Christian Hindley

Head of Automation

Chris Young

CHANGEOVER: Tell us a bit about who you are, where you're from and your history in the music industry.

Christian Hindley: My name is Christian Hindley. I'm 41 and was born in England. I moved to the States when I was 14 years old. My parents were always playing music. My mother was a bass player. There was a lot of growing up around music. Then I played drums for twenty plus years, I was a bass player, all that kind of crap. I just couldn't imagine the thought of getting into a job where you need to take breaks and just all that kind of stuff so I went to the Full Sail school in Orlando, Florida. After that, I went on cruise ships because I thought it would be sweet to pay off college debt until I realized that you make no money to pay off any debt. I worked on Royal Caribbean for five years and designed a lot of their shows. After I left there, I went to a show called Walking with Dinosaurs. This is where I started automation. I basically trained under a guy who was a most unique type of roadie. It was mind blowing. When I did this show, I really got hooked on automation.

When I went to school, I was studying for audio and I did that for a long time. I did sound for a lot of bands and acts in addition to when I was on cruise ships. I got to do Dave Matthews and the Dave Matthews and Friends stuff. With audio, I hated the opinions and in automation there’s no opinions. If it doesn't work, and if you don't know what you're doing, something's coming crashing down, which isn't good. I like the fact that people can't just bullshit their way through my field. After I left Walking with Dinosaurs, I worked with Carrie Underwood, then on to Kenny Chesney and then left that.

I was hired by a guy named Jake Berry. He does a lot of the bigger tour production management shit. He recommended me for the Olympics and I ended up getting hired. I ran the Olympics in Russia in 2014 and then ran the Paralympics immediately following. After those events, I worked for a show called Marvel Universe Live!, which being the guy that ran the Olympics, sold ourselves - Rich and I - as a package deal since we got along so well and it was a two operator show. I was the crew chief and head of automation for that for three years. That tour stopped because they were taking it to Europe so I let go of that tour, even though everyone said I was stupid because you could make so much money there. It isn't about money for me. It's more about the memories.

After I left the Marvel tour, I went to Azerbaijan where I ran and organized a lot of the Islamic Solidarity Games. It's kind of like the Olympics, but it's for the Islam people because there's stuff that women can't wear in certain sports. I never knew all this shit. I lived over there in this place that was the worst place on the planet. If you look at the Caspian Sea, it's on the left hand side. On the right hand side is a place called Kazakhstan, which is the place the Borat guy is always talking about. So I went there and did the Azerbaijan games. After I left that job, I took some time off then went to Hall and Oates for their last tour then went on to Chris Young. His is the best kind of camp that I've been with. I get along with anyone. I'm not really much of a roadie but I just get along with people so it's kind of an easy job. It's weird because I do not listen to country music, and I can't stand country music, but I would much rather work that. I almost had a chance to go out with the band Ghost, but the automation they were using got canceled. I was just like, “holy shit.” That would be just 41 years old hilarious to me. So that's pretty much my upbringing.

Explain what automation is and how you got introduced to this particular job.

Let's say you watch the Super Bowl. Think of when Pink was on it and she was climbing up the wall. When you think about it, you’ve got sound, you've got lights and you've got the rigging stuff. When you start seeing stuff moving, that's the automation. The lights can be moving and doing all their funny stuff but if they're attached to truss and it's moving, that’s the automation. If someone's flying, that's the automation. If the LED screens are moving in the background, that’s automation. It's basically using software to control different items, motors and stuff, where you can manipulate the speeds of the motors therefore, moving stuff to make it look good for a show.

I was doing sound on the ship Explorer of the Seas. It was a huge cruise ship. At this point in my life, everyone was drinking on cruise ships. I was over it and it wasn’t fun anymore. One day I shot my buddy Carter [Baynham] an email and his assistant had quit that day. It was just a shot in the dark and he was like, “well, you've got no experience. I'll give you a shot.” I busted my ass for this guy for a good two years straight. Learning the stuff took me a long time. It's not like audio. It's not like lighting. If the microphone is not working, the first thing you do is go to the board and make sure the fader is up and the pre-amp is up and the microphone is on. With automation, every system is different. It's a lot more challenging to me.

How has COVID-19 affected your job in the industry?

I finished Chris's tour on November 27th of last year. Since then it's been dead. I planned to go on tour with them in June and our tour manager said that nothing's happening. We waited until the last minute to see. As you and I and everyone else kind of knows, it is what it is. It's completely cut off work for me. Usually, my life would be doing the tours I'm on, and then I would go home and do my thing. Now I just 100% do my thing. As far as changing my life, I just haven't worked. I spend 24 hours a day with my dog, a black lab. We go to like five parks a day. I record music and play drums for spare time. When everyone else was partying and getting completely shit-faced on tour, I was paying off my debt and saving money. I was completely being a nerd about it. Financially, this hasn't had too much of a hit on me, which has allowed me to relax and sit around for a bit. But, it's completely cut my work off. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Let's back up and talk about the Olympics. What was that experience like?

