- 3 months ago
For decades, Warped Tour was a proving ground for punk, emo, and alt-rock artists – and an annual place where those fan communities could gather. In 2025, six years after Warped wrapped its initial 25-year run, the festival returned with three two-day events in California, Florida, and Washington, D.C. Here, Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman, Vans executive Steve Van Doren, Honey Revenge's Devin Papadol, and Pennywise's Fletcher Dragge look back on the event's legacy – and why it remains a touchstone today. Moderated by: Taylor Mims.
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us after lunch. My name is Taylor Mims. I'm a
00:05senior editor at Billboard and I'll just introduce our panel real quick. On the far end of the stool
00:11we have Kevin Lyman who we're all here. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. We have Steve over here
00:20from Vans. Thank you very much. Fletcher right here from Pennywise. And Devin from Honey Revenge.
00:34Thank you all for joining us and we'll get started with you Kevin. You are being honored with the
00:40Visionary Award. I think when you called me I thought it was maybe the 64 under 65 now. I
00:46finally made the list. It's about time you know. Yes eventually it gets around to it. Thank you.
00:53So obviously it's for the Warped Tour and I'm curious what your vision was you know 30 years
01:01ago when you were starting the Warped Tour. Well as we was trying to bring this community together I
01:05was working in the clubs of Los Angeles up to like 320 shows a year. Then being the first stage
01:09manager Lollapalooza as a touring festival and getting to work around all these bands that we
01:14weren't there was no radio for them. There was no home they were on indie record labels and I thought
01:18maybe if we you know it's action sports was sports and music. I was doing a lot of events for charity
01:24with a board aid boarding for breast cancer these type of events and had heard something called the
01:28X Games was coming and I said the stuff we were doing in California was going to become people are
01:34going to know about this sports and music and some of these bands so maybe I got to go have to go try
01:38something one last time in the music industry. Literally it was going to be the last thing I did in the
01:42music industry because I thought maybe it was time to get that real job where you got a paycheck every
01:46once in a while. So no real job this this this is your last job in the music industry.
01:54You never say never. I thought I was done five years ago. Well at the time that you were starting
02:01Warped there were a lot of other touring festivals it was kind of a thing that was going on in the 90s
02:06there was Lilith Fair there was Horde there was Lollapalooza like you said which was originally a touring
02:11festival. Why do you think Warped outlasted all of them? I mean I think it was it was a community
02:17it really was it was this community of bands you know when we invited Fletcher here he was on the
02:22second year and he's one of those people that you know would come back every couple years and and
02:26those bands all knew sometimes it wasn't about their individual finances to bring the whole scene
02:31of music along with each other. I mean bringing in the non-profits and the labels and it takes the
02:37whole community to make Warped and uh that was a big you know my my worry coming back after five
02:42years and bringing it back but when I made that arrangement with Insomniac they said look Kevin
02:46you know you take your vision the way you want to do it and uh really I think we did a pretty good
02:53job that it felt like Warped Tour when you walk through the doors. We had the skate ramps we had the
02:58Warped museums we had 25 non-profits we had label tents every band had their own merch all we had were
03:03bigger stages lights and video we had it but it felt like a community that you were having your
03:09own adventure into that show and then bring it back at the ticket price we did I I think I wanted
03:13to prove that it could be done that you could do a festival at a price like that. Yeah and for anyone
03:18who's not familiar this year 2025 Warped Return for its 30th anniversary and yeah
03:25not a lot of things in uh the lives sphere uh last that long 30 years so it's very impressive
03:34but like we said also there's a lot of touring festivals that either called it quits or stopped
03:39the touring model I'm curious what was so appealing about the touring model for you and why didn't you
03:45just be stationary in one city? We had to bring the show to the fans you know it was always about
03:50trying to get people out to their first festival you know having this having the end having the show
03:54end by sunset was a big part of it too because you know to me 90 percent of the problems were caused
04:00by 10 percent of the people under cover of darkness at shows so if we could bring it into the sunshine
04:05we eliminated some of the problems we had maybe of certain things that in punk rock but it gave
04:11people a chance to listen to the music and really observe but I felt we had and we had to bring it to
04:15them you know everything we did from you know parents getting free the reverse daycare center
