevin: Everyone on the Warped Tour’s getting paid and they’re also getting fed. They’re getting fed and they’re getting paid. That’s the funniest thing people wonder. We never take a buy-on. A lot of big rock tours, you can buy your way on that tour. We don’t take buy-ons. I get a little upset when people think that a band’s not taken care of when they’re on Warped Tour.

Bobby: Well, the general rumours that I’ve heard is that when you’re on the side stage, you more make your money by selling your merch and getting your name promoted. You don’t actually get paid. That’s always what I’ve heard anyway.

Kevin: I would argue anyone on that.

Bobby: Okay, well you would be the one who knows which is why I asked.

Kevin: I know what bands get paid out on club tours now as opening bands and smaller stages. Most of them are getting a hundred bucks, a hundred and fifty bucks. Except maybe the Ernie Ball bands and some of the bands who play for one day; they play for free if they come on a local contest but they get to sell their merchandise and they get to keep all their money because there’s no percentage that goes to the tour. They’re making three-hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars.

Bobby: Which is definitely good.

Kevin: Which is okay. It gets you gas to the next city.

Bobby: I want to talk a bit about the Calgary show because even though I’m from Edmonton, I go down to the Calgary show. I was talking to No Use For A Name’s Tony Sly last week and he was saying how Calgary’s always been one of the biggest shows on the tour. But looking at photos or videos, I think that Calgary doesn’t look as big. You were just saying how some of the Canadian cities have gone down a bit over the past few years.

Kevin: Calgary’s actually been very stable. We’ve always done right around eleven, twelve thousand people. It’s been stable. Probably some of the videos you’ve seen are LA or Chicago or Detroit shows. Those are twenty-four thousand.

Bobby: Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. I was like “um, that’s quite a big difference.”

Kevin: But then if you take it in comparison to like Boise, where we do nine thousand. Calgary’s probably right around the average. We average twelve, thirteen thousand people a day. We do have some very big shows and they tend to be the ones in the media markets in North America.

Bobby: Yeah, the big A markets.

Kevin: Yep. But a lot of people fit in that little race track. It looks bigger when you’re sitting up top, up on the stands.

Bobby: Yeah, there’s quite a few people in there. Last year, or the year before, I forget exactly which year it was but when Warped’s routing was announced it was announced that Edmonton would get the show instead of Calgary and then it switched over.

Kevin: Yeah, we were going to go to Edmonton and then the city shut us down. The city wouldn’t give us the permits for that facility.

Bobby: What was it? Sound or?

Kevin: I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t want it. What was it called? Edmonton Place or something?

Bobby: It was Northlands Park.

Kevin: Yeah, we were planning on going there and then all of a sudden they said we couldn’t get the permits to play there.

Bobby: Now, I think at the end of this year the Race City Speedway is closing down.

Kevin: Yeah, it was supposed to close down last year. I thought last year was going to be the last year.

Bobby: Yeah, I heard that too but now its back there. So I’ve heard that now its closing. So what do you think you’re going to do now that Race City is closing?

Kevin: I don’t know. Like when we were going over Toronto, we played four years in a row where it was the last time at Molson Park and then eventually it shut it down. I think the economy has slowed some of the development down. I don’t know. If it closes, then we’ll be forced to find somewhere else.

Bobby: Hopefully by that time Edmonton will give you the permits.

Kevin: Maybe Edmonton will get it. I like those stops. I want to play either Edmonton or Calgary. We tried Saskatoon last year and there’s just not enough people there.

Bobby: I was reading an interview you did last year for the tour and you said something that really stuck out to me and I found kind of interesting. You said “Warped was the best place for twelve to fourteen year olds.” That surprised me because I didn’t really think twelve to fourteen was the target demographic. Is that the target demographic?

Kevin: It’s not the target demographic. Our target is thirteen to twenty-two. But I think it’s a great place where kids can come and experience their first concert. That’s what I think I probably was saying. Where twelve to fourteen is a great place to come and experience music for the first time.

Bobby: Kind of a rite of passage.

Kevin: A rite of passage. We have the parents’ tent where parents can go and fell comfortable letting their kids go in. I think it’s a great place for the first concert versus to one in a club.

Bobby: Of course Warped isn’t the only tour you do. Last year you did the Mayhem Tour and in 2005 you started the Taste of Chaos. What made you decide to branch out and do those? Was Warped just not keeping you busy enough?

Kevin: To be honest, I couldn’t support myself. So I always had to go out and work for someone else and I’m a very bad employee. So I finally said “if I’m going to survive and do this, I have to do something else.” So I started creating the others.

Bobby: You had to have something other than just the Warped Tour.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly.

Bobby: I’ve read that in 2010 you’re going to be starting a new country tour as well.

Kevin: Yeah, I’m really excited about that.

Bobby: Do you have any ideas for a name yet?

Kevin: Round-up.

Bobby: Country is a quite a bit different scene then the punk or metal. So how did you come up with that idea?

Kevin: I worked on Down From The Mountain: Oh Brother, the soundtrack and I did a tour around that. I met all these bluegrass people who were basically punkers from the Appalachians. They don’t get radio; they don’t get a lot of stuff. It was just a natural thing. A lot of people who work on my tours are from Nashville or their families are in country music. I think there’s a lot of country artists with the same mentality of Warped Tour artists back in 1995. Now there’s a lot of people out there touring and working hard and maybe I can pull a bunch of those artists together and get them to work together to play some bigger shows.

Bobby: Every August long week in Camrose, Alberta there’s the Big Valley Jamboree which is a massive country festival. So there’s definitely is the draw. There are enough bands and enough people will want to go see it most likely.

Kevin: Exactly. I’m looking at it as a lot of fun. I always got to keep myself busy. I don’t know maybe I need to learn how to relax a little bit more. I love putting these tours together, I still love music and I’d like to help another scene. I feel like after fifteen years, people do look at it and go… there are people who are not Kevin Lyman fans and that’s okay, but I think a lot of people will give me the respect and say “he’s done something for his scene.”

Bobby: Yeah, you haven’t just sat back and let it pass by. You’ve actually taken a chance and try to bring a new aspect and new event to it.

Kevin: As the music industry is shifting and bands are having more problems because they can’t sell as much music and they have to figure out new ways, maybe I can transfer this knowledge like I felt I did with the metal scene last year a bit. Maybe I can do it again with another scene.

Bobby: I guess there’s one last question. Since this is the anniversary edition of the tour. Fifteen years. What are some of your fondest memories from the past fifteen years of the tour?

Kevin: The storms.

Bobby: The storms?

Kevin: Look at Calgary. Those crazy dust storms.

Bobby: I remember in 2004 with the Tornado warning.

Kevin: Yeah, with the hail storm. I don’t know why but I feel like you’re alive when you’re out on the road. You’re challenged and you’re sitting in a bus and driving down the road. Then you’re hanging out with your friends and you’re working hard and you’re all working hard towards one common goal. I mean, there are a lot of people working hard on Warped Tour. When you see the shows, there are people moving everywhere. It’s good to get people together with one common goal to put on the best possible show that day. Then you get to pack up, hang out, barbecue and go to the next city.

Bobby: And do it all again.

Kevin: Yep.

Bobby: Awesome, I guess that’s about it. Thanks a lot. Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to add?

Kevin: Thank you for your interest. If you’re around out there in Calgary this year, be sure to say hello. I’m always there.