Raised in New York City, tour manager Bryan Aiello is no stranger to worldwide travels and music festivals. He has managed tours for some well-known artists including Pretty Lights and most recently, Odesza. I was fortunate enough to be attending a festival in Europe, Melt!, where Odesza and Bryan would be as well.

I reached out to Bryan a few weeks before the festival and he was kind enough to agree to an interview before Odesza’s performance.

Seeking some insight into the music world and life of a tour manager, I had a nice list of questions ready to go. Smiling and energetic, Bryan greeted me a little over one hour before Odesza took the stage. We were able to have a great conversation surrounding international travel, music festivals and life on the road.

Odesza at Melt!

Steph: I know that you’ve been tour manager for Pretty Lights for 2 years, and now you’ve just started with Odesza in the beginning of the year, what is life like always on the go?

Bryan: That’s a good question! I mean, its kind of what I’m used to, and at this point its pretty normal. When I’m home for too long, I actually start to feel a little bit weird. If I’m home for more than a few weeks, I start to get a little antsy. I’m just kind of used to being on the road, and you get used to living out of a suitcase. Even when I’m home, I don’t really unpack, I just have my suitcase on the floor in front of my bed. I’ll do laundry and it’ll go back in my suitcase because I’m always a few days away from going back out.

Steph: So going along with that, I’m guessing you don’t have a typical schedule because its always changing, but what do your days look like when you’re not actually on the road?

Bryan: I guess that depends on if I have a tour breathing down my neck or if I actually have a bunch of time off. Cause then I can kind of do whatever I want and I really don’t have a schedule. It’s nice. I live in New York, so I’ve got New York City as my playground, which is pretty cool. But when I’ve got a tour coming up, you know, anywhere from 6-12 or 15 hours of advancing, depending on how big the tour is and how close to the tour it is. You know, the majority of the work is done before I leave. I try to have a tour as advanced as it can be before I go on the road because then you can actually get to enjoy it a bit instead of being stuck in the hotel room or a production office advancing. So I try to get as much as of it as I can. Obviously there’s some stuff that has to wait until you actually get out. But yes, I’m on the computer a lot and on the phone a lot while I’m home.

Steph: I noticed that you have a degree in philosophy, which is very different than what you’re doing now. What made you decide to go into music and specifically to become a tour manager?

Bryan: It actually… you know, I never really had any intentions of doing it. I was just a really big music fan and I grew up just outside the city and I saw a lot of music. And my brother, who is a few years older than me, he was pretty influential in me going to concerts a lot and I got to know some people that worked in the scene. And from that, when I got out of college, I had a corporate job for a little while. And then I was on unemployment for a bit and my buddy, this guy Pete Costello, he’s the one that actually got me into this business. I started pushing cases at BB Kings and then I was doing odd jobs for him like returning rental cars. Just little odds and ends that he needed done and then I started doing merchandise for The Motet. And that turned into doing merchandise for Robert Walter’s 20th Congress. And then this group called the Benevento/Russo Duo. So I worked with them, and they were the first group I ever tour managed. So I would help them in New York, but not really on the road. And then it came to the point where they could afford a tour manager and that was the first gig where I was the tour manager. And I did that for about 4 years. So it really kind of came out of left field, it was nothing that I had planned on. The ironic part is that I went to a school that has a really good music program, a lot of people that go to Oneonta go for music industry and I hadn’t. I didn’t go for it at all, I didn’t take one music class.

Steph: That’s amazing how things just kind of come together! So what does it really mean to be a tour manager? What are your responsibilities, what does it entail? Are you booking everything?

