Cactus pizza and aeroplane carrot sticks: how a sound engineer eats on tour

Pick ‘n’ mix

What’s your typical breakfast?
On tour, it could be great food in a hotel or nearby restaurant – or it could be venue or festival catering, which can be questionable. Sometimes it’s just an energy bar (if I wake up late). At home I’m quite boring and have the same thing each day: rice cakes and Ryvita with salad and yogurt with granola. My new habit is to make a juice; my usual is apple, ginger, mint and lemon.

What was the last takeaway you ordered?
Lebanese. There’s a place near us that does a great spicy taouk (chicken kebabs) and batata hara potatoes.

What’s playing in the kitchen?
Bleachers, Billie Eilish, Spill Tab… I like picking random artists similar to who I like to find new music. I’ll also play songs that I’m working on repeatedly (I also produce music in my spare time) to get new ideas or see if changes need to be made, which probably drives my girlfriend insane. If I’m alone, I’ll listen to nostalgic music like Green Day, Blink 182, Sum 41 and Enter Shikari. We have a Sonos soundbar which sounds great – I’d love to have more speakers linked around the flat.

What’s your hot drink of choice?
Green tea with lemon squeezed in. I also love a flat white, but rarely make them at home. I sometimes make iced coffee with an Aeropress – I add milk and ice and shake in a cocktail shaker.

Most-prized cooking tool?
I never used to cook rice because it always failed but having a rice cooker makes it so easy. And now that I own a really good juicer, I could never go back.

 

The main meal

When did you learn to cook?
I feel like I never “learned” to cook. I just picked things up over time. I got more experimental when I started working because I had more money to spend on food rather than living on pasta on a student budget.

What do you cook on repeat?
Either salmon with garlic, ginger, soy sauce and sesame oil or tomato sauce pasta with garlic, dried basil, oregano, parsley, olive oil, a bit of red wine, balsamic vinegar and tomato purée. I know it sounds boring but it’s great.

What does a playback tech do?
I tour with bands and artists around the world as part of their crew. I’m responsible for running backing tracks for the live show and programming and building the rig that runs the tracks. Playback is a huge part of most shows as it not only plays the backing track and any clicks and cues sent to the musicians, but can also control most instruments on stage, run autotune or other vocal processing and send information to lighting and video, so they run in time with the music.

How do you decide what to eat day-to-day?
When I’m touring, it will either be what people find on Google Maps or if anyone knows anywhere in the area that’s good. I’ve toured with people that seem to know at least one good place in every city in the world. They’re great people to know.

How does your job affect how you eat?
Being away 95 per cent of the time for work means I don’t always have a huge say in what I eat. A lot of the time there will be catering: sometimes amazing, sometimes terrible. On days off it can get expensive while on tour; I have to be careful not to spend all my money on fancy restaurants. Travel days can also be tough. If we stop in the middle of nowhere there may only be one or two options. But I’m really lucky to have been able to try food from different countries around the world.

What’s the snack situation on tour?
There’s always snacks on the tour bus or at the venue: mostly fruit, energy bars and sweets but it depends on who I’m touring with. Unfortunately I’ve never toured with anyone with anything too crazy on the rider!

What drink do you get at a venue when you’re working?
There’s always water, soda and beers and again, depending on the artist, there will be other alcoholic drinks. I’ve kind of become the cocktail guy on tour – I make a really good margarita. I made espresso martinis for everyone on tour last year and the next day they all said they didn’t sleep until 7am.

What’s the best food experience you’ve had on tour?
Probably in Greenland. We went over to a friend of the local rep’s house, where they cooked fish we had caught earlier in the day and musk ox. We later watched the northern lights from the balcony. A time I’ll never forget.

… And the worst?
Festival catering can be sh*t, especially at UK festivals. And plane food can be questionable but that’s the case for everyone. Once on a 12-hour flight they had my dietary requirements wrong (I’m yeast intolerant) and all they could offer me was carrot sticks for dinner.

What’s the best late-night after-show food in your opinion?
Pizza: always pizza. Easy to share and still good cold after all the crew have finished loading out. My favourite is classic pepperoni – unless there’s interesting toppings to try. A good example is Mamma’s Pizza in Edinburgh, which has crazy choices like cactus.

 

What’s the best food souvenir you’ve brought back from a tour?
Definitely knives I got from Tokyo. They look beautiful as well as being super practical. I was also given a large electric juicer at the start of a tour to make cocktails. It was too big to fit in my suitcase so I checked it into the flight on its own. It survived with only a small hole in its cardboard box but then exploded the first time I used it at home. Not a good souvenir, but a funny story.

My bite-size week

What was the best thing you ate last week?
I had great tortellini in Düsseldorf filled with cheese and spinach and a creamy cheese and walnut sauce. The catering at Pinkpop festival in the Netherlands was really good – a wide selection. I’m usually not a huge fan, but the ribs were incredible. They fell off the bone and actually had a lot of meat on them.

What did you do to relax?
We spent a lot of time on this tour playing golf on Xbox. It was fun because we all got competitive and made a tournament. We even went to a few driving ranges which I’ve never done before.

What food/drink did you buy on the go?
Iced tea and water. We went to a big supermarket to stock up on still water and realised that it’s basically impossible to buy in Germany. It was a really hot tour so we had to keep hydrated. I did drink a lot of Aperol spritzes though…

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