Charlie Bybee

Credit: Craig Mitchell

Tour Manager / Monitor Engineer

5 Seconds of Summer / Rise Against / Trivium

CHANGEOVER: Let’s begin by talking a bit about who you are and what you do. 

Charlie Bybee: I've been touring since around 2009, mainly as an audio engineer, however I’ve been more of a monitor engineer than anything else these days. Over the course of that time, I’ve tour managed at smaller levels and production managed at larger levels. That's the base of my experience.

How did you get into the music industry? 

I grew up in Southern California so I was surrounded by a lot of talented friends who were in a lot of different bands. I was never as talented as them. While all of my friends were writing and recording music, I was hanging out and finding things I could do around them since I was not able to play. I had a friend that had a small Pro Tools rig at his house and was recording demos. As he slowly grew bored by it, I kind of took over and would record my friends bands. As they would start to play locally I would go with them, since I had recorded their demos, and would make an attempt at doing sound. Some nights it would go and some nights it wouldn’t. Over time, that evolved into doing more live and recorded sound. 

Credit: Thomas Falcone

How did you get involved in tour managing? 

I started mainly with a lot of van bands doing 200 to 400 people a night shows, if that. I mainly just fell into it. Most bands that size, after a merch person, has a sound guy as their first real person on payroll. It was more of being the only adult in the room. I wasn't really in charge. I had no real clue what tour managing was, but I was more like the one responsible employee. All of a sudden I was the one figuring out how to get paid at the end of the night. I ended up being the one to hold on to the money, wake people up when it was time to leave, and had a slow progression into tour managing. 

Who were you working for pre-COVID and how did COVID-19 affect your job? 

Pre-COVID I was juggling a few different acts: Rise Against, 5 Seconds of Summer and Trivium. In theory I’m still employed by all three of those bands but there just hasn't been much going on. Once we end up in post-COVID, hopefully I'll return to working for one, if not all, of them. All of those bands, besides 5 Seconds of Summer, have found a way to do something throughout this, with random live streams and stuff like that. In late summer, early fall, I was doing a little bit of the logistics for that but most of that has dried up. I really haven't done much since October.

What have you been doing with your time while the industry is basically nonexistent? 

It's been a mix of productive and unproductive activities. I live in Nashville, and my girlfriend lives right outside of Miami, so I've been splitting my time between those two places. Half of the time when I'm down there, I'm mainly doing nothing but spending time and hanging out with her, so it’s debatable whether that's productive or unproductive. Things have changed slightly because pre-COVID it was pretty easy to maintain the relationship since I could fly in and out whenever I wanted. Now it takes a little bit more planning. She has elderly family members that live with her so I can't just go there on a whim.

Credit: Adam Elmakias

As far as work and skill set stuff, occasionally I'll get console's parked in my house and I’ll mix old shows to try to keep my chops up. I may do what few audio classes online I can find to stay sharp a bit, but I'm definitely not doing that all the time. Every three weeks is a different cycle, with working on the house, reading books, watching movies and then another three weeks of just being lazy and doing nothing. It's been a mix.

To wrap up, what sounds do you miss the most from tour, for example, the sound of the bus door closing or the chirp of a radio. 

The engine running at night has always been a calming feeling. As bizarre as it sounds, the thing I miss the most is just the mundane, boring travel. It's one thing to travel to places on purpose, but when you're traveling in a vacation mindset, or going to a place specifically for going to that place, you're typically going the whole time and your day is filled with activities. You want to make the most out of it because you spent all this money on this trip. The one part of traveling I really enjoy about touring is that there's no real pressure to make wherever you're at an event. For example, with a day off, I really miss being in a random place with nothing to do but killing time. You don't really feel guilty just walking around, getting a coffee and literally just doing nothing in a place you've never been. I miss that part of it. Obviously, I could still do that but I've noticed that when I take vacations with my girlfriend, the time is a bit too precious to waste by walking around and doing nothing. I miss having a day off in a random city with no real desire to do anything. I may have been there a few times but I miss getting excited about walking around the streets and being lost, without having a reason to do anything.