We chat with Steve Chilton in Phoenix about his passion for promoting live concerts, repurposing his venue to a coffee shop (for now), the forming of the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), his forecast for the business-side of live music and what fans can expect.
Concert Cast S2E2.mp3
Announcer: Every music venue has a story, a culture, and each is a portal to discover. Kyle Lamont, host and producer of Concert Cast, is your guide on a journey through today's concert culture. Season one, a road trip around Maine was released in the wake of a global pandemic rocked by the cataclysmic shift. Lamont began to document the movement in season two we'll connect deeper with thought leaders who are creatively adapting and recalibrating the next rendition of concert-going in culture. In this episode, Lamont speaks with Stephen Chilton about his passion for promoting live concerts, repurposing his music venue in Phoenix to a coffee shop, for now. The forming of the National Independent Venue Association and his forecast for the business side of live music and what fans can expect.
Kyle Lamont: Before posting about concerts on social media, I posted concert flyers on telephone poles. Hi, I'm Kyle Lamont and when I was in college, I was on the street team for a venue. And then again, when I moved to New York City in exchange for free shows, I hung posters all over town and would wait outside venues for the crowd to spill out onto the sidewalk just so I could hand them a flyer for another show. Half of the flyers ended up in people's pockets and half would fly around their ankles. But I had a blast doing this. I met loads of interesting people and it was a surefire way to find the after-party. It was also a ground-level introduction to the role of a promoter for whom I was essentially a foot soldier for and their vital place in the concert culture, ecosystem, booking bands, and then bringing the fans no pressure, right? In Arizona, Psyko Steve Presents is synonymous with cool concerts. So for you, is it the love of giving a band a place to play, or is it the love of throwing a party and having a good time and bringing people together?
Steve Chilton: A little bit of both, definitely a little bit of both.
Kyle Lamont: That's Stephen Chilton. He's the venue owner of Rebel Lounge in Phoenix, Arizona, and also co-founder and vice president of NIVA, the National Independent Venue Association.
Steve Chilton: I definitely enjoy creating that social aspect and bringing people together and being like this is their favorite thing, whether it's my favorite thing or not. But wow, look at that crowd who is absolutely in love with this moment and creating that experience.
Kyle Lamont: Chilton through his first concert in high school, and he was also a major flyer guy.
Steve Chilton: I think there's more value in getting flyers in people's hands than people realize, but it's hard and time-consuming. And I knew like every spot in Phoenix where you can put a poster and now, like the list of places we put up posters is like tiny, like nowhere does that anymore. A. There's no Tower Records, there's no Warehouse Records, all that is just gone.
Kyle Lamont: And he was promoting shows on social media before it was even a thing.
Steve Chilton: I was posting in all these local message boards and then eventually on live journal like Live Journal was a huge thing. And I was I was doing it because I was doing shows with no budget in high school, was just kind of telling all my friends on the Internet. And at the time, in 2000, there was very little promotion on the Internet. Every venue was running their print ad. People are doing lots of radio ads. I didn't have money to do that, but I had all the time in the world to just stay up late at night and mess around on message boards.
Kyle Lamont: His love for providing good vibes and giving bands a place to play paired with his smart business mentality, set him up to buy a legendary rock venue called the Mason Jar, which once hosted some bands. Maybe you might have heard of them like Nirvana and Rage Against the Machine. It was infamous for being a crazy punk rock club. There's stories about people swinging from the rafters. Chilton bought it in twenty fifteen and transformed it into what is now the rebel lounge. He revamped the place, giving it an all-new sound and light system, exceptional decor, including a new stage. And he's known for having an infamous marquee, which always has something entertaining to say. I personally love the venue because, well, without being cliche, it's Indy and off the beaten path and always has unique and obscure music, including readings from well-known authors and also live podcast broadcasts. And I always remember the door guys being some of the nicest in town.
Steve Chilton: I've also always been a promoter that does a lot of different things, like a lot of small promoters and club promoters, you see really have like their niche. And they're the thing like there's the hip hop promoter who that's his world and there's the metal promoter knows every death metal band and there's the punk rock dude during shows and there's the emo guy that has all the emo bands or country promoter that just does country almost to the beginning. I've always been like, no, I want to do a punk rock show this night in a country show. And so, like, I've always done a lot of shows that are not my world or my scene.