Bryan: So I don’t book shows. We have a booking agent that does shows, there’s an all around manager who kind of oversees everything. And then we have a booking agent who books all the shows. Once the shows get booked and the deals all get done, then they go to me and I work with management to figure out the best way to do the tour. We create a budget and then (like the tour this fall) we’re looking over the budget, how are we gonna do it, how much crew is gonna go out… so once all that’s kind of established, then I go and get vendors and crew and book hotels. I use a travel agency that deals with all the hotels. Plus lighting, audio. We also have a production manager that helps out with that stuff. And it also really depends on the size of the act. When it’s a smaller act, I would do everything and then as it gets bigger, you know, like Pretty Lights for example, its all very much compartmentalized where I have my set role and the production manager, basically everything that happens on stage the production manager handles. Everything that happens off stage is kind of my world.

Steph: So from what you’ve said, you are not making the decision on which festivals to attend. That’s correct?

Bryan: Yea, not at all. No.

Steph: Ok, so how about this festival? What’s your impression of Melt been so far?

Bryan: Melt is great; I was here last year with Pretty Lights. I mean, the site is crazy, it’s really cool and its pretty well run. Everyone is really nice, we get treated really well. It’s a typical German festival, things just go right, you know. Much like a lot of the European festivals. They’ve been doing it so long; they’ve got their shit together.

Steph: So going off of that, what is your favorite festival that you’ve been to worldwide?

Bryan: My favorite that I would go to and attend as a fan, is Hangout. I love it. Its awesome and unfortunately, I mean, I was there last year, and then this year Odesza got booked on it and my best friend got married, and I was his best man. And my original plan was… You know, we had that tour in Europe and we finished in Barcelona and I wanted to take a little vacation in Barcelona. So my plan was to stay in Barcelona until Hangout and I was going to go straight to Hangout from there and then our show was Saturday, the wedding was Sunday. I was going to fly first thing Sunday morning to the wedding and as the festival and wedding got closer, I kind of looked at it and I thought to myself, “Would I ever let an artist that I’m working with doing something like that, for a show? Of course not, that’s crazy”. I ended up having to miss Hangout Festival, which hurt, but it was the most amazing wedding and if I ever missed that because of a cancelled flight or for whatever reason, I would have never forgiven myself and obviously my friend wouldn’t have either. So I had to miss it this year.

Steph: I’m glad to hear that’s your favorite festival! It’s an amazing festival I love it.

Bryan: It’s just so chill, its on the beach and the condos are really nice and the crew that runs it is really cool. I know a lot of those folks. It’s just a really cool family festival and they do it right.

Steph: I agree! I have a few more questions here that we’ll go through quickly because I want to be sensitive to your time. So moving over to Odesza, what do you think makes them different from other artists?

Bryan: You mean musically?

Steph: Or with their live performance, yes.

Bryan: I don’t know how to answer that. I feel like they pull from so many different genres and their music really connects with people. There’s not one specific crowd they connect with. It feels like a lot of different folks… like I haven’t played them for one person that’s been like “this sucks”. Every single person I’ve played it for has enjoyed it. That’s really all I can say about it, they’re just really universal.

Steph: Thank you! So Odesza’s label, Foreign Family Collective, has some great new breakthrough artists. Do you have any part in the label, and do you have plans to help out with those artists touring moving forward?

Bryan: I don’t have a part in the label and I would love to, you know… if these guys went on tour and one of those guys went on tour, of course. But, we’ll see how that progresses.

Steph: What do you think the future holds for Odesza?

Bryan: You know, it looks pretty bright. Its like they just keep selling out shows. When I first started with them was February of this past year, and I didn’t have a show that wasn’t sold out from the day I started until the first week of May in Poland on a Wednesday. And we still sold over 400 tickets on their first headlining European tour. I’ve worked for artists that are much bigger than this band, but I’ve never worked for an artist that has so much buzz. And it’s really exciting to be apart of it.

Steph: Well thank you, that concludes my questions. I wanted to keep it nice and short for you. Thank you so much, Bryan!

A special thank you again to Bryan, who went out of his way and was more than willing to accommodate my request for an interview!

Thanks for reading, guys! Stay tuned for my complete write up on Melt! Festival in Germany, as well as a write-up on my favorite musicians, Odesza.

<3 Stephanie