Red Hot Chili Peppers - I'm With You - Mobile Production Pro

32 mobile production monthly
RH
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BY MICHAEL A. BECK
What happens when you
reach a place in your career
where a huge chunk of what
you do fails to hold your interest?
such has become the
case with renowned foH audio
engineer Dave Rat.
“Touring has become less interesting to me,”
he told us. “I love starting up tours. I love
getting with the band, getting them dialed
in, getting all the sounds locked, getting
the stage volume together, and getting it all
ramped up. I even like going out for a month
and really establishing the pattern, but after
that, just repeating it over and over again is
just not that interesting to me.”
“I’ve mixed huge gigs and small gigs, and
I’ve transitioned between them. I’ve gone
for multiple systems and multiple vendors.
From the time the show starts to the time it
finishes, I have a blast. It’s the other 21 hours
in the day that are killing me. I’m an entrepreneur.
I’m not a repetitive guy.”
This is not a new dilemma for this veteran
of the road who admits that “just touring”
has not been enough of a challenge for
many years. In the late 90s while on tour
with Rage Against the Machine, he decided
to create web pages. He spent his off hours
on the tour learning HTML. On another
tour he set out to learn welding and brought
his welder out. On yet another tour he
decided to try his hand at writing and wrote
“articles” during his down time. “I’ve always
had some kind of alternate project on tour,”
he explains.
Early this year Dave was on the intellectual
prowl for yet another way to remain stimulated
on the road when the idea of holding
industry related seminars for the public
occurred to him. He explained, “During the
three month break at the beginning of the
DAVe RAT
CReATes ANoTHeR
WoRlD of CHAlleNGe
with “Dave Rat seminar”
year I was asking myself what I was going
to do to keep it fun and different and stay
excited. I came up with doing a seminar on
show days after days off in the cities we’re
playing in.”
The classes, called Dave Rat Seminar, hold
a group of roughly 12 people in meeting
rooms close to the venue. The subject matter
of seminar is both tightly focused and far
reaching at the same time. Dave described
his approach, “I’m trying to pool a unified
theory regarding what we do as sound
engineers in the entertainment industry
and gluing everything together with a
common theme of using cooperation and
conflict. Whether it’s on the largest scale
of promoters and booking agents or lights
and sound and video; all of the departments
working together to find harmony
and create memories that people will never
forget. That’s our purpose in this business
regardless of what area you’re in whether
it’s rock ‘n’ roll, houses of worship, politics
or anything else.”
Beyond those aspects of the project there is
also an element of the seminar that speaks
to the artist on stage. “I talk about keeping
the artist in a state of mind that keeps them
connected with the audience and free from
distraction while they’re on the stage,” Dave
adds.
The Seminar also explains how to assemble
an audio crew with a focus on using specialists
rather than several people who can be
multi-purposed. Finally it drills all the way