I Am Bonnaroo - The Work of David Bruce

A podcast for Bonnarooians by Bonnarooians.

Welcome to the what podcast

I can't believe we're still talking about Bonnaroo.

Barry Courter, Bonnarooian A, Lord Taco, joining us. I'm Brad Steiner.

Now if you're watching at home via your social media device box,

don't adjust your screen.

There are not two Barry Courters with us today.

No, not two, just one. Just one Barry Courter.

That's the beard I want to become.

I know. You've got a lot of work to do, my friend.

That's a grown ass beard right there.

It's a labor of love.

Yeah, no kidding.

Mine is more because it pisses my wife off.

And I like doing this a lot.

I think you get to an age where, and it's definitely around Barry Courter age,

where life becomes a lot of this contemplation of what you could have been doing at some point.

More than right now.

See? Small battles. Small battles.

You got a pick and choose.

You got a what and choose?

Pick and choose.

Pick and choose.

Pick your battles.

Lord Taco, how are you, buddy? How was your birthday?

By the way, Lord Taco's birthday, everyone.

It was Friday, thank you.

Happy birthday.

Appreciate it.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Should we introduce David?

Brad and I talked about his beard.

Should we introduce who?

Oh yeah, I forgot about that guy.

I asked you to do the introduction.

Go ahead.

I'll let Tacco do it.

Tacco and David became friends.

Tell us how you became friends.

It's a great story.

Well, David does the I Am Bonnarooo film project on Instagram.

If you've probably looked through Bonnarooo pictures, you've probably seen him.

He tags us a lot in his pictures.

And last June, we went down to the Speak Easy Bonnarooo hosted by Roo Fitness and the Roo Bus.

And bumped into him there.

Had never actually know what he looks like.

So, you know, he had to introduce himself and say who he was.

And I was like, oh, wow, I follow you.

I see all your pictures.

So from then on, we just spent the whole weekend together hanging out.

I saw him, you know, shoot some people with his camera.

Thank you.

Yeah, I had to clarify.

We had a great weekend and shared a lot of stories and, you know, decided he'd be a good guest to have on the show and talk about.

David, did you sign the bus anywhere inside the bus?

Did you sign?

That's what happens when somebody gets in that bus.

Yeah, I was actually asked to sign the bus and it was it was an honor.

Somebody posted a photo from the inside of the bus on Instagram.

I can't remember who it was, but I literally tried to zoom in on the phone to see if I could see my.

I told myself there it is right there.

I can't read it, but I know that's it.

That's it.

That's it.

There's so many layers of this, but you drove from where? Upstate New York?

I mean, yeah, for that weekend.

I mean, that's I really did.

Yeah, so I got an invite to that shindig, which I was, you know, felt very honored for that invite because I knew it was a limited thing.

It was kind of a hush hush thing because of the whole code thing.

And I really wanted to go.

I got my wife's blessing to go, which was a giant step forward.

She's my biggest supporter and everything that I do regarding this.

And I literally decided a week and a half before the event.

I mean, the hype started to build on the Facebook page about the event and I could see what was happening.

And I thought to myself, well, this is this is actually going to be pretty legit.

And in lieu of not being at Bonnarooo this weekend, I'm going to go down and I'm going to see what's happening.

And I mean, I literally drove about a thousand miles down.

Jesus.

And yeah, and I decided to take the trip by myself.

It was it was a little bit of a pilgrimage, you know, and I didn't really I had no idea what to expect when I got there.

I mean, I knew, you know, Daniel Horton, I knew who he was, but I didn't really know one single person that was going to be there personally or well.

So, you know, I'm sitting on our porch out here with my wife the day before I leave and she goes, are you excited about this?

I said, you know, actually, I'm kind of nervous. And she said, why?

And I said, OK, so let me let's get down to it here.

I said, I'm getting ready to jump in a car by myself in the middle of a pandemic, drive a thousand miles.

Very remote place in Tennessee. I've never been before.

And camp for three days with a bunch of people I don't really know and probably extremely hot conditions, you know.

And I got to be honest, it's the greatest thing that I did this year, man.

I got to actually know some of the people who I knew who they were, but I didn't really, you know, I got to know better than probably if Bonnarooo even happened this year because I got to spend some quality time with them.

Daniel, David, it sounds like you described Bonnarooo.

That's what I was thinking.

Yeah, you know, I actually very much so because the first time I went to Bonnarooo was on Lem.

I was 2011.

Oh, wow. OK, good.

So this would have been the this year was going to be huge for me because, you know, I set a goal after the three the third consecutive year that I was there to make my project at least a 10 year project consecutively.

This was going to be the 10th year anniversary for Ryan Bonnarooo.

And then, of course, the bottom falls out, you know.

And, you know, I really got nothing to bitch about because a lot of people have had some serious hardships and I really had none. I mean, I still have my job.

All my friends and family are healthy.

I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it's good.

But, you know, so there goes my 10th consecutive year and then boom, all of a sudden, the speakeasy thing pops up and I'm like, hey, this is going to be something very cool.

Just a general question before we get into your Bonnarooo experiences from your year. But how is it as a photographer, can you really differentiate from one year to the next what you actually get?

If this is year 10, I bet you look back at, you know, nine years ago, eight years ago and the pictures look pretty similar.

How do you differentiate or be able to tell and especially as an artist, make it different from year to year?

Well, actually, that's a big challenge because I don't really want it to come off being redundant.

I did start it for me. It's always about film. Initially, I wanted it to look like Woodstock.

So when I when I first thought about, you know, what I wanted to do as a photographer the first year that I went to Bonnarooo without having any idea what it was going to be like, I said, OK, I want it to look Woodstock.

I went out and I bought a 1969 Nikon F and I went down there with, you know, about eight rolls of film, which was I could have went through that in the first year.

I was about to say that you Wednesday.

Yes. So fast forward now. I have seven Nikons. And last year I went down there with 35 rolls of film and I'm shooting more color in addition to black and white now.

But it's still all about film. So the color film was a way for me to sort of breathe something a little bit different into it.

Here's where I jump in and answer your question, David.

