Todd Neal
Monitor Engineer
Bleachers / Anberlin
CHANGEOVER: Talk about who you are and what you do.
My name is Todd Neal and I am primarily a monitor engineer. I do touring and events and all that kind of stuff.
Todd Neal: How did you get into the music industry?
Primarily by playing in bands. I was always the guy that had to put together some kind of sound system based on what little bits and pieces everybody had. I eventually went to Florida to go to Full Sail. I went there and just got under the wing of a few people and started doing clubs and small bars and it snowballed from there.
Where were you when COVID-19 hit and how has that affected your career in the industry?
Everything came to a halt. It affected me the same as everybody else, I suppose. I was not on the road when COVID-19 hit. I was actually home. We finished touring for the year, so I was already home. Everything has been shut down and everybody's been at a halt.
While everything was shut down, what were you doing to stay busy?
I've been doing the Anberlin live streams. With those, I've been doing video, primarily, which is definitely out of the box for me. We had Charlie Izzo working sound and we didn’t need two sound guys. I still wanted to be involved with the band, and I’m very production minded, so I was able to work video for the streams. I'm also a tour manager, production manager, front of house engineer and monitor engineer. I've also been around lighting. I wouldn't call myself a lighting person, but I know some lighting. Other than those live streams, I was working on a couple shows here and there, but it was all pretty small.
Now that the industry is starting to gear up, and tours are being announced left and right, is there anything coming up on your radar that you can talk about going forward?
Yes, actually, we are gearing up. I primarily work for the band Bleachers and we just did Jimmy Fallon. We're getting ready to do Seth Meyers and the new Bleachers album is dropping on July 30th. We have a whole tour cycle coming up from September through November. We're doing some pre-production before that but we're going to be touring pretty hardcore.
How do you feel about everything coming back to life?
It's great. Just seeing all the guys at Fallon was great since we haven't done anything in a year and a half or more. It was awesome to see everybody. It’s crazy how much time has lapsed, but you don't really realize it. Everybody flies in, then you're at the hotel and all this time has passed. Things didn't skip a beat, but at the same time, there was so much time in between. I'm excited. We're all pretty pumped to get back out there.
What is it that you're looking forward to the most once you get back on the road?
The travel and the camaraderie and, more than anything, just doing what I do. I've had to completely just stop doing my career with what I love to do every day and just shift and try and keep busy doing other stuff. Time off has been awesome. I haven't been home for eight months in like 20 years. The time at home and the pause button wasn't all bad. I was able to be at home with my wife and have just a normal life, not a tour life.