04:20all these things I developed were how to get these young people turned on to this music at a younger
04:25age so they can they may stay with us I always said they stayed with us until they were 19 and then
04:30they wanted to go to a festival and burn up their student loans and do modeling in the desert you know
04:35it was like you know but Warped Tour was about you know turned into a pretty safe environment and I think
04:41even coming back this time a lot of questions were asked like you know I'm working with different
04:45produced people around me now and the first day the security had like handcuffs zip ties and I say
04:51you're not going to need those at Warped Tour we know how to regulate ourselves with our community
04:55monitors itself and the second day I never saw them they left them in there they didn't need things
04:59like that at Warped Tour I think we had one a jet one arrest and one ejection in two days in Long
05:05Beach 80,000 people a day really incredible and I mean for each Warped Tour like you said you kept
05:12the tickets really cheap for this 30th anniversary and you sold out all three editions yeah it was
05:19you know it was cool because with Insomniac I had done all my budgets and monitored how we could do the
05:24show and I think I came up with a $169 price for the two-day festival and literally Pasquale and
05:31Dee and Cam I sat with them and they said you know Kevin I think you can do it for $149 I've never had
05:36a promoting partner or anyone an agent anyone sit there and can we do it cheaper and I'm always about
05:42doing things cheaper and to do it at $149 I think we brought for me it was bringing fans back because
05:48I teach full-time at USC I teach five classes and I was finding that live music wasn't that important
05:53to these people as embedded in fans one because the pandemic and to the price point and I thought
05:59during this time and with this disruption in society it wasn't just it wasn't really the 30th
06:03anniversary just timed right I said there's a disruption in society where we don't have
06:08community people are looking for community and they need a place to gather so I just felt it was time
06:14it was my students encouraged me as much and then worked out great with Insomniac giving me kind of
06:19the the reins to kind of do the show I wanted to do it again and now it's really fun and you know
06:24we're adding international dates next year and we're it's so far I'm having a great time and if
06:29I don't I'll just leave again people that people actually said nice things about me it was really
06:34weird coming back this year I never heard I thought I was having a memorial all year people were saying
06:38oh we missed him so it's great thank you this award doesn't count right that's you expected that
06:44uh Fletcher you've I don't know what the record is for the most
06:50one act has played Penny uh has played Warped Tour but Pennywise has got to be up there
06:56probably we're probably we could be the number one holder of that position
07:01I think that might be I mean you started in year two
07:04why do you keep coming back
07:07there's so many reasons but I mean like Kevin said the sense of community uh at that point like I
07:17don't think we'd even played a festival as far as Pennywise is concerned we're you know playing
07:22clubs and touring around doing the thing with a couple bands but getting out there and having all
07:26your friends all like-minded bands or a couple bands you didn't know making uh relationships like
07:34he really ran it like a punk rock show and it was like now playing everything from
07:40Coachella no we haven't played that right we're not allowed there um but like all the biggest
07:46festival in the world world from Reading to like blah blah blah um it's definitely the loosest festival
07:52it's the easiest one to sneak backstage and wind up on the Pennywise bus and so it always felt like
07:59besides the crew members and Steve Kevin all the stage guys all just everybody catering people
08:06on our bus after dinner smoking weed drinking beer like it was a family and then you had all your
08:13bands that were out there that were basically family and then you had new bencher meeting
08:18so it was basically I would describe it as like I never went to summer camp but it was the best
08:22summer camp on the planet so why wouldn't you go do what you love to do play music and hang out with
08:28the coolest people and do the coolest shit Kevin and these guys would Steve would always arrange
08:33like off days like river trips or wherever you were like and everyone would come like all crew all
08:38bands it was just completely undeniably some of the best times of my life so it was like a no-brainer
08:45you want to come yes 10 years later now you want to come yes I was going to say Kevin was was there
08:52any doubt in your mind that Pennywise would be one of the bands for the 30th edition absolutely not
08:56when we ended the the touring part of that in 2018 we did those one-offs in 2019 I was figuring out
09:04where we would end and I was wanted Fletcher and Pennywise to close with bro him and we were West
09:10Palm Beach but then another band called Every Time I Die tried to fight it out on another stage and