The background behind me LCD sound system. Yeah. I for the last minute he asked that question.

Before he asked the question when the show wasn't on when the show wasn't on.

You notice the background for the last decade or so.

I've been not only the sole reporter, but the sole photographer for our paper.

I am not a photographer. Yeah. That's why I chose this picture.

I take pictures. I get lucky. I take good pictures.

One in a thousand or whatever. And this is an example of that. I don't pretend I never claimed to be a photographer.

This picture when they came out on stage, it was so dark. If anybody saw the show, it was so dark.

And it's haze and cloud. And here I am. And I just thought I'm just going to shoot for three songs.

You know, that's because I'm in the pit. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Left there thinking I got nothing.

Plug the plug the camera into the computer the next day, nine o'clock in the morning. And all of a sudden this popped up and I didn't even know I had it.

That's the difference between what I do. I think I'm I think I'm pretty good at framing.

I think I'm pretty good at knowing what is a decent picture, but I'm not a photographer. I can't make it happen.

And that's what you're doing. And that's that's the reason I chose this as my background.

And that's to what we're getting at. I mean, this is a project for you. I wouldn't have no idea.

Brad one year gave every all of us Instamatic cameras. Sure. Which is a great idea. Great.

Didn't work here. In theory, it works. Paper is what we're talking about. In reality, it's a total disaster. Yeah. Great idea.

And I mean, I literally have probably ten thousand images and maybe twenty that I'm proud of.

Nineteen of them over 19 of them are stick.

I'm the one. But but yes, so that's a great question.

Brad asked because I was just as he was saying that I was thinking, yeah, Bonnarooo has changed, but not.

I mean, the hippies last year looked like the hippies 15 years ago.

Well, yeah. The reason the reason when I look at your stuff, it's not so much artist based. It's people based.

And the people in the faces, no matter if they are different faces, it doesn't feel like the aesthetic ever really changes

because there's a certain aesthetic that is consistent. No matter if you get your first Bonnarooo, you're 15.

It all seems to look the same. Yeah.

Well, that's true. And, you know, partially that's that's definitely done by design.

You know, I found a formula for me that that works. So I stick with it and not to get too technical or whatever.

But I always meter all of my shots with an incident flight meter. I don't use the.

So when you look at my my my photos from a light contrast standpoint, you know, I know the film that I'm shooting really well.

I know how how it's going to react under different lighting conditions, which is really important because I'm not shooting digital.

I don't have the luxury of looking at things as I'm shooting it on the back of the camera.

So it becomes pretty predictable from that standpoint.

But, you know, again, I didn't want to I'm always looking at my stuff, trying to figure out how to become a better photographer.

And, you know, I didn't want it to become too redundant.

And that's why I started experimenting a little bit with with color films and actually arrived at one that I really, really like a lot for Bonnarooo, you know, specifically.

Now, the other thing that I notice is you.

Whether it's by design or not, you really do find moments and people, you know, people become moments and moments.

Anyway, how is it that first of all, do you do is it something you stumble upon or is it something you're actively going to see and not to see, but to find?

And when you find it, how do you know it?

OK, so so actually what I've gotten to know the layout of the farm really well.

And this is a weird analogy.

But and I'm not a hunter for whatever that's worth.

But it's kind of like being a hunter, knowing it, you know, section or woods really well and saying, OK, when deer season opens, this is where I'm going to put up my tree stand and I'm going to wait.

And honestly, that's good. That's good. You know, I might you know, the number of shots that come back with every year, just knowing where to be after a subheadliner show gets gets over at the main stage or whatever.

All I have to do is stand there and wait. And it comes it comes to me.

I know exactly what you're talking about. I've done it 15 years and I feel like I'm shooting the same pictures because you know you're going to get people sleeping under the tree in front of the witch.

You know, you're going to get people coming off the slide.

I mean, it feels like in some ways I'm taking the same photograph. You're going to get that happy coming through the arch.

Yeah, that's a that's a great.

As an aside, a few years ago, we never really kept up with it.

But as inside one really late Thursday night, our friend Nick, as we were walking back from the I guess some late show, whatever, we looked down and it was already a muddy mess.

And the person was literally laying in a in a mud pit.

And he goes, oh, that is Bonnarooo stink. And from that moment, we decided to start documenting the Bonnarooo stink of the weekend.

And it's like it happens at a certain hour every night.

And you can see the stink just emitting from a human being or a situation.

I wish that we would have kept up with that Instagram account because it was as fun as it could have been. But also, it's had meaning.

So we sort of stopped. We sort of stopped.

Yeah, that's hilarious.

But it is something that it's almost like it is almost on a timer.

And you can almost find exactly who, what, when, where and why every year at the same time.

And that's why that's why I'm so fascinated in the idea how you differentiate from one to the next.

When you look back at this way, when you're done with it, when you're done with your 10 years, what are you going to do with it?

That I don't know.

I've had people say to me, you're not actually going to start doing this after the 10th year.

And I'm actually not ready to stop doing it.

But why don't you go one year where you enjoy yourself and not feel like you've got to carry around 16 cameras at once?

Actually, that's a great idea. You know what? You know what I might start doing honestly is start locking some of my camera there in the trunk and removing myself from that.

There are certain times of the day, like if somebody was to say, listen, I'm just going to shoot for two hours a day.

What am I going to shoot? It would be the quote unquote golden hour.

And anybody that hasn't been to Bonnarooo that's a photographer that wants to take photos, I would tell them, hey, listen, you know, if you're planning on getting some good shots at Bonnarooo,

plan on the golden hour because not only is the light absolutely magical, but everybody's in that frame of mind where not all day they've been doing this.

The temperature started to get divine. That's right. They're transitioning into the nightlife.

And I'm telling you what, man, everybody's everybody starts to morph around that time. Everything starts to change.

That is a great point. And it's not something that we've talked about a lot.

But you're right. There is a there is a moment of the afternoon and golden hour is right about at six, seven o'clock where the temperature starts to change.

People are maybe freshly showered. They come out of hibernation for a few hours and things just start to feel different.

I love that. I love that. That's a really great point. That's something we've really harnessed on the show before.