Kyle Lamont: But sadly, covid has taken away all the fun. Chilton, being a news junkie and realist, knew that once Covid took down South by and Coachella that the forecast in Phoenix wasn't looking so hot.
Steve Chilton: That day South by canceled. I brought all my staff into a meeting and was like, This is going to be bad. We're going to be cutting hours, changing up plans for running shows. It's like we're going to see a lot more shows canceled, like it's time to get ready for this, you know, and that was March one, you know, and then everything was bad. So I think one that helped is like I was just very upfront with all my staff at the start of this. That was like everyone was like, I don't know what to think of this. And I was like, no, we need to be prepared that this is bad. This is going to be really bad.
Kyle Lamont: The last show at RuBo Lounge was a local band from Phoenix and right down the street at Crescent Ballroom, another venue he regularly promotes at the Frights, where the last band to take the stage.
Steve Chilton: At some point in the afternoon, Phoenix announced we'd be shutting down on Monday, like Monday would be to stay at home, shut down order. And so at some point in the night, we're like, good. Like we're going to do the show tonight and sold out, show the very young audience. So the kids all came out. I think everyone realized this might be the last show we see for a while. I don't think people realize it would be this long. But like people definitely felt like if we're shutting down Monday, should we be doing this? No one was really sure on what we should be doing. You know we were joking that we sold out the whole tour was one show and we sold out the tour. One show in Pheonix.
Kyle Lamont: How were you personally feeling?
Steve Chilton: It had been a long, grueling week because for Phoenix, so much of March is around South By it's everyone going to South By and coming back. So as soon as South By canceled, which I think was March one, we immediately started seeing March fall and it was like every agent, like what's going on in Phoenix. And we're all like I don't know we're trying to figure out like there's all this scrambling, everyone trying to figure out what were the rules going to be. And no one knew.
Kyle Lamont: So you were just like, what? Phone call, phone call or email? Email. I mean, was it just lights out?
Steve Chilton: Yeah, like the Fright's agent. I talked to him twice a day for a week trying to figure out like, what are we doing? Are we promoting these shows or not? And it was just like constant updates of like this is what's happened here. There's a ton of agents where like what are we doing about our show in April or how far out should we cancel things? You also have on the tour where it's like we had shows that weren't that close, but the tour was starting. So at the start of the tour canceling, then the whole tour's canceling. Our show is in May or June. Were part of that run so like it was like two weeks of just total chaos.
Kyle Lamont: And out of chaos comes order. March 12th was the first of what became weekly holy shit conference calls between leaders of the independent venue industry, a behemoth industry that wasn't on the pandemic support radar and especially vulnerable for the long haul. Chilton and his peers banded together and formed NIVA, which at the time of this interview is three thousand members strong and growing.
Steve Chilton: The members are the venue, the promoter, the festival. Like the businesses, the members. When we say three thousand members, we mean three thousand businesses.
Kyle Lamont: And what has been your role as the VP there?
Steve Chilton: So I am on the board. There's five of us on the board. It's Dayna Frank, our board president from First Avenue. Stephen Sternschein from Empire Garage in Austin, Justin Kantor, from (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York City. And Hal Real from World Cafe Live in Philly and Rev. Moose As the executive director. And then I'm in charge of our membership committee and work on sort of membership issues. So I've been working on our membership roles.
Kyle Lamont: He also helps with marketing, fundraising, programming, and he served as associate producer for the Save Our Stage as best this VP does it all. The Save our State Jazz Fest, a.k.a. S.O.S, was a giant partnership with YouTube with three days of the world's biggest bands live streaming from the best venues in the country. The fest raised close to two million dollars. But what was equally amazing is. NIVA has helped two million music fans to send emails to their congresspeople to support the bill, save our stages. The organization is the voice of independent venues and promoters. And outside of lobbying efforts to get federal funding, they are working on solutions for when tourists come back online to be an advocacy group after covid. Has the funding been delegated yet to the venues associated with the group? How does that work?