09:15they extended their set and played but I wanted the last song because it was so important and everyone
09:20on stage and Daryl Eaton was what was my partner on that from CA and he was on stage singing with you
09:25know no one would expect Daryl singing along with a band but he was and it was just a great way to kind
09:31of end and it was really it was all you know you don't get emotional in punk rock you're not allowed
09:34to but it was like we all walked back off stage and we were kind of hugging high-fiving and start
09:38you were crying up there it was it was raining on us so uh it was great and then of course coming back
09:46I was like very much like I was not going to be bring back a nostalgia show I was going to pay homage
09:51to the past of what tour's roots were but I have to look forward to the future of bands and community
09:57and one of those bands was it was Honey Revenge that I there's so many great young bands and I have
10:01another little tour called Summer School that goes around and it was very on the roots of Warped Tour
10:06this will be the third year and sitting and watching them play I didn't I didn't go out for very long
10:11because I had to ride around in a bandwagon and my body wouldn't take it anymore but I'm watching
10:16the energy of these bands I met Devin and the other bands Magnolia Park Home Team and some of the other
10:21artists on that but then walking out the front door and seeing those same type of kids sitting there
10:27at 10 noon waiting for doors at three not knowing what time the bands are going to play
10:32exchanging community just talking to each other we've lost that ability so you know now I'm investing
10:39in some of these younger bands that I want to become the new headliners at one point if we we don't
10:44really call them headliners at Warped Tour you never know what time you're playing we still still to this day
10:48we don't announce what time the bands play and it was so fun in Long Beach because we were supposed
10:53to open doors at 11 and we opened at 9 because we got 30,000 people through the door by 11 o'clock
10:58in the morning I was sound checking and people running to the stage I was like what's going on
11:02here yeah it's pretty crazy but that first band it reminds me of why I did that why I didn't write
11:07the schedules I mixed it up and then whoever was playing first on that stage had amazing shows and
11:12then you know now we can add in live streaming and all this other stuff to help build their careers
11:16when I was talking to you before you I asked you like who stood out to you for Warped 2025 of like
11:24a new band that you really liked and you of course said Honey Revenge and I'm curious what about their
11:30set really stood out to you the energy but also the positivity I was one the positivity of an artist is
11:35very important to me and I it was goes like to that summer school tour and I saw Devin on the side of
11:42the stage supporting all the other bands and singing along helping them out like just being
11:47there and being present so an artist to me there's there's lots of great music out there there's so
11:53much great music but it's it comes down to the artists in my world and watching how they fit into
11:58the community as much and I really kind of you know watch the first I was only out there for about a
12:03week but I walked away going that's it she knows how to great performer but also knows how to work
12:09within a community to help build that community and support networking is like so crazy important
12:13like I work with a couple bands and if they're not willing to go hang out like she does and like
12:18support the other acts that's that's how you find who's gonna be your next tour you know who you're
12:25gonna vibe with who you're gonna go out with and that's one thing about the Warped Tour it was always
12:29so accessible to go watch other bands there wasn't like someone going you can't come on the stage
12:34because you don't have the right pass you're like a lowly opening band and this is Gavin from Bush's
12:39stage like it didn't it was like one everybody was welcome always and that's one thing that's really
12:45cool about younger bands that they get to go hang and and grow like that and that was a big transition
12:52with Insomniac they were used to having closed stages and all this and by the second show it was like
12:56oh everyone's welcome they know how to self-monitor they they take care of each other because I talk to the
13:02fans all the time and they always want to see who's watching whose band they want to see who's
13:06on stage watching the bands as much as they're performing so and apparently that was always you
13:10Devin I guess what what was your background with Warped Tour prior to this year when you performed
13:19so I was like at the tail end of the touring Warped Tour but it like completely changed my life
13:27I went to my first Warped Tour in 2013 and it was kind of the first opportunity for me to be around
13:35so many people that liked the same music as me and I think I was that person in school that I would
13:42find a band I really loved and I would kind of manipulate the situation and get all my friends
