You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.
In these final questions, you can see Steve Harms passion for what he does, despite the lack of financial rewards. Plus all the connections to the fans and bands.
Harms is the executive director of Warehouse Alliance, Inc and handles the day to day operations of the Warehouse. Booking, poster making, running the shows, etc. He is an unpaid volunteer, at this point.
Show Harms and the Warehouse Alliance, that you care about the work they are doing and help them out. Please give $10 or more to the Warehouse if you can.
Rift: What has been the best part of running the club for so long.
Steve: It is a toss-up between kids and bands, I love to make people happy.
The best show is when there are enough kids to make the bands happy, the bands are entertaining enough to make the kids happy, and there are enough ticket sales to keep the bank happy.
All of those are different feelings, though.
When a show finishes and a bunch of kids are piling out the door with big smiles and you know they’re going to remember it for a long time, that’s a great feeling.
Bands often arrive after a 10-hour drive on a crappy tour that has been underperforming, mad at each other, mad at their agent, their irritation often spilling digitally back home to their boyfriend/girlfriends, and everything seems awful. It is a great feeling to see them smiling and happy at the end of the show because kids were getting into what they were doing, and because the crew of a venue treated them with respect and genuinely cared about their presentation.
So it’s great when there is a connection between the staff and myself and the band, and everyone realizes we are all working towards the same thing: a successful show.
That is defined differently by each part of the production, but when everyone can step into everyone else’s shoes for a bit, that makes things run smooth and makes it enjoyable for everyone.
If you throw in that “running the club for so long” part, we get the benefit of getting bands through here on their way up, and on their way back down. The changes are sometimes incredible. Bands will play here that are getting big in Chicago (or Minneapolis), and their agent/manager needs them to do some gigging outside of their home cities.
The bands show up here expecting everyone to worship them, only to find that once they leave the city limits, they’re not the rockstars they thought they were. So that kind of band can be difficult to deal with the first couple times in, from the moment they arrive until the moment they leave. Then, if they are lucky as hell, they’ll come back in a tour bus, with a crew, and we’ll have to deal with a whole new set of issues.
Lots of newer bands use their friends as tour managers or crew, and they’re inexperienced and really need to throw their imaginary weight around to prove their worth for the sake of job security. The next time the band comes through, they’ve played Warped, they’ve burned through cash on the bus tour(s), and their eyes have been opened to just how many bands they’re competing with.
They’ve found out just how many venues are run by shady promoters who couldn’t care less about the bands, and how rough it is. So they have become the easiest band to work with ever. Simple soundchecks, very friendly, and so happy to come back to a place that has treated them well every time they came through in the course of their music career.
That kind of treatment leads to friendships. I’ve never been a “pose for pictures with the band” kind of guy. I try to treat every band person as an equal. We’re both doing a job that night. I’ve unintentionally made plenty of friends of band members, who often reach out to me to ask about a management problem, or to look over a contract, or for advice in dealing with a promoter, or in a couple of cases to share that their band got signed.
Going for this long, we see generations of bands and generations of kids. When I see any of the bands who have come through here playing bigger stages and having success, it is a great feeling. Especially, Midwest bands that played here when they were young ‘uns.
(It’s also great to have parents come up and find out that we’re not sacrificing animals or dealing drugs, that it is just a bunch of kids having fun watching bands)
Rift: Is it possible you could be one of the longest running all age clubs ever, or, at least, 2nd after Gilman St. in San Francisco. Did you ever check into that?
Steve: Well, I know we HAVE to be one of the longest running. Obviously Gilman St is longer, and plenty of venues have operated longer while doing mixed all-ages shows (with minors and alcohol). We’re one of the longest running no alcohol rooms in the country. Because as a business model, it is suicide. But for teen concert-goers, it is paradise. No drunks standing behind you with a beer, spilling it on you in the motion of the crowd; no drunk hecklers destroying the pacing of the show; no drunks getting overzealous with individuals who have no interest in their advances; and no drunk musicians.
**from a story written by Ira Booker at mnartists.org at the beginning of 2014:
First Avenue General Manage Nate Kranz says that’s largely a matter of logistics. First Ave books shows at more than a dozen venues around town. Many of those host all-ages shows at least occasionally, and each has its own way of meeting regulations. “There are rules that regulate alcohol sales,” Kranz expains. “In an all-ages environment they’re not supposed to mix under-18 people with alcohol sales. At First Avenue we have it segregated so that there’s only alcohol sales upstairs. When we do all-ages shows at the Triple Rock there’s no alcohol sales in the live music room. If you want to get a drink you have to go next door.” (And that’s in relatively lenient Minneapolis; Saint Paul simply doesn’t allow 18-plus shows in alcoholic environments.)
