Interview with Kristin Klein, Tour Managing Queen.
By Pedro
Kristin Klein has been tour manager for bands like Ariel Pink, Atlas Sound, BBQ, The Black Lips, Deerhunter, the Fresh & Onlys, Jay Reatard, King Khan, and Thee Oh Sees. She lives in San Francisco and loves Mission Chinese. She also has a pop-up shop called Vacation which has a three date residency at The Make-Out Room starting this Saturday (6/11). I sat down with Kristin at Mission Chinese a few weeks ago to ask her about tour managing, and what she’s up to these days.
Do you have any groupies?
I do. Not really groupies. I have a Flickr page because my memory is horrible. I would take camera phone pictures and post them to my page and have probably been doing that for the past five years. There’s a girl named Madeline who I’m still friends with, and I just sent her to the Fresh & Onlys show. She lives in Bloomington, Indiana - I think she’s my biggest fan. But there’s also a girl in Birmingham, Alabama that was following me and my exploits on the internet and wanted to be a tour manager. She’s touring now with a couple of bands, which is cool. I think she sorta looked up to me as a influence. My hero is this guy Bob Whittaker, he’s a tour manager. I met him on tour with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. He was the tour manager for Mudhoney all throughout the 90s. He’s this legendary guy who always had it together, was always was on the band’s side whenever they needed it, and I think back then it was totally a different world because there was no internet or smart-phones. But he was also known as the most insane party animal. Ever. He’s an amazing dude. Now he’s working with R.E.M., and a bunch of different people.
GROUPIE OF THE YEAR AWARD. click through for more of the interview!
