Anthony Paterno
Photo Credit: Kevin Rodriguez
Tour Manager/Front of House Audio Engineer
Current Artist: Two Feet
CHANGEOVER: Tell us a little about who you are, where you’re from and your history in the industry.
Anthony Paterno: My name is Anthony Paterno and I’m a tour manager/front of house audio engineer. I've been on the road in the music industry since 2005. I've been in music venues since 2003 and I'm 35 years old. Currently, like most people in the industry, I have been unemployed since March. I live in New York city - born and raised. Currently I've been working for the artist Two Feet. I've been with him for just over three years. I've been with him since day one that he's been on the road and I've been tour manager and front of house for him. Past clients, or bands I've worked for, include Finch and an artist named MAX. That would probably be the gist of my last five or six years. Then obviously a bunch of one offs here and there. I also do backstage managing for Coachella. I also work at Webster Hall and Brooklyn Steel in New York City.
How has COVID-19 affected your plans in the industry?
We literally were out with Two Feet on March 11th and had a show. On March 12th the news started to come through and we immediately went back home to New York. We weren't sure if airports were going to shut down or what was going to happen. The radio station that we were supposed to do the show for also agreed that the show would be canceled. We came home and took it day by day by day. We sadly figured it out, whether you wanted to or not.
I was home for about a month before I got called, which is such a New York thing. I got a call and I had two hours to decide if I wanted a job, which I didn't know was going to run me almost three months after said phone call. I was at that job almost three months - it was at the makeshift morgue that was set up in Brooklyn at Sunset Park.
Photo Credit: Anthony Paterno
Can you talk about that? That must have been crazy.
I worked for an event production company that obviously didn't have normal work. They got a phone call to do some very basic site ops kind of stuff. Right now everyone is just looking for any kind of work they can get. They needed people, but obviously when they found out about the job everything was still pretty vague. I got a call that Monday around 6:00 PM and it was “can you be here at 8:00 PM for graveyard shift, 12 hours?” I was like, “yeah, I can be there.” I did graveyards for almost three months out there. We were responsible for checking the site, making sure it was clean - whether it was garbage or fencing - stuff that would typically be at a festival site. Then lo and behold, we started doing data point entries. They had what they called “reefers,” which are refrigerated trucks, which is what bodies were put into. We had to make sure that the reefers stayed at the approximate temperature for the bodies to stay cold so that the doctors could process them and get them out to the funeral homes and the families as they came to collect.
That's insane. This is all related to COVID-19?
Yes. So basically all bodies that came from hospitals, or morgues that were running out of room, all came to our facility to get processed by professionals within the medical field. The company I was with did not do anything with that - it was all medical professionals. We were just there to assist with small stuff, but it was on-site. It was a COVID dedicated site. It was a National Guard medical facility operation and was as professional as you could imagine in something that was built very quickly to accommodate so many bodies.
That must've been pretty scary to witness.
When we started, we didn't really know what we were getting into and, unfortunately knowing how the music business is going, we kind of jumped on it because how did we know? I didn't know it was going to be three months. It could have been two weeks. It could have been anything. We were just trying to get something. At first the precautions were very, very extreme and everyone was wearing double masks and gloves and the whole nine yards. Then you learn improper procedures and you learn what really does work, what doesn't work and what we're guilty of, even understanding the situation. For instance, gloves are, at this point in my honest opinion, useless unless you truly know how to wear them.
I know that sounds so basic but it really is shocking because people don't understand that if you touch something and then you touch your phone now it's cross-contaminated. Now you would have to put on a new pair of gloves immediately and you’d have to sanitize your phone and that's just not happening. When people go grocery shopping, they touch everything and they touch their phone and they touch their keys and they touch a credit card they paid with and they never change gloves. You literally would have to change gloves constantly.
Then, on top of that, there’s waste. Obviously people are guilty of putting gloves on the floor. They're not throwing them in the garbage. Then you're dealing with an entirely different problem that is not necessary. We were definitely staying safe with masks. We had proper PPE that was distributed. It was as safe as it was going to get in New York dealing with what we were dealing with.
Are you done with that job?
As of right now, it is a done job. Unfortunately, there's a lot of spikes so who knows what will happen. There's a chance that the site could open again to jobs like ours, but there still are medical people there in built facilities but it's on a much smaller level, which is great. Considering at our peak, there were so many bodies that were being refrigerated and if it comes back, I'm sure we would go back because we already know the process. Some of the other States that you see right now that are having insane amounts in one day, granted those aren't all deaths - those are just cases, but sadly you don't know how many of those cases will lead to something else.