“Obviously the revenues are different at an all-ages show,” Kranz continues. “Some venues are just set up to be all-ages all the time. Arenas are generally more family friendly, so they’re always all ages. Theaters are for the most part all-ages. But at venues that are more like nightclubs or bars, the process is different. Generally there’s a higher rent figure. You generally have to have more security. And, frankly, the revenue is lower for the venue at an all-ages show.”
“Without alcohol bringing that revenue in, it’s just that much more difficult. When you’re trying to do an all-ages, all the time scenario, there’s very little revenue. You gotta understand – and this applied to me too when I was underage – minors don’t spend much money once they get into a venue. If they do, they buy a t-shirt. They’re not going to spend ten dollars on soda. The way concert deals work, the vast amount of the ticket money goes to the bands. When you’re giving the ticket money to the bands and nobody’s spending inside your venue, it’s really hard to stay open.”
Rift: You’ve dealt with many musicians over the years, have a horror story or maybe an extremely positive story that you might not expect?
I wish I could remember all of them. Luckily, staff members bring things up. A long time ago when we set up our first website for the venue, I also had a ‘blog’-type column, in which I talked about the shows that were coming up and reviewed the ones that had happened. I did not quite get the power of the internet.
We had a show with My Chemical Romance and A Static Lullaby, and the kids (they were not 21) in ASL were humungous babies. Didn’t want to get out of the van until their two-man crew had loaded everything, bitched non-stop, and then proceeded to berate the crowd from the stage, calling the kids who had paid to see them “fat farmers” etc.
There was much more, and I wondered if they were having a bad day or if they were always entitled pricks. Well, after their set their tour manager came over and apologized, and let me in on a little secret: he was abandoning the tour that night, flying home out of La Crosse. So they were like that every night, not just at our show.
Well, genius me decided to review the show on our little blog on our little website, but some ASL fans read it and linked it to AbsolutePunk.net, and AP.net, and eventually the review was everywhere.
Then the phone started ringing. First, their manager. Threats and more threats. I was “putting the band’s record contract in jeopardy”. I was “destroying the promotion for the new album”. Then the VP at Columbia Records (I think? can’t remember which label) called and asked me point blank: Should we at Columbia be investing any more in this band? At that point I COULD have shot a great big hole in their future and told him, they were not worth a dime, but instead, I said: “well, maybe they were just blowing off some steam, they’re young, they just need some more road time.” Very diplomatic, and I know I saved them from themselves. But later, their manager called again and threatened to sue me if the band had any troubles with the label based on my review.
What had I said? All I did was describe the show and everything the band did, and then toss out a suggestion for the road manager that was a little harsh. “If I were that road manager,” I wrote, “I’d wait until the band was asleep, put something heavy on the accelerator, and dive out of the van. Maybe a fiery rollover would save anyone else from having to deal with them.” In retrospect, it is hilarious, as several years later, ASL came back through and were all nice, and their bass player and guitarist came through in another band, and we all had a huge laugh about it.
Rift: Where would you like to see The Warehouse at in five years?
Steve: I would love to see The Warehouse flourishing as a 5-7 day a week music hub, with musicians giving lessons for free to kids who are interested in learning about guitar, drums, bass, keyboards, hip-hop and voice.
Rehearsal spaces where young musicians can reserve a time to come jam on amps and instruments provided by manufacturers, finding out which other local kids they “fit” with, and starting bands (who could also then reserve free rehearsal times).
The studio finished, with an engineer available a few days a week to record young bands for free, record the live shows, and provide some audio production classes to young musicians.
Music business classes once a month to help young musicians learn about all of the aspects of the music business, so they can perhaps find a niche that they had not thought of.
Upgraded sound and lighting system so that young musicians can feel like they can put on their best performance in front of their peers and parents.
Most of these things could be done in the institutionalized world of other generic 501c3s. But I think the Warehouse has a street credibility and is such a unique building that nothing done with a new concrete box could ever match up with the authenticity of its musical history.
Oh and most importantly, I would hope we would have raised enough funds to hire permanently a second-in-command, who could take over on the day I get crushed carrying an Ampeg 8×10 up the stairs.
Rift: If there were a piece of advice you could give about anything, what would it be?
Steve: Find your passion, and find a way to make it your life’s work. Make your passion evolve.
I could never do this, and be so broke I’m driving a car with 280,000 miles on it and living at my Mom’s house if I did feel like I was doing something extremely important.
Twenty-five years later I can see the results and effects The Warehouse has had on kids who are now grown adults. Their success stories fuel my passion. The problem with young adult substance addiction in this area fuels my passion. Knowing that if I work a little harder I can help one more young musician stay away from drugs, one more kid has a place to make friends and be accepted instead of remaining an outcast, that fuels my passion.
When I was young, I was convinced that the only life for me was to become a rockstar. There was NO way it wasn’t going to happen. Now my work behind the scenes is infinitely more satisfying than being on stage. Find your passion and make it evolve.
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