Headliner chats to P!nk's long-time monitor engineer, Jon Lewis about his route into the live sound industry, how he's spent his time during the lockdown period, and why when it comes to consoles, it's always got to be DiGiCo.
Like many sound engineers and musicians at the moment, Jon Lewis admits that while he’s been keeping himself busy with jobs around the house, he’s been dragging his feet a little bit this year, and wishing he was back out on the road touring.
It’s the first time he’s been routed in one place for such an extended period of time, and he says that while he was initially like a fish out of water, he’s getting used to it now:
“The garden’s looking fantastic,” he beams. “I take a lot of pride in my lawn, which the dog seems to want to dig up constantly. Besides that, I’ve just been pottering around the house, spending time with the family.”
Alongside touring, Lewis has another side to his business which sees him looking after a number of new bands - facilitating their online sessions and getting them into the studio to record - something he’s been getting more involved with recently:
“Initially people were doing [live streams] from their own houses, so it was a matter of scrambling equipment round to them so they could do little acoustic sessions, which was really cool as well. It was nice to go back to basics and put little packages together, and explain to people how to plug them up - like going back to school in some respects!”
P!nk is one of those artists who is touring relentlessly for months, sometimes years at a time, which must be pretty intense for Lewis and the rest of the crew.
“For the Beautiful Trauma tour, we did six months of promo which went straight into two years of touring,” he explains. “Her promo shows are always quite spectacular with the theatrical and circus aspects. We’ve done shows where she would fly through the air, and even one where she was suspended from the side of the Hilton Hotel in downtown L.A, all while singing live.
“It keeps it interesting because you’re dealing with different things, from an acoustic set around a nice swimming pool in Malibu, to dangling from the side of a building. The technical constraints are interesting, but it keeps things fresh and helps me stay focused.”