Junior Mojica

Credit: Sean Stitt

Stage Manager / Backline Manager

Shoreline Amphitheatre / Toyota Amphitheatre

CHANGEOVER: Tell a bit about who you are and what you do. 

Junior Mojica: My name is Junior Mojica and I'm a freelance music entertainment employee. I started as a stagehand when I was 19 but I kind of talked my way into The Warped Tour. I happened to get into the music industry, and it's amazing that I had that opportunity. It's a huge part of my life and I always talk about it. I always tell people I sound like I'm bullshitting.

Seeing a lot of my friends become parents, I'm still devoid of that. I’m a 41 year old Mexican guy with no babies, and not even accident babies. None of that. I love my immediate family, and I have a couple of cousins that live in the area. Two of them moved to Hollywood in ‘86 or ‘87, and was recently telling them how big of an inspiration they were because of them getting jobs in Hollywood. They were just chefs and worked for catering companies, but they did crazy movies like Drop Dead Fred, Edward Scissorhands and all these big box office hits that I would see as a kid. That put a spark in me. Life on this earth is a blink of an eye so I try live a happy life and touch people's lives. That's really what I think I was put on this earth to do. I don't know to what capacity but if I save a kid's life by telling them that it's not impossible to be from a small town in Oregon and to achieve any goal that you put your mind to, then it’s all worth it.

How did you get into the music industry? 

This is a crazy story. An amphitheater was built not even 10 miles from where I went to school and I didn’t know what an outdoor theater was. I was working odd summer jobs with a friend of mine who was always looking for employment. When the theater was built, I decided to go over there and sell burgers so I could listen to some tunes. At the time I had only been to one concert, believe it or not. I still remember that it was Sevendust, System of a Down and Megadeth at Sacramento State at the football field. Ironically, the people that ran that whole fucking show were the people that would later influence and teach me a lot of stagehand shit that I didn't even know. Bill Graham Presents put on all the big shows around here and those were the people that trained me to be a stagehand.

Credit: Sedition1216 Photography

So I go get a burger job and my friend, who was always looking for work, comes walking out of the backstage gates. I asked him what he was doing and he told me he got a job as a stagehand. He explained that you unload the trucks, you’re told what to do and you’re basically their employee for the day. I told him to hook me up. My first gig was in Oakland at the Coliseum where the Raiders and the A's play. It was *NSYNC and P!NK was opening for them. Holy shit, I've never heard more girls yell in my life. It sounded like banshees. It was really loud and it was an experience. I soaked that in and it took me for a loop. I went to college and signed up for Mass Communication classes and that was it. I kept working shows, around three a week. That's really what got me into it. That first year I worked Warped Tour, there was rap and there was rock and there was this shit I had never heard in my life called pop punk. I was very thrown aback by that and knew I had to be a part of it. I had to be on a tour bus. I didn’t know how I was going to do it but I knew I was going to do it.

I remember working KISS and Aerosmith that year and helping the lighting guy with the LED wall. We were working and I was working so hard. I was a big kid but I've always been pretty agile and good with instruction. I was busting my ass and the guy said, “I don't know why, but you're going to be on the road someday. I don't know what makes me say that but you’ve got spunk.” I don't know why he said that but that's what got me into it and the rest is history.

Let's talk about Warped Tour. What was that like? How did that job come about? 

The first few years I worked as the back line manager, which always worked with the stagehands and most of the techs, who were moving the equipment on and off stage. Everyone thought I was the stage manager. My friend that was the stage manager would just tell everybody that I was the stage manager and it just kind of took on this life that everyone thought I was the stage manager. I was into treating people with respect and kindness and I didn’t care who you were. It was crazy. I’m a stickler and it was always so hot out there, and I didn't have the privilege of going back to my bus after my 30 or 35 minute sets. I would just kill everyone with kindness and make everyone laugh and have a good time.

When I was a kid, I used to pick fruit with my parents. Believe it or not, I would be picking prunes and peaches like migrant workers. My parents weren’t illegal. My mom was born in Houston and my father’s dad came over here in the 20’s and picked fruit. They gave him privileges and that gave him a legal status or a green card. I was brought up super humble and I took that with me on the road. It was an experience I'll never take for granted.

Credit: Sean Stitt

I get emotional, but it's crazy. It's true. I could have been so many things outside of living on the bus. I grew up around a lot of gang members and it’s crazy to have that contrast. Being on tour, you meet people that have piercings everywhere and are tattooed from head to toe. I think they're such colorful people because their soul is colorful. They're wonderful people that may have been through harder experiences in life than most, and they always turn out to be the nicest people. Like I said, it's an experience that I’ve never taken for granted.

I’m thankful for being given the opportunity and I ran with it. I worked so hard. I had two heatstrokes and I stabbed the shit out of my leg in Utah one time. I had a friend come visit me in Vegas and she passed out right after she shook my hand because she had been drinking all night and it was 100 degrees out there. I’ve got so many stories. I got to travel everywhere. I brought up the migrant farmworker thing because I was already used to sleeping in a moving vehicle. When I got a mattress, a blanket and a pillow to add to that, I was like, “oh, shit, my own space. I will sleep like a baby.”

There are so many variables as to why people travel and why they work in the music industry. It's a very small circle. Everybody knows everybody in some way, shape or form. Everybody's a friend to someone else’s friend. It's an amazing experience being on the road. It's a lot of sacrifice. You might lose friends, girlfriends, wives. I don't know how to put it. It's like losing weight, like you have to sacrifice eating all that good tasting food for a result. At the end of the day, when you get that result, you can splurge a little bit and eat that shitty food once in a while. If you do it constantly, it's just going to put you in a shitty spot. There's a balance. In life, you’ve got to find your balance and know what it is, where it is and what direction you want to go. Take those leaps of faith when they present themselves.

What were you doing in the industry pre-COVID and how did it affect your job? 

I was living in San Francisco. I was doing production assistant stuff, artist check-in, production runner stuff, catering runner stuff. I was working steady hours and just helping out with whatever show was in town. That's really what I was mostly doing. Then I was going to take some time at the beginning of the year to do Coachella. I was going to do about a month over there. I was going to do a couple of festivals - one in Ohio and one in Michigan. I was doing festies, working local and just helping out in the music industry where I could. I don't know what capacity they're going to need people when concerts come back.

Credit: Sean Stitt

In 2007, I learned how to tattoo. A good friend of mine was in the Air Force and when he got out, he apprenticed and learned how to tattoo and then I was his apprentice. I've been doing that off and on since 2008, and I started heavily getting back into it in June. Restrictions weren’t as heavy over here in the North Valley as they were in the big cities. So I've been doing that and it really has sparked a whole new breath of fresh air in me.

What sound do you miss the most from working in the live music industry, for example, the chirp of a radio?

Oh my God. I don't know if it's a sound. Maybe it's just being able to see old friends on tour. I really miss that. I miss everything about it. Rekindling the concert flame is going to be a weird one. People get weird in public nowadays. People are like, “wash your hands. Wear your mask. Stay 9 feet away from me.” I sometimes feel like I have fucking pus crawling out of my ears. I get taking a step towards safety but don't take it so far that people don't feel like humans anymore. We're resilient. We're like cockroaches. We’ve been around for a long time and have definitely survived a lot of shit.