There's an English guy named Rich Perkin who’s a good friend of mine that does a lot of work with me. Most of the shows we do have two operators. You have one person running a desk, or a console, backstage. What that person is doing, usually Rich, is getting all of the stuff that's going to be hanging around ready. It can be any kind of movement that’s going to make the show move and bring scenery out, which could be trolleys, or mechanical winches and all that kind of stuff. He will sit backstage and load all the stuff and get the performers loaded before they fly. Meanwhile, I’m working front of house and he’ll let me know because I can't see the guys backstage. He'll let me know when everything's good to go and clear to fly. I always run the front of the house at the shows.

The Olympics was forty-five days of just straight rehearsals for, what, two and a half hours? It was ridiculous. During the show there were sixteen columns that went up for the ballet dance part. On this show, there was something like 250 separate moving things. It was ridiculous. You're in another country and it's Russia, too. It was insane. Nothing was finished. It was a mess. It was an absolute shit show. We rehearsed this stuff over and over and over for the columns and it was just extremely complicated stuff. The only time it ever worked fine was during the show once and that was it. It never worked fine in rehearsals. It worked out once and that was for the opening ceremonies.

We had machine gun guys on the side of the street and shit. When Putin came, he came to visit the whole place. The day before we did the the actual opening ceremony, Putin drove by with all these guys. It was crazy because it was around sixteen Mercedes Benz and they all looked exactly the same with the same tags and everything. It was insane stuff. It was like being in another world. The food was fucking horrible. I hate to complain about food, because a lot of people don't get to eat, but it was horrible. They had this purple shit that they put in everything. I still have no idea what it was.

I worked with Show Canada when I was there and I worked with some of the best engineers. Me and Rich were the youngest people and it was easy for them to get us to do a show in Russia. Rich is English as well, but he lives in America. It was easy to get me and Rich as English dudes to fly over there and do it rather than get American guys because something about Russia and America just isn't happening yet. They ended up getting a hold of me through Jake Berry. It was me and Rich running all of the stuff for Show Canada. We were under the stage. I was under one side of stage and he was on the other side. It was insane because underneath the stage is the rest of all the employees of Show Canada. They're kind of waiting on you because they're all engineers. It's not like Broadway shows. These are guys that assemble ridiculously huge winches for factories and all this different shit. It was one of the best experiences I've had. I was there for almost six months and could not wait to get home.

What do you miss most about the industry?

I miss my family there. I miss the Chris Young people. I miss catering. That sounds horrible. I just love cheese so I eat that shit on the bus. When I used to drink, I’m currently 600 days sober, I would get wasted and there would be little sprinkles of shredded cheese in the bus lounge from where I had my horrible night. I miss stuff like that. I miss the people. I miss the feeling when load out is done and the next day you're going back to the bus. I just miss all of that. I can't even explain those feelings. I miss the feeling of the stress of wondering if the LED wall is going to move correctly and if it's going to do what it's supposed to do. I miss the stress of ‘am I going to have to get out of a situation’ because it's kind of what I feed on. That's why I like the automation stuff. If stuff breaks, I feed on that. I miss my friends. I miss the vibe around tour. I miss running shows. That's what I do best.

What do you feel is the future of the industry?

I go both ways on that. I think it's going to go back to normal. I think for now, the virtual stuff is a good band-aid but it's hard for me to tell opinion-wise on what I think is going to happen. I would say that the whole thing about a concert is that it's an experience. It’s everything when you go there. It's the shitty chicken tenders and the shitty beers and the amazing rednecks behind you throwing shit. It's all that. Anybody can watch a show from TV at home but I don't see that doing well. I think eventually it's going to start back up. You can't have another whole year of no shows. I don't see that happening because, eventually, what are you going to do?

There's a bunch of riggers that are extremely incredible and there are some that are just phenomenal. What if those guys have to find other work? Automation operators are extremely limited anyway. If me and a handful of my friends stop doing it there won't be anyone and you would have to send someone out who had no idea what they were doing. You would have accidents left and right.

Short answer though, I think we will get back to normal. I think we'll go through the holidays. It'll start next year. I think there's going to be a decision where it’s going to have to be all or none and I think it'll get back to normal. If no one's touring, and then everyone starts touring, who do you go see? It's such a screwed up situation. I miss working. Touring is the only thing that I can do where I don't look at my watch. It's the only place where it feels like home.

What do you feel is some of the best advice you've ever gotten?

Best advice in my field that I've ever gotten was from Carter. Well, two things. Two of his quotes. He said, “don't ever press the button unless you know exactly what the button is going to do.” The second quote always stuck to me. If I ever did anything wrong, I'd say I'm sorry. He would tell me, “don't say sorry, do better.” That was just something that always stuck in my head. He would always put it in my head that it's easy to get new information and you just have to put the effort in.

As far as advice I've ever been given it would be from my mom. She’s kind of my best friend, and my idol, and she says “nothing is permanent.” No matter how bad your situation is, no matter how good your situation is, nothing is permanent. Enjoy every single day.

Lastly, I would like to send a thank you to the following people: Emma, Mum and Henry, Damian and Liam, Carter, Rich, Nick Varga and Michele Maglich.

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