John Calacci
Tour Manager of The Bangles
John currently tour-manages The Bangles, a role he's held for nearly two decades, and his client list reads like a who's-who of American songwriting: Lucinda Williams, Shelby Lynne, Belinda Carlisle, Rickie Lee Jones, Judith Owen, The Long Ryders, and Peter Asher. He's the guy artists call when they need a tour run right.
His path to that chair is its own story. John started out mixing live sound in Rockford, Illinois for Silver Fox, a band built around three members of Fuse, the group Rick Nielsen and Tom Petersson left to start Cheap Trick. From there he mixed for The Names, then for the cult Wisconsin alt-country band EIEIO, before moving into tour security at one of the most electric moments in rock history. He ran security for The Bangles during their Manic Monday and Walk Like an Egyptian run, for Sinead O'Connor the year Nothing Compares 2 U exploded, and for Susanna Hoffs on her first solo tour. After a move to LA he tour-managed Mark Oliver Everett (the artist who would go on to front Eels) and spent years on the road with Ginger Lynn.
Then came the move that says everything about how artists feel about him: The Bangles brought him back. First as their drum tech and percussionist, then as their tour manager. Same band, three different jobs, by invitation each time.
John's perspective is rare because he's lived inside every part of the modern touring world: front of house, security, tech, percussion, and the manager's chair. He's worked almost exclusively with women in rock for the bulk of his career. He's been on small club runs and theater tours and everything in between. And he's still out there doing it.
Whether you're a Bangles fan, a Lucinda Williams fan, or someone trying to figure out how to make a life on the road actually work, this is a conversation with one of the people who makes the whole thing possible.
What they get into
- What a tour manager actually does, hour by hour, on a working tour
- The path from front-of-house engineerto tour manager and what each role teaches you
- What it takes to build the kind of trust that gets you invited back to the same band three times
- Lessons from running tours for some of the most iconic women in American rock
- Tour-managing future legends before anyone knew their names yet
- How the craft of touring has evolved and what's stayed exactly the same
- What separates a tour that runs smoothly from one that falls apart
- The unwritten rules you only learn by doing the work for real