Steve Chilton: So we created a fund NIVA's emergency relief fund with this non-profit called the Giving Back Fund to administer a grant program to venues to receive these funds after explaining the necessity to first create a fundraising campaign, especially since the founders were themselves financially devastated. He explains how there's a panel of judges vetting the applications and ranking based on need.
Steve Chilton: I think the goal is to start getting those funds out by mid-November, the first of the funds. And hopefully, we're still keep rolling with the fundraising, you know, but we're raising millions when we need billions, not even millions, a few million that we've raised mainly through S.O.S Fest and Budweiser, but also through a lot of other artists outside of S.O.S have done fundraisers for the fund from all sizes. So those funds are just now going to go out to the first venues.
Kyle Lamont: That's exciting. But then it's almost like, you know, the work is never done right because the federal government has not stepped in.
Steve Chilton: Hopefully stimulus will happen in the Save Our Stages act is one of the most bipartisan things in Washington right now where that word does not get used very often. We just crossed our two hundredth co-sponsor in Congress out of that, I think. Fifty four senators co-sponsored in the Senate. So looking good that everyone realizes that we're the worst hit. And while eighty-five percent of businesses are operating in some capacity, virtually zero percent of venues are operating at any capacity. And everyone realizes we're the worst hit. We're going to be the last industry to get back, that there is no way to social distance safely do concerts in a meaningful way, and it's going to be a long problem.
Kyle Lamont: So is that a major impetus behind repurposing Rebel Lounge as a coffee bar?
Steve Chilton: Yeah. So we just last week one of the few venues that have reopened in any capacity last week we are doing a coffee shop during the day and kind of a lounge, no events at night. And it might be a year until we put shows in there again, like real shows in there again.
Kyle Lamont: Chilton has partnered with Reap & Sow coffee out of Peoria, Arizona. They all invested a lot into transforming the music venue into a coffee shop, including new skylights, new decor and overall style.
Steve Chilton: We had been talking about this coffee shop idea even before the pandemic because we we're never open during the day. We were losing all these potential business hours because we're a concert venue at night. And my friends who are running the coffee shop had kind of had the idea we never wanted to do it. I had always been a little hesitant. I didn't want to disrupt shows. I did not want it to be a drag on our shows because the show should come first and we just never got past the hey, wouldn't this be a cool idea kind of phase? And then when covid hit, it was a, hey, maybe now's the time to do it.
Kyle Lamont: After grappling with the questions all new ventures pose, the decision was made to press play and do it right with the goal to replace lost revenue in the short term while enhancing the venues use of space.When the shows do return.
Steve Chilton: Maybe once things feel a little better, we'll start doing some kind of music. I mean, we're small bar so we can kind of have a little more flexibility than a lot of larger venues, a lot of larger venues there. Big space is meant to fill lots of people. You can't do small amounts of people in them, but at rebel we can. It wasn't an easy decision. It's a decision that makes a lot of sense. Hopefully it works out.
Kyle Lamont: Has the response been good? I mean, I follow you all on social media, so it seems like it looks beautiful, by the way.
Steve Chilton: Yeah, the response has been really good. You know, why a coffee shop works is two-thirds of the people don't need to stay. They walk in, they get their coffee and they go to work you know or they head home you know, whereas in the music venue,you don't pop up and buy a ticket and then go home, you know? And so the coffee shop, the feedback for the first week has been really good.
Kyle Lamont: For you personally, what has been a great moment for you, where you just felt exceptionally stoked to be part of NIVA?
Steve Chilton: There's so many. I mean, one of the things is everything, NIVA is so highs and lows. It's like there's all this amazing stuff happening around with what NIVA's doing all these great collaborations. And we have this big lobbying committee, all our precinct captains. There's like 60 of us on this email chain that it's just, oh, my God, this senator just signed on this. Someone just supported it. And it's like all these highs. And then at the same time, it's emails, our venues just closing and our venues down to our last dollar. There's very few normal emails. Everything's either something great happening or something dreadful. So it's just just a huge emotion.
Kyle Lamont: He's also grateful for the camaraderie.