13:47into them so I had people to go to the shows with me and so all my friends that were what we call
13:53normies kind of got into heavier music because I just wanted people to come with me and so going
13:59to Warped opened up like they were saying this incredible community that I didn't know was real
14:04locally to me it kind of felt far away until I went and I went every year until it stopped I mean most
14:12people have like a graduation trip they take and I just went to five Warped Tours and like flew up to
14:19the Pacific Northwest I liked watching my favorite bands in their home cities that was really special
14:26to me but it was how I found all of the music I ended up listening to and all the music that ended
14:34up influencing Honey Revenge so it's really crazy I was really bad in school but I joked recently that
14:40it feels like the principal thinks I'm like a good student because now we've had the opportunity to do
14:46summer school which was so fun and we got to do that with all of our friends bands which is so
14:52crazy because I feel like nowadays too you kind of meet new people when you're touring but that tour
14:59was entirely bands we were already friends with from all sorts of different avenues and had toured with
15:04and just been friends with online so it's really really cool to see Warped come back and to see how
15:10many people discovered us there so at what point did you get involved with the 30th edition like
15:17when did you know you were going to be on the lineup and how excited were you I want to say it was a good
15:23year and a half or so before that we got asked and I think originally we were just on Long Beach because
15:29we're local to LA and then we did summer school two summers ago I think at this point now and you know
15:37I've gotten to know Kevin a little bit better I see him at shows and at festivals I know his daughter
15:41and so I think eventually it just ended up that we were doing all three and it was crazy because DC
15:48specifically was in the middle of our first major market headliner that we did over this past summer
15:55and we were supposed to have an off day that day and so we went from having an off day to having
16:01eight days in a row non-stop including a festival so that was really crazy and so Long Beach felt like a
16:07breeze we got to go both days I wasn't completely locked in the bandwagon trying to rest my voice
16:13so I'm really excited we're also on tour for the next one in Orlando so we're flying in from a
16:20different show and then flying back to continue the tour so it was nice to have the local hometown
16:25show be a little more chill. Absolutely and I'm curious because you said you you know you're playing
16:32all these dates you're still bringing this much energy to you know the side of the stage in
16:38addition to your own set but as a newer band on the lineup I'm curious like do you feel that support
16:44that they're talking about? Oh my gosh I mean we get tagged in all sorts of videos of Kevin just
16:50hyping us up which just encourages us to want to show up I think all of my favorite bands growing up
16:57were so tight-knit in the community and that really encouraged me to want to be that person
17:03in a band growing up just all my favorite bands were you know they would post like vlogs together
17:10and they would interview each other and I was like my whole bedroom wall was AP magazines growing up
17:17and I would I had a you know subscription to the magazine and I would read the whole thing and then
17:22put it on my wall and so it was constantly just a reminder of that community but I think now just
17:28the way our fellow bands hype each other up and are constantly plugging each other's music to their
17:34fans it's really really awesome to see and it's special to feel like I've kind of gotten to become
17:41those bands that we looked up to so that's really cool and just being a part of Warped I'm just so happy
17:46it's back yeah so you Kevin you bring it back after five years there was a couple of shows in
17:532019 and then you bring it back to the 30th edition and one thing that was not missing hasn't been
18:00missing since the second edition of the Warped Tour is that it is the Vans Warped Tour yes yes it is
18:06yes I mean that's what we had when you when they reach out I said we have to get Steve here you know
18:11because when it really kind of comes down to it you know that um I did the Warped Tour the first
18:16year on my own uh Vans count well two people Fletcher was part of the bands that kind of saved
18:21it uh Pennywise and No Effects kind of legitimize it in that punk world but when I had that meeting
18:26with Vans which it is lots of stories around that just that meeting and walking out the door
18:31and then I actually had the money to pay these guys the second year because no promoters were giving
18:37us any money we had to prove to them and then we've been together now every year of the Warped
18:43Tour and it wouldn't sponsors come and partners come and go you know um a lot of times in our industry
18:48they come in for an initiative there but Steve is is embedded into the culture you know it's it's
18:55it's Steve and Doran and then it's Vans but it wouldn't be the same and I think the artist would