We are currently back to unemployment just like 99.9% of the people in the entertainment industry. Living in New York City, Broadway is done until January 3rd officially. There are no tours. The one or two shows that are popping up in the South are getting ridiculed by most of the people in the entertainment business because everyone wants to go back to work. Rightfully so, but unfortunately we are A/C and we're not heat. We are a luxury and not a necessity.
Granted, someone can argue that, and that's totally fine and I respect it, but that's just the reality of it. We are the entertainment. We're not the garbage guys and we’re not public transportation that's needed every day. So we are the last ones. We’re the first ones that were shut down and we'll be the last ones back. It’s reality.
What do you feel is the future of the industry?
I've had this conversation a few times and I think there are actually some good ideas that could help. They would help crew and band. It really is the promoters that'll probably drag their feet with it, but it really comes down to “do you want to stay closed or do you want to make money? What do you ultimately want to do?” One of those is that we usually come into town, set up a show that day, unless it's an insane amount of production for an arena or stadium, in which you would go maybe a day before. You're talking like Rolling Stones or Metallica. There are obviously a few days, or almost a week in some places, and they have an A, a B, and maybe even a C rig. For all the bands that are on the club circuit, the reality is similar to when the Great White thing happened in the early 2000’s.
They went back through and they had to redo fire codes. They changed how many occupants could be in a room. A room could hold 2,500, but based on new rules, all of a sudden that room was 2,000 capacity. That's kind of what I feel like is going to happen again. They're going to go back through with health and safety, and they're going to go back through with the fire department. They're going to come up with new things and from those new things, you're going to have a new occupancy. You're going to basically get something that’s 1,500 might now, sadly, be 900 capacity. We don't know. This is unprecedented and it's not something we've dealt with before.
So to kind of counter that, I think what bands need to do is that as long as you have a decent following, and by that I'm not talking arenas, but if you have a decent following as a club band you probably are going to start negotiating to do two or three nights in a city instead of one and go, which also helps crew for setup. It also helps for the crowd because if you have a demand of 2,500 people and only 800 can come in, well, with three nights you're at 2,400. They make the money at the bars and they have three consistent nights of guaranteed shows. You have three shows, your crew is not as tired because, let's be real, we don't have normal lives. The hours that we choose to work are not normal and daily regimen is not normal. You're sleeping on cases half the time.
I think it can work really well. It really just comes down to what is going to be offered as far as guarantees and if there's going to be incentives for sellouts. For bigger shows, I would think the same thing. If they're going to play an arena, then it's the same deal. It's just on a bigger scale. You space them out so instead of 20,000 you're doing 10,000 and you do two nights. Unfortunately, that would be harder with anywhere that has sports teams attached to the arena but who knows. Some bands might not want to do anything that big. Maybe they don't like the idea of that many people and that many chances of catching something.
Photo Credit: Kevin Rodriguez
What is the greatest piece of advice you've ever been given, and this can be related to your life or it could be related to the industry. Just the greatest piece of advice you've ever been given.
The best piece of advice I was ever given is so not PC so I don't know if we want to go there. I will say that people don't realize that a lot of times you'll get jobs based on personality and not about your skill set. It's great that you do know a talent within lighting, audio, tour managing, but a lot of times people forget you're with people for 24 hours a day. You're only really doing the show for about an hour, hour and a half a day. So it's set up and then you're sitting around. Do you want to be stuck with someone for all those extra hours a day, seven days a week on a bus, in a van, on a flight with people that you don't want to tolerate?
So I will say that who you know is definitely a thing that's super important, especially when you're young and trying to get into the industry. Other than that, one of the best things I've ever learned is to be humble and to eat that humble pie when it comes to you, because you're not always right and you're never going to always be right. I still have so much to learn. I have amazing people that are in my corner that are above me and do things I can only imagine. Whenever I need to talk to them, they have an ear and will give me the best advice they can. I appreciate that so much. They checked on me while I was doing this job, making sure I was good, especially being in New York City.
I would definitely say to be humble and understand that you don't know everything and to keep your ears open. Just listen and observe. You never know what you can pick up, especially now. I think a lot of people are realizing that you have to learn other jobs, and not even in this industry, just in general. There are so many people out there that concentrated on merchandising or they concentrated only on audio or lighting. Now they realize there's a lot of these online shows going on and people have to learn video and editing and so many different variables that you just weren't ready for, or you didn't think was going to be your job. Now, in order to survive, you're going to have to be even more multifaceted as we move forward.