David, why did you I mean, tell us again how you decided to go.

And then what was it that made this particular thing seem like it would be a great festival?

I mean, a great project. OK, so I've always been well, I've been a photographer since since I was about 20 years old and I've always shot film.

I mean, I've shot digital, but I'm primarily a film photographer and I'm a huge, huge music fan.

So, you know, in 2010, my daughter was going to her first year of college in upstate New York.

And I got a message from my lovely wife. And she said to me, what do you know about a music festival called Bonnarooo down in Tennessee?

And I thought that was kind of random. And I said, I know it's a world class music festival. Why?

And she said, Madison, our daughter, who was a first semester college student at that point, she said she's thinking about going down to this with a bunch of her friends.

You know, I'm not sure how I feel about it. And I said, well, I'll tell you how I feel about it. I'm jealous as hell.

So that's that's how I ended up going down to Bonnarooo. And I didn't go down with, you know, my my daughter and her her friends.

I went down with another guy. But if it wasn't for that, I probably wouldn't have been 2011.

I don't know what when I went down there. But that's that's the story about how I got down there in that first year.

You went just by yourself. No. So so honestly, one of her college girlfriends that she had just met

from Long Island, we live in upstate New York. She said to my daughter, Madison, my dad wants to go down to this festival.

He doesn't have money to go down there. And she said, my stepdad's actually think about going down.

I literally met this guy. His name is Joe, by the way. Hey, Joe.

I met him for the first time ever the night before him and I jumped in his car.

I was never in a million years. It's honor, man.

I love Bonnarooo. I love it. And we still stay in contact.

I mean, we're still friends, you know. But hey, you want to know something, man?

We talked about music all the way down there. We shared a love for Led Zeppelin.

And it was about a Led Zeppelin shirt now. And I hate Led Zeppelin. That's amazing.

How does that work? But no, so that's pretty much how it all happened, you know.

So I have two other younger sons who are both music industry students in college.

They were, I think, five and nine when I first went down there.

And I've been to Bonnarooo with both of them. We were supposed to go on year 10 with a whole crew of people

because it was my big 10 year anniversary. And we didn't make it down.

But, you know, they went from being little kids seeing me hop on a car

and driving to something called Bonnarooo to loving the festival. They both go.

They're both huge. They're both musicians, you know.

But did you do anything like this, I don't know, say closer?

You mean closer to New York? Yeah.

Not really. I go to a lot of concerts, but, you know, I actually live.

Here's a true story for you. I live 25 or 30 minutes from from where Mountain Jam used to be every year.

And I've not once been to Mountain Jam.

Do you camp? Are you a camper?

You know, I have to camp because I'm a I'm a pierist that way.

You know, I mean, if I was a photographer in Vietnam, I would go.

Before.

Before that. I had camped literally in my life two times.

Yeah. See, this is this is it's so funny.

My first Bonnarooo was 17 or seven, seven, which was the year my son went

because he was a senior in high school and I had the you know, I remember breaking, you know, so hey, guess what?

Dad's going to.

That's not correct. I think you're you're like 2004.

No, no, I went to the first one. Oh, too.

And I didn't go again until seven. I think that's right.

But anyway, similar, you know, tell my son, hey, dad's going to, you know, which I thought would freak him out.

He's like, I'm fine with that. OK. Anyway, I find this you know, we I think that we get really lost in the idea of somebody

traveling for so long and so far, but I've never thrown in the wrinkle of doing it with a stranger.

Yeah, yeah, I'm not doing it.

I I have a cap on how long I'll spend in the car to begin with with a total stranger.

So one time, my mom, I don't know why, and I can't tell you, I don't really remember why I was in the car with this person,

but it was a total stranger that my mom had plopped me in the car with.

And I had to go, I don't know, seven, eight hours with this person.

And of course, me being 16, 17 year old asshole and this being a mother of whatever, I don't even know her name.

I remember the pain that it was sitting in a car, not speaking and no music playing and being completely

at the mercy of this person who was a little tacky and totally silent.

I can't run the risk of that ever happening to me ever again.

I can't ever possibly get close to that situation.

It gives me I feel claustrophobic just thinking.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, if I really thought about it, I think my desire to get down there and check this thing out,

and especially take photos sort of superseded any other kind of research that I had about it.

And so now what's the set up like?

You're going to have how many people come with you this year and just same car or?

I have people so my daughter who my daughter lives in Nashville, Nashville, is a teacher.

She was trying to get the minimum number of people together for us to do our group, a group camp and thing for the first time this year.

She actually signed up to do group camping.

But there was there was multiple people going down from different states and different cars.

So to put a bow on this thing, let's so there you are.

Your wife comes to you and says, have you heard of this thing?

Your daughter wants to go.

You end up going with a stepdad who you met the night before to a farm in Manchester, Tennessee.

And 10 years later, you drive, you drive what?

Twelve hours to hang out with taco in an even more remote farm in Tennessee with people you've never said hello to before.

Well, that's even strange. Yes, that's that's strange.

That's strange. But think about the idea that you've been in the bottom nine years and you didn't know the people that you were going to be meeting up with.

That's pretty surprising, too.

You think that after so many years, you just know all of you.

Yeah, that's actually that's actually true.

So Daniel Horton was I knew who he was, but I didn't know him.

He's of course, he's the guy that is part owner of the real rubas.

Yeah. For people who don't know Daniel and Charlotte and the rubas, Daniel might be the happiest, most positive human being that I know.

So I mean, not me next to Lord Taco.

Yeah, look at him. Just look at him.

He's radiating, radiating positivity.

That's a respectable beard, by the way. I like that. Thank you.

I tried to. Yeah.

And it's grown out since.

So, but Daniel Horton, so I saw something with him and I were messaging each other.

So we did we did have a conversation, but not, you know, we never really spent any time of bonder together, you know.

And then he was the one who actually asked me if I was interested in going out without even hesitating.

I was working from home at that point because of covid.

And I just said, hell, yeah, I wasn't even I didn't even consider that.

I didn't know if it was I'm sorry.