19:02tell you the same without Steve like you know I brought it back we've been talking and I said Steve
19:07it'll be the right time because we said we're going to shelve it we weren't going to sell it
19:10had opportunities to sell the name I wouldn't do that because it was too much in my heart to do
19:14something like that but I would talk to Steve and I just remember like say Steve I got to come down
19:21and tell you something I think I found the right way to bring this back and he was pumped he was
19:25going through the ceiling like immediately with ideas and and that's that's what makes it great this
19:29relationship probably one of the lot the longest lasting in the music industry when you think that
19:35we've actually worked together um 26 full years and then those off years we talk every few weeks
19:41about maybe the time and I said the timing's not right timing's not right oh these guys want to do
19:45it I don't think that's going to work and then I go I think it's it's I think this is going to work
19:49and it really has you know we talked about a cruise even to bring bring it back and stuff but I'm glad
19:55we waited five years but uh I'm honored you know visionary that's that's the guy right there
20:01because he started something on his own and I was so honored when he came and talked to Walter and
20:07myself about having Vans be the sponsor I wanted to get skateboarding from Florida Texas and
20:14California to the rest of the country he wanted to get music in the rest of the country 35 to 45 stops
20:20each year I thought it'd be perfect and no room for rock stars learn that one early everybody's treated
20:26the same and being able to meet Fletcher in the early days where he invited me over to the barbecue
20:33area and that's where you get to meet everybody everybody's done at 8 30 9 o'clock at night the
20:38buses aren't leaving until 11 o'clock or 11 30 so everybody's hungry come back there and every every
20:44day is a little bit different could be hot dogs but all of a sudden chicken you know to wait for a
20:48little while because the good stuff comes out after the hamburgers and hot dogs and um you know that's how
20:54what started it's funny when kevin uh talked about because he taught me about www why worldwide whiners
21:00because everybody complained to him he has a lot thicker skin than i have i stayed away from all the
21:06social media but uh in my life of working at vans for 59 years back before warp started i always thought
21:13the la county fair was for 19 days you know working 18 hours a day and then warp came and that was just
21:19training for me because i always worked hard but got to respect the athletes that went out to
21:26skateboard but i really respected all of the musicians i mean every day to get up there and
21:32perform but it's hot it's sweaty they had to perform at a high high angle and stuff for all of their fans
21:39but they came to their tents and they talked to them and had signings we would take bands and have
21:44them come to our booth and do signings and stuff but you saw them you know the young bands and just vans
21:49uh not the van shoes but vans driving not the buses and they're taking their equipment across the way
21:56setting it up and then a few years later maybe they got on a bus um it was just you know community was
22:02the right word it's a big family and when kevin says i think it's time i said great and he said three
22:09i mean come on we're used to doing some years we did 70 we'd go to europe we'd go to australia
22:14japan and you know that's where a lot of bands wanted to get exposure out there and we were able
22:19to work with kevin to make that happen help our brand grow from a small company to a bigger company
22:25over those 25 years what has it been like working with kevin for that many years i i imagine he's a
22:33little different than a lot of music executives yes uh not dealing with any other music executives
22:39basically you know businesses like my my business i'm in a corporations and i tried to keep the
22:45corporation away from kevin and me and that's why it worked because he'd get frustrated if he had to
22:51put up with all the bullshit and everything else that goes on in companies and what they might want
22:55he's the expert in this field i'll bring in skateboarding and try to add anything we possibly can
23:01from just knowing that it's hard on the road so for in boston i'm from boston i go get 150 lobsters
23:07and bring them cook them up kevin will do 50 uh lobster tails at lunchtime for people that can get
23:12away the other ones for the bands and the stage managers and stuff but uh it was it wasn't hard at
23:18all because he's really the person you see and you hear he's not no phony he you know speaks the truth
23:25doesn't really hold back from anything if somebody's messing up doesn't matter who it is
23:28if it happens to be a food fight um in uh oregon uh but uh from having pennywise as well as you know
23:38the freestyle motocross is uh um having a little bit of a battle he settles it right there you know
23:43his word is the end it was like it was like a day later he settled it when he took he took us aside
23:50who was it it was like it was all the moto moto guys yeah and he was like they're all going home
