Kevin Lyman Interview (Big Cheese Issue 102)

Talking Tours

Big Cheese catches up with Warped head honcho Kevin Lyman to find out if Warped will be coming back to the UK any time soon...

On this year's Warped Tour...

I book the tour in November. The world’s changed very quickly. We set the ticket price. We said we would go out for the same ticket price as last year. Then the past few weeks, we had accountants asking ‘are you charging extra at the door?’ How will gas be hit? We’ll go out there and it will cost us. I told everyone we’ll make less money this year. That’s what will happen. Luckily I’ve got the Mayhem tour so instead of making money for retirement it will be going to paying for the gas on Warped Tour! For me, yesterday was a weird day. Just looking over how this tour’s been for 14 years, having this open society and a lot of things going on. Every year the tide comes in and the tour grows. Last year it was a little scaled back. But it’s hard when so many people want to be involved in it. I look at it and it’ll probably be the last year the Warped Tour will be able to be this way. It’s not because of any other reason other than forces taken out of our control. But I think we could make the Warped Tour work. We’ll probably do a lot more locally next year. Probably travel with fewer stages. We’ll go with the bigger stages, or maybe tell the promoter to bring in a stage and a sound system. Maybe they’ll come in from a little city and play two or three shows. It’ll still be a great show. We just won’t have 70 bands going out on the road with us. Next year’s the 15th year so already into some ideas for a pretty cool show. We’re hoping to tie it in with NASCAR and make it a big weekend. A lot of NASCAR drivers like punk rock, like Ryan Vickers’ crew. They’re coming down tomorrow because they’re racing up at Sears Point.

On deciding who plays on the tour...

I always thought Warped Tour was eclectic. Some people think it got too emo, too screamo, or whatever. When you really dig into it, the Warped line up is pretty diverse. In 1995 – L7, Sublime, No Doubt, Quicksand, CIV, Orange 9MM – what did they really have in common? They had a thread and a lifestyle, but they didn’t sound alike. If you look at the Hurley.com stage and watch the Smartpunk stage – when we get on the East Coast, a lot of the amphitheatre stages are split in half. I wanted kids to hear the difference in the sounds of music. So that’s why you’re out there, you’ll hear Oreska Band and Alesana, and then Beat Union. I think kids are all over musically. I think it’s playing well. Katy Perry is going up with that. It’s interesting to have someone like Katy Perry now. I heard her demo tapes in October. When I first heard those demos, I went ‘good attitude. She’s a punk kind of at heart.’ With Oreska Band, how cool is that kids are into it. There were 1500 people at their stage – an all girl Japanese ska band. I think people are open minded right now to the music. We did the Old School Stage last year. That was really cool down in Carson. We’re going to expand that to four cities. We have Big Drill Car coming back. We have the Germs coming out, and D.I. I think this is the time where maybe at one point it scared people. TSOL played a few shows at the Warped Tour, and the kids ran, like, ‘who the hell?!’ But now, when they see that band, they’ll start looking into Fear and those kinds of things. Last year it was awesome at Carson, where people were asking ‘would people go see these bands at a venue any more?’ Probably not, but come out to the Warped Tour and learn about a history lesson of punk.

On a possible return to the UK...

We’ve been asked quite a bit about that. It’s hard with Warped. We take A Taste of Chaos around the world now. When you go to A Taste of Chaos in the US or Japan or Australia, it’s a similar show – indoors and a second stage. Warped Tour’s taken up this massive proportion. This is the vision of the Warped Tour and with the internet, videos and DVDs and international travel with kids coming over here, when you take it overseas, you can’t duplicate this, no matter how hard you try. Kids will go ‘this isn’t the real Warped Tour.’ Kids want to come here. A lot of other places don’t have free things that kids in America like, from the stuff in the booths, activities and signings. So we go overseas, you have six to eight booths and kids go ‘I want that overload of the Warped Tour.’ My thing was I always took the Warped Tour to places I never go to travel. I got to travel because I started the Warped Tour. I went camping in Australia with bands, traveling in buses, having a great time around the world. Now they’re talking about Warped Tour South Africa…sometimes I’m wondering if it’s better to buy a ticket to go see it. You don’t necessarily need to do a show everywhere you want to go in the world. We’re doing Warped Tour Mexico. We’re doing a little show out there at the end of August. There are some kids that used to sneak in to the country to see the Warped Tour. Then they started throwing their own little Warped Tours down there. Then they’d bring me pictures and they’d have a little truck with two bands that reminded me of Warped Tour in 1995 in many ways. Now we’re trying to take a step up, helping them booking bands, Vans connections so maybe they could be doing this.