No, it's OK. You think about like because your photographer, your photos are so good, you thought about adding video to it.

Everything about doing video video.

I actually have. But there's so many other people who are doing that so well.

Human being media, phenomenal work. They do a lot of festivals. They do a great.

I'll tell you one thing I didn't think about doing.

This would be an extreme labor of what was going down there with like a 16 millimeter film camera and just shooting film or some people.

Oh, yeah. Filmers and then seeing what I can come up with from from that standpoint.

And when you so OK, just this is because we're we're dorky.

We're dorky about the minutiae of some of the stuff when you do you get a media pass?

OK, so probably not until my sixth or seventh year.

OK, because it only does anybody walk in the six cameras.

No. And you want to know something I had to pare it down.

I had to pare it down to get my gear in there.

So I had to figure about it. I had to really think about what I needed to accomplish, what I was looking to accomplish.

Before I had a media pass, it was literally one camera body, one lens and a light meter and a hip pack full of film.

You know, and when I go through the security checkpoints and they're opening your hip packs and they're pulling shit out and I'm like, that please be careful.

Please be careful. Yeah.

So but but full disclosure, I mean, I had to sneak stuff in and then it probably wasn't until the seventh year.

I think I actually got a media pass.

Normally now I have to ask because normally they don't give it to you unless you're with some sort of entity.

You just got it all on your own.

Well, what happened was I was pelting Bonnarooo with with stuff on social media and I didn't think they were paying attention to it because they've never they never really acknowledged anything that I was doing.

So one time, bam, they featured one of my photos and then they, you know, tagged me and credited me in the photo, which was a great day for me.

And I literally said, you know, hey, thanks a lot.

You guys just made my year for doing that.

And then probably a month later, not even they they use another one.

And after about the third one that they use in a short period of time, I messaged them and I said, hey, you know, is there any way I can get access?

I'm not really that interested in shooting the bands.

I want to I want to shoot the people, but I need better access to get in there with my gear.

You know, that's that's when they started hooking me up.

That's a great question, Brad.

I'm glad you picked up on that.

And that's a great insight because that's I think probably in year one, that's the kind of thing you and I bragged about that they do very well is pay attention.

You know, they paid attention.

They saw what was working.

It's a cool thing.

You were doing cool work and it lends to the overall point of how this is made for and created by a community of people that, you know, and if you know, I hate to say, you know, look, not everybody's going to get one.

But if you prove yourself and you show yourself to be, you know, not a dick.

Seriously, a lot of a lot of events, you know, the first answer is no.

Yeah, you need to shut this down.

And then they said, hey, this guy's doing great work.

How do we make how to make it easy for him?

Yeah.

And they've done that for us, which is why I say that.

And then it's I think it's because, you know, we're celebrating what they do.

All right. So you you go to a lot of you do a lot of concerts, your big music in the 10 years since have you done any other sort of festival?

New Orleans Jazz Festival.

I live two blocks away.

You know, actually, Russ told me that and I was like, that's one of my wife's favorite places in the world.

Not that we've traveled the world, but we're we have a lot of love for New Orleans, man.

Let me let me tell you, so I got here two days after Mardi Gras and I was like, you know, this Mardi Gras, but it's right for the best.

We don't need to be here when Mardi Gras starts when we first get here.

But what we were very says, oh, man, but we live two blocks away from Jazz Fest.

We live two blocks away from Voodoo Fest.

We are within walking distance of every sort of, you know, from festival season.

I mean, it's a big deal every week. There's some other type of thing that is in and around our neighborhood.

Yeah. So we were like, oh, this is amazing.

This is the perfect spot. So excited about Jazz Fest.

And then 10 days after I got here, COVID hits and I'm sitting at my house for the next six months.

Oh, wow.

That's a great spot.

Yeah.

If I didn't think your ego, you know, I would think maybe you were to blame.

Oh, I'm to blame. I'm to blame.

Yeah, that's even a little big for your ego.

It's all Brad's fault. That's the thing.

Yeah. My old radio partner used to tell me all the time, everything's Brad's fault. Everything's Brad's fault.

So, David, I mean, you've not done this. We've established this is not something you do all the time.

This is the one festival. What's the takeaway?

What have you I mean, what keeps you going back, especially, you know, considering the idea that we've talked about is the photos don't necessarily change or do they?

I don't want to put words into your mouth. What is it that brings you back?

You know, well, I go back for the festival. But, you know, I mean, I'm so passionate about being a photographer.

I mean, I do shoot other things that aren't music related for personal work.

But I go back because it just I want to keep feeding the project.

And, you know, just when I start wondering how many people are paying attention, I mean, I'll get some really great messages from people, you know, that I that I know that are paying attention because they're like, hey, here's a photo you took of me five years ago.

Fantastic. Yeah. And, you know, I do. You know, I've done gallery shows that were of the Bonnarooo project specifically in upstate New York a few times.

I've never made a single dollar from from the project. And because I shoot film and film is expensive and processing is expensive, it cost me a shit ton of money to do it every year.

It's a labor of love, you know, I mean, I was about to say, since you're on film, I mean, like you were saying earlier, and it just now hit me. You don't you said it. You don't know what you have.

So when you go back to the car every night, it's not like you get to review what you got that day.

Yeah, I'm like a little kid at Christmas time. I come home and I get my film developed and I go pick up, you know, 20 rolls of film.

And it's like I can't wait to get home and start transparency scanning these things. So that means your experience goes from from the first of June until the end of July.

I mean, you probably worked on this stuff for six weeks afterwards. Well, even longer than that, because you know what I do is I like I never if somebody is worth taking a photo of, I never usually just take one photo.

I'll take three or four frames. And even if they're all good, there's always one that's clearly the best, you know, but you know, I edit my photos, I don't alter them.

Well, some of my I alter heavily and it's obvious, but for the most part, I try on the purists when it comes to stuff. I try to keep it real, you know.

But you know, for me, it's it's the rediscovery. I mean, six months later, I'll scan a strip of film that I hadn't scanned yet.

And images will pop up on my monitor. And I literally sometimes I'll literally get goosebumps. I'll be like, shit, look at that, man.