23:57because of what happened the other day fletcher they they've crossed them it was a pretty bad food
24:02fight and there was like a common area of like i don't know like 300 tourists and we basically
24:08destroyed 300 tourists lunch and then we got on our we had we got to make a jet boat getaway right
24:14down the river but the next day it was like they're going home and this is because of you and i was like
24:19well then you got to send me home too and he was like what and i'm like if they go i go and then he
24:24was like okay no one's going home i just took i just took a few thousand dollars from everyone
24:29and gave it as a tip to the people who had to clean up behind you guys we have a lot of apologies
24:33to the people but yeah i mean perfect example of like the fun he was like more like a father even
24:40though basically the same age as a lot of people out there he was like the dad you'd get scolded
24:45from and then you'd be like sorry dad he'd give you a spanking and then you'd go have a couple
24:50cocktails on the bus and before you know it you'd be riding on the kevin's bus to the next the next
24:56town waking up hungover so it was like super professional but unprofessional like could run
25:02the tour i would get up you know like looking for an outhouse at like 6 30 in the morning
25:07still drunk and kevin would be out there arguing about where the barricade's going and steve would
25:12already be knocking on your door with like here's a pair of 15 sletcher so or or a 20 pound lobster so
25:18yeah it was pretty amazing it was like the loosest tour i've ever been on but the coolest and the
25:25most uh memorable period a lot of stories about lobsters or is it just the one story
25:32there's a couple a lot of tours a lot of lobsters but he brought he did bring me like a 20 pounder
25:39with a fletcher tag on its neck and i was like i'm not cooking this thing he's like he earned his
25:47stripes there's no way we're barbecuing the slot i found out he didn't eat and he put it back in
25:50the water as we were leaving no well so i did we i said if it makes it overnight i'm going to release
25:56it and like i forget what bay we were going to and then i did we released it but then my guitar tech
26:02like got it back it was moving kind of slow over the bus night the overnight bus trip in the bay
26:08and then he fucking cooked it without my permission i mean the tail was like the size of my leg
26:15and uh i was felt really bad eating them but yeah that was it was a it was a nice gesture thanks
26:20i was going to ask how many warp tours you've been on steve but it sounds like almost all of them
26:2624 years um the last five years i couldn't handle florida with this heat and yeah we had three rain
26:33out since 24 years that i was there two in houston one in new york and um i picked places uh it probably
26:41went to you know 50 the last you know few years and stuff had great crew and they're still with me
26:46today and my daughter christy uh she did the first 15 years my wife says she's never going to get
26:52married if she's on this warp tour so she can't go on it anymore so the next 10 years she always did
26:57the inside stuff and then would come out to chicago detroit boston la um so um she eventually got
27:04married my wife got her grandson and stuff like that but uh you know there's there's definitely
27:09you know in the high you know seven or eight hundred i mean you know that that was there i don't remember
27:15him not being there but yeah he was he was there a lot well clearly steve doesn't like going to the
27:22florida ones but for some reason you did pick florida which is coming up in a couple weeks well it was
27:26you know when you're going to do something and you're going to do a ticket price my background's
27:29in production so as a producer that came from the production looking at every nuts and bolts of a
27:34show and and in talking with these partners at insomniac now they have edc coming up this weekend
27:39so the idea the concept of being able to share the fencing sharing the production office sharing
27:47those kind of costs and amortizing them over different weekends you know it's becoming more common so
27:51i looked where they were at we always did well in orlando we did tampa we did
27:56uh west palm we did jacksonville so we it's a good area for us in november um i don't know if
28:03it's really going to end up being the savings we hope because i mean insomnia that shows like
28:08a hundred thousand people and with that insomniac look and then literally we're pivoting starting
28:14monday into the warped production which i think when we they thought maybe we'd do you know 30 40
28:21000 people when warp came back and when it sold 80 000 tickets immediately it was like so now we're
28:26it's going to be a huge undertaking and i know every that one foot of fence we save 30 cents we're going
28:31to pay a whole lot more for labor it's around the clock i think we have about 220 stagehands working
28:38around the clock to get this show ready for next a week from that saturday coming in you know so and
28:43we have 150 bands playing and you know all these other things we like to add but it's been
28:48interesting it's been great and then you know the team that's kind of come over enough people