Steve Chilton: There's a lot of people I'm working with that I've known for a long time, but never really worked with. And then with this, we're all working together and it's like all these people. Sonia also at First Avenue and Audrey from INP and everyone helping on the programming committee and a lot of the people, the marketing jameela from Meterlander, all these people that are working together that I've never worked with, they've never done anything together. And now we're like working together. And that's been really fun. I'm just like and then at the same time, there's so many people that I've never known that we're now like in the trenches and so many shout outs to Tobi Parks in Iowa or Tom George in Florida, who I didn't know either of them existed until you until we're on these lobbying calls. And that's been rewarding is just that. And I think that camaraderie is going to be really valuable in the future. And what can we do when we're doing something together that's not begging Congress to save us?
Kyle Lamont: Psyko Steve has been gifted with a finger on the pulse. He's forward thinking. So I was very eager to hear about his outlook on when we can enjoy meaningful live concerts again, the ones where you're shoulder to shoulder singing and sweating together.
Steve Chilton: I keep saying the reopening kind of pointless until artists want to go on the road, because my governor can tell me I can do shows on Mars. It means the same thing if no artists want to play them and no artists that can actually sell tickets. So doing a show with artists that can't sell the tickets isn't an answer. Yes, so ventilation, maybe that can help somewhere, but I don't think there's any small thing that is going to help that, but there's no meaningful concerts until there's a vaccine or something like that.
Kyle Lamont: If you're not booking bands right now or throwing parties, what brings you joy?
Steve Chilton: I mean, there's so little work to do on shows. It's like, let's move this show for the sixth time, OK? Like, I've kind of been calling it fantasy booking because it's like, OK, let's work as if we're going to book a show. But who knows if it ever happens at some point that shows that we confirm will actually happen but-
Kyle Lamont: I love that. What band that maybe you've been listening to or recently discovered that like if you could book right now, you would?
Steve Chilton: Right now I'd just be excited to book anything I thought was actually going to happen. You know, what do we want the first show to be? Don't care. I want to show to happen. We're not going to be that picky. Let's do some shows who when we're able to.
Kyle Lamont: Right?! Because you're like you always have the finger on the pulse. I mean, you've been booking bands. You just are always, you know, ear to the ground listening, you know, good music. Are there any bands that you have discovered since quarantine?
Steve Chilton: I'm actually listening to way less music through quarantine. And I've always been someone who was always listening to new music. And lately I've been on a lot of nostalgic kicks, listening to a lot of Foo Fighters and and Jimmy Eat World and things that I listen to a ton in high school has been mostly what I'm listening to one band. I can't say I discovered new quarantine, but I really started listening to is a great duo from here Seventy Sixth Street. They put out a single early might even be pre covid February or March, and they just put out another single and they been a that I've looked for years. But like the last two singles are just incredible. Just one of those bands where you watch for a long time and it's like, oh wow, they're really developing. So that's what I listened to quite a bit.
*Music Plays*
Kyle Lamont: There's no denying that Chilton has great taste in music, but he also has great instincts. He gets behind bands that he knows people will like and buy tickets to see and knows how to curate a night around a genre, market it and make money. Strategy is key. Chilton's job is to anticipate which is the right move. Basically, being a promoter is risky, but that's part of the thrill and all that was before Covid. So now what about after?
Steve Chilton: There isn't going to be a clear starting line. It's not like June 1st, no shows. And then June 1st, everything is good. You know, it's going to be a really rocky road to back. I think there's a lot of consumers who are going to be very slow to come back that are not going to go to the first show they see announced that are going to wait to see how shows go. I'm hoping that's a short window from sort of shows are starting to we're good. I do think one shows are going and people feel they can go out. It's going to be like the next few years are going to catch up, like people are going to come out to make up for lost time.
Kyle Lamont: But unfortunately, there's going to be some strings attached.
Steve Chilton: Everything's going to go up. The cost of doing shows is going to grow up. The cost of staffing is going to go up. The cost for artists is going to go up. You raise all those costs. Ticket prices have to go one direction. These deals before Covid were already so incredibly tight. Every deal is incredibly tight. And if you add a lot of expenses, there's only one way you can make a deal go.
Kyle Lamont: And a way to cut back on costs, stripped down sets.
Steve Chilton: It may not be totally stripped down, but like the extremes that have artists have been going to and in production, you're going to see way scale back immediately starts back up again. I mean, we're just going to ratchet back up. But I think those first tours back with artists that having toured and while they're going to be thinking how do we do less production on stage.
