08/07/2026
Hello everyone,
This is a long one I encourage you to read it in full to the end it is important.
I don’t do a lot of social media personally. Most of what I do here is for the podcast.
But I woke up this morning and saw that we’ve lost more friends.
And it hit me hard.
Over the years, I’ve watched too many of my friends in the road crew community pass away, and far too often it feels like they disappear in silence.
There aren’t many places where the men and women who spent their lives on the road are acknowledged, remembered, or honored after they’re gone.
And quite frankly, I think that’s bu****it.
Yesterday, I was talking with a dear friend about this, and we decided it was time to stop just talking about it and start doing something.
There isn’t much I can do to change what has already happened. I’ve also had to accept something that isn’t always easy for me to say: I have outlived people I don’t think I should have outlived.
Friends. Brothers. Sisters. People I stood beside, worked beside, laughed with, fought with, traveled with and shared a huge part of my life with.
I can’t bring any of them back.
But there is one thing I CAN do.
I want to create a permanent ROAD CREW MEMORIAL on our website to honor the roadies we have lost over the years.
And I don’t want this memorial to just be about the people I personally knew.
There are far too many names for any one of us to remember. That’s why I want this to belong to all of us — our entire road crew family.
But I need your help to build it.
If you know a road crew brother or sister who has passed away, please email me:
1. Their full name
2. Their date of birth, if known, and date of passing
3. A photograph of them
4. What they did on the road.
And when I say ROAD CREW, I mean ALL OF US.
Lighting. Audio. Video. Carpenters. Riggers. Backline. Production. Catering. Merch. Truck drivers. Bus drivers. Stagehands. Techs. Crew chiefs. Production managers. Tour managers.
Whatever department.
Whatever job.
If they lived this life and helped get the show down the road, they belong.
There’s an old saying in our business:
“We wear black so we’re not seen.”
Maybe it’s time we changed that.
Because when a member of a band passes away, people know their name. There are news stories, tributes, photographs, memories and thousands of social media posts celebrating their life and what they contributed.
And they absolutely deserve that recognition.
But so do the people behind them.
The people who loaded the trucks.
The people who drove through the night.
The people who built the stage.
The people who hung the lights, tuned the guitars, pushed the cases, fixed what broke and somehow made the impossible happen.
And then tore the whole damn thing down at the end of the night just to do it all over again in another city tomorrow.
We may not have been standing in the spotlight.
But we helped put the spotlight there.
And the people we’ve lost weren’t just “crew members.”
They were mothers and fathers.
Husbands and wives.
Sons and daughters.
Brothers and sisters.
Friends.
Mentors.
Teachers.
And sometimes they were simply the person sitting next to you on a bus at three o’clock in the morning when you needed somebody to talk to.
They mattered.
We have lost too many of them.
Some to illness.
Some to accidents.
Some far too young.
And some because the weight of this life became more than they could carry.
Whatever the reason we lost them, they deserve to be remembered.
I don’t want another roadie to leave this world and have everything they gave to this industry simply disappear with them.
We are not disposable.
We are not just a name on a laminate that gets replaced before the next tour.
We are people.
We are a community.
We are a family.
And family remembers its own.
So I’m asking every roadie, touring professional, band member, production person and friend who reads this:
Help me remember them.
Send me their names.
Send me their pictures.
Tell me what they did.
Help me tell people that they were here.
Let’s build something that says:
YOU WERE HERE.
YOU MATTERED.
YOU WERE ONE OF US.
AND YOU WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.
Please email all Road Crew Memorial submissions to:
[email protected]
IMPORTANT: Please DO NOT send memorial information through Facebook Messenger or DM.
I don’t regularly use Messenger, and I don’t want someone's information or photograph getting lost or overlooked.
Please email everything so we can properly collect, organize and preserve every submission.
And please share this post.
Share it with roadies.
Share it with bands.
Share it with production companies.
Share it with trucking and bus companies.
Share it with anyone who has spent part of their life out here with us.
Because there are people I won't remember.
There are people you won't remember.
But somewhere out there, somebody remembers them.
Let’s find them.
Let’s say their names.
And let’s make damn sure we don't forget anyone.
For the ones who came before us.
For the ones we’ve lost along the way.
And for the ones whose names deserve to live on.
Rest easy, brothers and sisters.
We’ll take it from here.