28:51came from warped and work for other festival producers have come over and and we've got an
28:57amazing team now that's going to allow me to build the brand side of this out any way i want and give
29:02me time where i'm working with uh will i am and fyi studios we're going to launch a whole
29:07ai driven artist development platina platform for bands like honey revenge that will be able to be
29:15used so everyone's it's it was like when i went in and said we're going to announce the bands with
29:18their own videos every band creates their own videos because i talk to my students and they say
29:24when i go to a festival i look at the first two lines that's how psychologically they look at two
29:28lines of a festival before they decide if they're like it they don't have dig down psychologically they
29:33go into the bottom part in a yay or nay mode so we roll out the bands with their own announce videos
29:38and it was a real like trying to educate these people and they're great they were listening but it took me
29:43two months to say this is how we're going to do this and then when we launched it and those first
29:47videos for bands younger bands were getting two three hundred thousand views and then an alvaro
29:52levine got like three and a half that drew that got more people looking at warped bands so everything
29:57is going to be about artist development for me and brand development because they know how to operate
30:03our festival some of the people didn't get the warp vibe so they've gone on to work on their other
30:09festivals and we've brought some other older crew kathy mason who worked with a lot of different
30:13things she's coming on our crew full time and uh for me it's it's allowing me but it won't work
30:19unless we develop those new artists really won't in the long run the ernie ball stages of the early
30:24oh yeah ernie ball came back did the battle of the bands and then we're and you know a lot of people do
30:28these uh um side shows and one-off shows um i'm more looking at the communities and going how do we
30:34engage the community and when i came in i had explained to the lawyers over at insomniac there's a lot of
30:38people i let use that warped arrow they go you just let them use it i go yeah it's totally cool
30:43i let people use it all the time well do you care i go no it only that's an honor when someone wants
30:48to use your identity to move their forward there's a bar in orlando called warped poor these guys open
30:55a bar tribute to warped tour they contacted me and i'm like oh that's rad that's cool they got us all
31:00so drunk when we were there oh my god well and then it was like so now you know within paperwork
31:06indemnity some of the things to make sure insomniac's cool but when i went down to orlando
31:11to do a map a few weeks a couple months ago went over to warped poor and these guys were all ex
31:16warped tour crew people and there's seven bars in that area and the owner said i don't know what
31:20to do with this bar and they said there's no place for our to hear our music and our friends in three
31:25days it's warp style they turned the whole place into a tribute to warped tour so instead of us trying
31:30to do shows and capitalize if it was financially or whatever i knew shows wouldn't work because the fans
31:36go to the warp tour all day long but we're doing like a whole free community event takeover they're
31:42going to run a we're running a war to warp tour thursday night with six local bands and the winner
31:46gets to play the warp tour on sunday uh we're doing record release parties merch pop-ups uh the canned
31:53food drive we you know the food banks are down i just got geico uh so when people come to the warp
31:58tour i charge twenty dollars for a guest ticket and uh my sponsor so geico is going to be involved i said
32:04well it's weird to have geico and you have a bad rap insurance companies but why don't you right
32:09now when when we get snap benefits going away why don't you match those industry donations and we'll
32:15give it to the local food bank and it's the only time i've ever had someone when i've sent said hey
32:19it's gonna be twenty dollar donation i've had three people say i'll give fifty or a hundred so that's
32:25gonna work so you re-engage the whole community but it's gonna be crazy downtown because we're doing
32:29and there's a skateboard contest going over on tent on tampon saturday at the skate park
32:34and the skate park of tampa we used to put them here at the side gate because we knew physically
32:38they were going to get thrown out at some point but now they're they're doing it so we're engaging
32:42those communities and i think we when we go in we have to leave we always thought that warp tour
32:46because people with piercings tattoos purple hair were looked at pretty weird in bellings montana
32:54and but if you could leave the community in a better way than you left it and then they look
32:59at us differently when we go back on our own so it's really kind of for me it's a little fun again
33:04i'm having a lot of fun again yeah the donation days well we have to wrap it up but i think that's
33:10a perfect way to end it there so thank you very much thank you
33:14thank you
Comments