That's to this picture. I can't tell you. I mean, and it's a tear. You're not getting a good representation. It's a much bigger frame.

Yeah, Barry's in the way.

Some of Barry is in the way. He disappears on occasion.

The band is actually in the full frame. You can't see it. But I that that's the moment, David, that I mean, I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe I got that image.

For me, dumb luck. You know what you're doing. The other the other sort of inside baseball question I have is.

I mean, a camera you're carrying six of them. It's a lot of weight. Well, you're shooting all day long.

Or do you take time? See, that's I leave mine back at the camp sometimes.

And then inevitably, there's the great picture and I don't have the camera or, you know.

Yeah, that's the way that always that's the way that it works. You know, I mean, I get up in the morning.

I have a routine where I get up and I walk into center and I had to Dave's mini donuts to get some coffee.

And from from the minute I leave the underneath the canopy, I've got a camera on my shoulder and I'm just scanning.

I'm just looking for something to take a photo of. And I've actually gotten some really good shots by doing that.

You know, yeah, yeah, you have to. I mean, that's what you're there for.

But I don't think people understand how much work that is.

It's a labor of love. Well, yeah, I mean, but with all that work, when do you actually do the actual festival?

When do you shut it down for the day and go see something?

Usually the late night sets. I have certain bands that that I have to see where I'm not that I'm totally immersed in the situation.

There's no doubt about it. I look I look at the schedule and I'll tell my friends because whoever I go with every year,

sometimes I feel bad for him because I'm like, hey, guys, I'll catch you later.

You know, I'm kind of a lone wolf. If you see me there, chances are I'm going to be by myself.

But I'm looking at the schedule in the morning and I'm telling people that I'm with, hey, listen, I'll see you at 430 at which stage?

Because I'm going to go check out this band and then I'm fully immersed in that show.

I'll tell you the one one thing that's strange about Camp Nut Butter and that we've all been sort of the main group of people

that have been there together for 10 years or so. But none of us ever go to shows together.

Yeah, never something like, yeah, let's all go.

Never. I mean, there might be one show a weekend that we'll all try to go together.

Yeah. And mostly it's because, you know, Brad can be a diva and doesn't want to stand with them where they're going to be standing.

He wants he's got his own spot next to the stage that becomes the.

It is probably that we don't all have the same access, but it's also just because we don't do that to each other.

You know, see you. Yeah. And that's and by the way, that's what makes camp so much fun is when you get back, you have no idea who's going to be there.

You have literally no idea as to who you're going to stumble upon.

And it's just it's it's perfect for someone like, you know, me, who's completely ADD.

Something new at all times. So back to back to the project, David, does the I mean,

as a reporter, it sounds to me like the fact that you came down and did the thing with Daniel and Sharla and and then fits perfectly into the project.

One hundred percent. OK, I was going to ask if it if it became, you know, now that's part of the story.

It's definitely a part of the story. And the thing of it is, is it's even though it wasn't at Bonnarooo,

it was the weekend that it was supposed to happen. And everybody that was there was a Bonnarooo.

And I had people message me after I started posting those photos saying, hey, where's where's that stream at Bonnarooo on the farm?

I've never seen that before. And, you know, if you kind of really read my my really short captions,

you realize it wasn't really taken at the farm. But so, yeah, it definitely it definitely fits well in there, I think.

You know, there is a body of water at Bonnarooo and I don't want to be too I'll be honest.

I don't know if it's still there, but for years and years and years where guest camping used to be, it's now volunteers camp.

But there is a giant bowl of water that sits back on the edge of the KOA and where it's now the camping area for the volunteers.

It's a big giant thing of water. And I don't know if it's like spillage, but for some reason, our guy at Camp Nuff,

but I always wanted to camp next to it. And he didn't realize it's just a big bucket of mosquitoes.

Yeah. And every time we get there, he's like, like, like a rat. No, it's not.

Yeah, that's so true. It's like West Nile virus in the making is there.

Exactly. Absolutely miserable.

David, did your I think you said his name was Joe, the guy that went with you first year. Has he gone back?

OK, he hasn't gone back, but he was going to go back this year. Oh, wow. So you had you had you had a lot going right on this year.

That's when we send each other Christmas cards. You know, I mean, you know, we both got to watch our daughters go through their whole college thing.

And my daughter got her master's. And, you know, now they're both responsible young adults, probably more responsible than I am for sure.

And, you know, we're still doing the thing. You know, well, this is a remarkable not only is the story great, but also you're our second New Yorker this season.

The second New Yorker we talked to. Oh, that's true. Because Bill was from New York. Remember?

So that's a god. Why? That's a long drive. Well, that's when you think about like the actual shows you've seen.

When you say you late night guy, what is the show that stands out to you after nine years of honor? Oh, geez.

Well, the show that stands out to me, not necessarily a late night show, has got to be Paul McCartney. Never heard of it.

Never heard of it. Yeah. And I know a lot of people. You did something with Kanye, I heard.

I know a lot of people kind of tell the same tale. But I mean, it sounds weird, but that was almost like an emotional thing for me. And I wasn't even necessarily a huge Beatles fan or Paul McCartney.

It was the 85,000 people saying every word to Hey Jude was. How do you explain that to somebody?

Yeah, I know. And it's not just any other show. Because, you know, I saw it at ACL Fest later on that year.

Just not the same thing. You know, just not the same thing. It's not the same collective experience.

And, you know, although it was probably a carbon copy of the way that Paul is, you know, affected on stage and he's using all the same inflections of when he's talking about his friend, John.

I get it. But it just doesn't feel the same. Didn't feel the same as Bonnarooo. Exactly right about there.

That was amazing. That was absolutely amazing for me. And this year, a great this past year, should I say 2019, probably one of my standout moments was being in a pit for Gojira.

Gojira is a French metal band. I don't know if you guys. I knew nothing about Gojira when I went to Bonnarooo.

But I decided that I was going to get in the pit for that show because I felt like it had potential from a photographer standpoint.

And I got to be honest with you, man, when they when they came out and started playing, it felt like I was standing next to a 747.