Kyle Lamont: Not that any artists are going on the road right now, but any discussion on tour agreements and sort of what that looks like moving forward for an artist.
Steve Chilton: Nothing fundamental. People are definitely putting more direct language in their contracts on both sides, definitely some, but nothing fundamental, you know, language around force majeure and concepts like that, getting a lot of tweaks on those kind of language. But other than that, I've got a lot of tours where we haven't even started negotiating deals because we like let's get the day. We all know we're going to work it out. Let's work it out next year when we have a better idea of what we're doing. Not everything. A lot of tours can function that way, but some can.
Kyle Lamont: What's it going to take for an artist to get your ear to book a show, or are you going to prioritize the moneymakers, the, you know, the stalwarts, or are you going to give chances to emerging bands?
Steve Chilton: I do think is going to be a again, hard for those new artists. Right out the gate is every venue is going to have to be more protective of their dates. We're booking further out. And so, I mean, it's just reality. I'm going to have to be more critical of what I do book when we come back. Initially, I'm talking the first six months long term. I think it will return to normal. But that initial you know, I've got a lot of artists that are looking like we want fall twenty, twenty-one. And I'm like, I can't give this artist a date. Fourteen months out, I would never give an artist this size a date. Fourteen months out. I would never do it. And I'd never be asked. No one would ever ask me for a date for a baby artist. Fourteen months out. But now they are and I can't do that. I mean I feel horrible for those really developing artists that are trying to play on a first record right now or their first headline. It is a rough time to do that. And until things start getting back to normal, it's going to be hard to think about those. I do think you're going to need a lot less time. So these shows that I'm saying no to now, they're going to hit me up two months out. It'll be like, fuck, yeah, let's get to work when it's like, OK, it's go time. We need to fill every single night. There is going to be a lot of openings for people to get in on, just not right now.
Kyle Lamont: So is Psyko Steve going to rebrand to like Safety Steve? Is this a time to rebrand to a different name or are you feeling good about Psyko Steve for when we get out of Covid?
Steve Chilton: I have been very in the press very publicly. We have been very clear that we're talking about safety and how serious we take safety. And I think my hope is that a lot of people are seeing that they know who's taking it seriously right now and they know who's not. And when people start coming back, they're going to remember who convinced them that they take their safety seriously and who doesn't. And I've been very vocal about that, and I think, you know, my hope is that the audience recognizes that we're not cutting corners, we're not taking their safety for granted. We never have let people don't notice. You know, people don't notice how much time goes into safety and security in these discussions. Concert goers don't notice that, but it's always true. But right now, they're seeing it. You know, they're seeing who is being responsible.
Kyle Lamont: A big picture prediction that Chilton is excited about is how 20/20 will accelerate trends, a theory made by economist Scott Galloway.
Steve Chilton: For concerts the trend was towards more live experience. Younger people are putting more value behind experience, less value behind things. Young people are putting less into things like houses and cars and more into trips and vacations. Festivals have been growing. Concert attendance has been growing. That human experience is going to be bigger than ever. When we get out of this.
Kyle Lamont: And I predict an acceleration of gratitude. The beauty of a live concert is that the majority of people in the venue are experiencing the same emotions. You are, elation and happiness. Live music suspends time and we'll all be craving two hours of bliss. On the other side. I look forward to a new collective feeling of appreciation in not just the music or being together, but also for the things we overlook. Like the young kid hanging concert flyers to promote the band you're now savoring and the tenacity of the concert culture warriors who pressed on so we could enjoy live music again.
Announcer: Little things that go along with Donate to NIVA, the National Independent Venue Association, save our stations. Special thanks to 76 Street for their song In My Bones music and lyrics by Haley Gold and Spencer Bryant, produced by Haley Gold, Spencer Bryant and Chris Campbell, performed by 76 Street. Our resident mastermind is Mark Tekushan. Editor and engineer is Peter McGill. Supervising producers are Heidi Stanton-Drew and Exenia Rocco. Special thanks to Steve Chilton, Pepper Little, Amy Charley, Cara Romano, Eddie Contento, Jesse Couto. And thank you for listening.