So I'm in the pit with other photographers and they're shooting the stage.

And meanwhile, I'm down on one knee with my back against the stage shooting the people on the rail.

And I could feel my shirt slapping me in the back for a sound wave that was just colliding into me.

And I was just like, wow, this is absolutely incredible.

I've told this before. I was in the photography pit for my morning jacket when they came out and started circuital, I think.

And they hit that opening note and the same thing.

And the photographer next to me put his camera down on the giant speaker and said, I think I just wet myself.

I totally get that. I mean, it didn't happen to me. But it was the thing of it is, is I was trying to concentrate on what I was shooting with all of this chaos going on around me.

And what I started doing was just I had a power winder on my camera. I just threw it on and just started hitting the shutter button.

And I knew, you know, I had literally reloaded my film before I got booted out of the pit because I was shooting so many frames.

And when I walked out of there, I was so excited because I knew I said, man, if I get one frame off of that real sequence, it's total gold.

And I got what you get. You guys have a gun. I got I got a few. Yeah, for sure.

So I'm guessing you have to you have to wear some sort of earplug thing. You're having to cover yourself up.

What is it? What is your earplug choice? I have to say that I don't wear plugs, which is a bad.

Oh, stop it. I don't either. I don't either.

I know it's not really bad. Like I said, both my sons are musicians and they both advocate for that.

But I can't I'm sitting here listening to you.

And again, I carry, you know, a SD card that'll hold ten thousand images.

I can't imagine the stress and the stress plus excitement that you're going through wondering what you're going to get.

Because, I mean, I get it almost immediately. It's it's it's exactly what you just said.

Yeah. Wow. Wow. Man. Well, what a story.

I appreciate you showing up and doing it every year.

I'm excited to see what it turns into after 10 years.

I mean, I don't I don't think you even know it's going to be.

Do you? I mean, ultimately, I'd love to do a book that's just just the project.

I definitely have more than enough material to do that.

But and people have suggested that to me. But, you know, at this point, even though this was my tenth year, I'm not I'm not totally done doing it.

So I hate to like go through the expense of putting together something like that.

And then two years from now, take the best frigging shot that I've ever taken in my life at Bonnaroo.

I'm not happy to be part of that book. Yeah.

Well, think about this. So your trip down here again with the rew bus and that bunch, I think is a tremendous chapter.

But think about what next the next one's going to be like. Exactly.

We're surrounded, but we haven't really considered what the energy is going to be like.

I'm actually you're allowed to do something, assuming it's going to be good.

I would think it's going to be amazing. The release, the energy, the excitement.

I can't wait. You know, the thing is, is one of the things that I've, you know, used to describe the experience to people.

And you really can't have been there in a lot of ways. It's really a celebration of life.

And even more so than ever next year for the people who who look forward to the festival every year, who now don't take it for granted.

I mean, they're going to be celebrating life, you know, like 110 percent pedal to the metal.

And I'm going to film to shoot that. And I'll tell you that I've said this since the first one that I went to.

And I mean this and it sounds corny, whatever. Make fun of me. But Bonnarooo is the way things should be.

Every time I leave there, I think this is the way people should treat people and should act.

And it's really not that complicated. Why don't we do it? You know, yeah, everything from picking up your own tries to just saying hello to people and high five and people.

I mean, it's really pretty simple and it's not that hard. So, yeah, it'll be fun.

It's going to be exciting to see what happens when it happens.

I'd like to believe that, you know, I wasn't an asshole before Bonnarooo before I ever went.

But I can tell you that it's definitely had a profound effect on me as a as a human being.

There's no doubt about it. I mean, how is it? It's a great question, Barry. Am I the last one?

During that week?

I was the last one that we need to probably clear that up.

Bryan Stone, high five people during that week.

I don't know.

No, yeah, no, I understand what you're saying, David.

And I agree. I literally leave there thinking it's really not that hard.

Just do this all the time and the world would be a whole lot better.

And I think that's why we're talking. Yeah.

I mean, that's the thing. That's the thing that I think Daniel, I give him so much credit.

Daniel is I mean, he lives at three sixty five. Yeah.

And and I just think that's awesome. So how far outside of the city are you?

So I live in a small little river town called Cook Sock.

It's it's two hours north of the city on the Hudson, right on the Hudson River.

So you even further past the Gipsy.

Yeah. You know, the first time when I went down to New Jersey and went down there,

we just didn't handle the road trip that well.

Literally took us 20 hours to get there.

We drove all through the night to get there.

We were spent by the time we got there and then we couldn't sleep

because our town was like a microwave at 10 o'clock in the morning.

And what was that? What was the problem with the road trip?

What did you do wrong?

Just kept making too many stops, you know, and.

Yeah, I blame Joe.

Am I right?

This was his car and he was driving.

But you know, even with you know, forget about what Waze tells you.

I mean, even with a normal amount of stops, it's a 16 plus hour trip for me from work from my driveway.

You know, it's nine hundred ninety eight miles.

But I love it, man. It's wow.

Well, hopefully, hopefully we get to see you again.

I get to see you at some point, maybe in Tennessee in the future.

So, yeah, next time, maybe a plane.

Maybe a plane.

Only if I.

Especially if you've got your daughter who lives in Nashville,

she's got all the gear there to fly in the national at this point.

You know, I kind of thought about that, but part of it's the journey.

If I if I have the flexibility to drive, I don't I don't mind doing it, man.

I'm kind of a road trip kind of person, you know, my wife and I are going to Nashville in a couple of weeks.

We're really looking forward to that.

You should go meet up. I'd love to meet Barry.

Yeah, yeah, come on. Yeah.

Just put Barry on the spot.

I know. I mean, Barry, Barry's willing to do it so long as he can get in bed by six.

He's good.

You know, I mean, you know, he's good.

Six thirty got a lot, you know, Matt walk.

I want the story.

Yeah.

Love to have you come on. We'll spend some time.

But before we get off here, do we have any we want to run through some some emails, some questions we have any of those that we want to go through?

OK, and let me pull it up.

This comes from Phil, one of our patrons, and Phil says, Which artists have you been listening to during quarantine?

Do you think would make good additions to the bottom line up for twenty twenty one?

That's a pretty good question.

That's a fantastic question.

That question. First of all, we'll take it in two parts and answer a version that I want to answer.

And then I'll answer is the thing that I've been listening to the most aside from repeat, repeats, wind in my sails out now.

It is out now.

And so is the what podcast?

There's there's two things in particular.

One ties back to the podcast.

I'm going to assess with this.

I just stumbled upon Billy Billy Ocean's piece of vinyl.

Literally, this this twenty five year old thirty year old piece of vinyl has brought me so much joy.

It's just the best thing you could ever buy.

If you find it anywhere suddenly, it is literally as as perfect of an album to put on for any occasion that you have during the day.

And it just hit after hit after. I'm in love with this piece of vinyl.

But the other thing that I'm obsessed with is a recommendation from Rust and Wax. They sent me a album that I have been listening to on repeat.

That would be a perfect, perfect model artist for a Sunday morning slot.

That thing that we've always wanted that church sermon that's happening on Sunday around one o'clock.

You're all Thomas and the pain, literally the band's called The Pain, but it's you are a Thomas, your old Thomas and the pain.

And it is just slapper after slapper, banger after banger, just horns of plenty, big, beautiful Charles Bradley asked horns and soul.

I'm in love with it because of the rest of the wax people. So I give them all credit.

Everything's better with horns now. Yeah.

Well, don't say that to repeat, repeat, because Kristen cannot stand.

She hates horns. I learned this from her. She will not listen to things with horns in it.

So that's right. I want I want my morning jacket.

I want another four hour my morning jacket, Bonnarooo, maybe even two sets, maybe even Friday, Sunday type of I want.

I want my morning jacket because I think they're the perfect Bonnarooo act.

Yeah, that's that's the first place I ever heard of my morning jacket.

I love that new album. That new album is fantastic.

Laura, talk about you. I you know, I speaking to Rustin Wax, I ordered a couple of records from them that were Radiohead records.

And I know Radiohead's played, but I would I would love to see Radiohead again.

You know, B.O.B. was supposed to be you B.O.B. was supposed to be my, you know, Radiohead experience this year.

Well, there's a twenty twenty one. They're going on tour in twenty twenty one.

So you might you might get some man. That would be great.

There's there's so much from the twenty twenty lineup that I wanted to see that I still want to see.

I kind of just you know, I know it can't happen, but it would be great if twenty twenty one was just the twenty twenty lineup.

Like I would be happy with that. Well, look, here's here's what we've learned through COVID doing what I do for a living.

They've studied, you know, people's listening habits and especially the radio stations that are doing really, really well.

Spotify data, Apple Music data, what they found was people in quarantine and through COVID had turned to what they call comfort food.

And not many people are engaging too much in new products.

And most of the listener, especially the radio listener, is choosing stuff that they already know and stuff they're familiar and comfortable with.

Because in times of peril, times of crisis, people always turn to comfort food.

So it's a good point. So, you know, it's it's it's both troubling and understandable why, you know, if you've got a new project out, why it probably doesn't have as much heat on it as it probably could.

So if anybody's listening to something new right now, boy, bring it on. I'm all in because I even feel a tad empty.

I feel a tad like I'm a consumption junkie. I listen to nothing but new stuff. I hate anything that I've already heard.

So to not really feel activated in that way sort of bumps me out.

It's dried up, right? I mean, you would normally hear something as an opening band at a show maybe or, you know, right.

A festival or something. So, yeah, it makes sense. Makes perfect sense.

You guys familiar with the Australian band psychedelic porn crumpets?

You know, I can't say that I know I miss the porn crumpets. No, but tell me more.

Crumpets. Crumpets. Crumpets. Yeah, it's it's it's kind of a really weird name, but let me tell you, it's a great band.

Actually, my sons who are music industry students turn me on to them.

They're the band that I would love to see at Bonnaroo sometime. I think it's inevitable.

But if you want to hear one track that kind of defines them, they have a song called I Found God in a Tomato.

I love it already. Your kids really like weed.

I don't think it's a joke, but it's no joke. You guys are going to dig it.

I'll check it out. Check it out. I found God in a Tomato.

Don't ask my arthritic hands that.

Barry, anything else? Any other questions? Anything else we want to get to before we head to Tap Out?

I just wanted to say before we came on, I had reached out to Drew Holcomb just randomly yesterday, actually, and said, hello, Drew Holcomb.

And then our Moon River Festival and ask him if he had anything to say.

You know, they were supposed to have Moon River next month.

And he just said, like everybody else, really going to miss all you guys and look forward to next year.

So just wanted to throw that out there that the musicians are feeling it like everybody else.

I mean, you know, I can't even imagine what the festival planners, you know, I mean, I know what we're going through.

So they're going through it, too, is the reason that I mentioned it.

So that and no, I guess this was a lot of fun.

David, thanks so much for giving us so much time.

And it blows my mind the story.

I mean, from from meeting a total stranger to driving 20 hours to 10 years later.

Yeah. Doing it again.

And yeah, you have a shirt on right now that says fearless.

I just I think we're going to I think Russ is going to play audio later in a minute from somebody who called into the phone thingy.

Oh, do we have a thing?

I forgot about that. So Barry texted us and said he wanted to open up the phone line again and have people text in or call messages.

And this was the text thread that we had that was, I mean, enormously entertaining to me.

Barry says, I was thinking this is from Lord Tocco.

I was thinking we could maybe do a page on Q&A or a page around submit questions.

Barry responds, that works along those lines.

I really do think the phone thingy can become a thing.

And I responded, Barry's a regular Alexander Graham Bell. I think this phone thingy can become a thing.

It's got legs. So AGV, tell me what we got.

This phone thingy's got legs.

Anyway, my point is when you hear this guy's story on top of what David has shared with us, it's just stunning to me.

The depth that Bonnarooo reaches across the country.

And it just I mean, we kind of talk about it, but I'm still surprised every time we do this.

Brad and Russ, how many people this festival has touched in ways that we don't even know.

So Tocco, can we play it now?

Hey, guys, big fans. I've been following you on YouTube and Spotify for a while.

I just want to share a Bonnarooo memory that I have.

So Bonnarooo was actually my first music festival ever. And it was last year, 2019.

And it was sort of a bit different. So the morning of day two, I found out that my grandmother had passed and we were nine hours away from home.

So there was no and I didn't drive. So there was no way I could really get back.

We knew she was ill. It wasn't like a surprise, but it was kind of rough that I wasn't able to say goodbye.

And later that day, I believe it was day two. I'm probably getting the days wrong.

I just remember that we were waiting for Josier to start and I was not really the biggest fan.

I didn't dislike their music or his music, but just not someone I listened to a lot.

And right before it started, someone just handed me a notebook and a pen.

And it was just something where you write a note and you pass.

And I realized that that was my moment to say goodbye to my grandmother.

So I wrote her a note, a letter, and then I passed it along.

And then Josier started as the sun was setting and it was just kind of a really powerful and spiritual feeling that I had.

I'm sure this is probably a bit different than what you guys are normally getting, but I just wanted to share that story.

David, like what you're saying, you basically had a conversation with Daniel from Roo Bus.

And I did too. And it basically ended up with here's an address, show up at this time.

That's what I did. I had no idea what I was coming into.

But for me, that drive was like an hour.

So you live in the Volkswagen bus, it could have been 22 hours.

It could have easily. But at any point, if I were to break down, I could just camp right there and just wake up.

But yeah, I could imagine actually driving the length that you drove to go to that.

I mean, especially not knowing any more than I did. Just here's an address. It's a field in Tennessee. Show up.

And we did. And of course, it turned out to be wonderful.

They made movies about that kind of thing.

Yeah. Like if if I showed up and it was terrible, I could just go and just usually.

Yeah. Yeah. Guys that look like Ned Beatty.

My point that I started running. Right.

Well, I kind of made a bad joke with my wife saying, hopefully, if nobody hears from me in a few days,

they don't just start finding parts of my camera equipment scattered somewhere.

No, no, no, no. That's not your location. People like this is where to find me.

If you don't hear from me.

I want the final thing to go through the patrons very important.

You want to run through the patrons before we go to that.

We can do that. Thanks to the patrons, Karen Sheets, Timothy Proctor, Aaron Carlson,

Liesl Condor, David Grimes, Phil Hanley, Chloe Hannon,

Torey, musical antlers, Mary T. Schuyler, Melanie and Jesse Feldman over there at the Rust Wax,

Rust and Wax, Parker Reed, Dan Sweeney, Joshua Herndon, Lauren Edholm, Nick Yeatman, Tyrone Baskett,

Evan Brown, Ross McNamara, William Richards, Clay Wilhoyt, Sean McCarthy, Ryan Mathewson,

Chelsea Davis, Lucy Young, Jason Hazelbaker, DK, Linda Doles, Jacob Marty,

Andrew T. McBride, Justin Nigro spoke to him this week, David Solano,

Catherine Riccio, Meredith Ritman, Daniel and Sharla Horton, Sean McCain,

David Henson, Brooke Tussie and Ella up on Signal Mountain.

There you go. All right.

Don't forget our two new ones. We've got two new Patreons.

Madison Hadziko.

Okay.

Hope I'm saying that right.

And then Riley Benson was our new one.

Yeah, good for you. Thanks for doing that. I forgot about that.

Yeah.

Imagine we got two new ones in a year when Bonnarooo didn't happen.

Didn't even happen.

Yeah.

Yeah. No kidding. And I guess we still got another show to come up.

We've got more we're doing. This is nice.

We've still got a Patreon to talk to and we've got some other surprises.

I hope we continue to call in the phone thingy.

Yeah. What's the phone thingy? What's the number to the phone thingy?

The number to the phone thingy is 423-667-7877.

Which spells, that we found out the other day, sput.

Also spells R-U-S-S.

Oh, okay.

As I said earlier, it spells R-U-S-S.

David, wow, man. Thanks for giving us so much time.

Thank you so much and thanks for keeping the Bonnarooo spirit alive, man.

I love your photos. They're really, really well done.

What again is the URL?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Shoot, yeah. Give a plug.

It's basically I am Bonnarooo on Facebook and Instagram.

I do have the domain name registered, but I'm lazy and I don't have my website up yet.

I meant to ask you that earlier.

What is the name? I mean, that's such a pretty bold...

Is that something that you'd use for other projects or is that just for this?

No, literally I use it just for this project.

It's kind of weird for me because people will see me at the festival and they'll say,

hey, are you that Bonnarooo? I am Bonnarooo guy.

And I'm not I am Bonnarooo. The people that are in the photos, they are Bonnarooo.

This project is for them, about them.

I'm archiving lives every time I press the shutter button down.

That's awesome. I am Bonnarooo. That's awesome. Very good.

And by the way, if you need help building a website, I think we got the guy for you.

I need help. I can probably help you out.

Awesome.

All right, guys, we'll see you next time. Anything else where we go?

Yeah, thank you. Thank you guys for doing what you do and keeping us all year round too, man.

I mean, I think the first podcast that I watched of yours, I literally stumbled across.

There was one that you guys were doing in a parking lot somewhere and you had a lot of Daniel's crew there.

Some of the some of the Reddaroo guys, I think were there.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

We did that last November with the RooBuzz crew and some of the what was it? The Rutan clan.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hashtag at the Moxie.

Yes. Yeah. We did it at the Moxie Hotel in Chattanooga.

And it was kind of a last minute thing we threw together and said, let's make a video and put it out.

I actually shared it with some of my friends.

And it's a good it's a good feed for the offseason, as they say.

You know what I mean? It is. And when they when you talk to them, what do they say about my hair?

Well, you know, I was going to tell you, you got the best hair in the business.

But I appreciate that. Oh, good.

Yeah, well, we appreciate you.

And thanks for listening and being such a good Bonnarooo patron, if you will.

You embody the spirit of the festival, that is for sure.

Thanks a lot, man. Thanks, buddy. See you soon.

Thanks, guys. See you again, David. Thank you.