Amena Brown:
Hey everybody, welcome back to a new episode of HER with Amena Brown. And at the time that you are listening to this episode, we are already going to be in a new year. So I hope y'all are feeling all of the new year vibes, whether you are taking the opportunity to do all of the things or whether you are taking the opportunity to go slowly. Y'all know I'm always a big fan of a slow movement, a slow entrance into the new year, and we're back with some road stories. So Matt's here. Hey Babe.
Matt:
Happy New Year.
Amena Brown:
Okay, so today we want to tell y'all a couple of cool stories about some free stuff that we got a chance to experience because we were on the road and a pretty amazing birthday that-
Matt:
I've had a couple of them, yeah.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. That Matt had on the road. So first of all, Babe, we were just talking in general about the road and some of the perks that can come along with the road. And you told a story that I didn't even remember. So you said we were in Florida-
Matt:
We were in Orlando, Florida doing an event, I think it was a youth event. I think it was a youth event because I'm pretty sure they had a deal where they were taking people from the event to Universal Studios and they asked us, would you like free passes for the day to go to Universal Studios? This was either before or after, or maybe before and after, who can remember? But it was we hit the stage, did our thing, and I'm pretty sure after that we got to leave and go to Universal Studios.
Amena Brown:
Now see, I don't remember being with you. So a part of me is thinking that they gave us this option in a window of time that was between soundcheck and when we actually had to perform. And I don't remember what exactly we were doing at this event, but I feel like they were like, "Hey, maybe y'all have some free time, y'all could go over there". And I am pretty sure I said no to that because I felt that I needed to get my life together. I don't know what we were doing.
Matt:
That's very possible because if we do a flashback to our honeymoon, our honeymoon we went to Universal Studios.
Amena Brown:
We did. We did.
Matt:
Because we were driving all the way to Florida.
Amena Brown:
I want to give a shout-out to my in-laws, Matt's parents, for giving us entrance to their timeshare people. So just so y'all know where we were budget wise at this time when we got married, we had to pay $50 in order to be able to use Matt's parents timeshare. So they were basically giving us the gift of having a wonderful place to stay for our honeymoon. And all we had to pay was $50 seven days, seven nights. And we are driving down to Orlando, which is not a short drive, it's not too long, but it's not a short drive. We're driving down to Orlando, y'all and just start opening up the cards from the wedding. And that's how we knew we had enough money to go to Universal Studios during our moon.
Matt:
Exactly. And so on the honeymoon, I found out that you had never ridden a roller coaster before.
Amena Brown:
That's true. That's true.
Matt:
So we decided we'd go on a roller coaster. If I remember correctly, it's called the Rock and Roll Roller Coaster or Rock and Roller, something like that, where you got to choose your own music, which I thought was great. One thing, I don't even know if I knew this about you at the time, but my wife loves an option.
Amena Brown:
Boy, boy, I love to customize. Yes.
Matt:
If Amena can pick an option, she loves that. If Amena can't pick an option, she wants to know why. Why can't I?
Amena Brown:
Why not?
Matt:
Wouldn't it be better?
I have the option to say if I want to have an option. I also want to let the record reflect y'all, that I have never been a person who even enjoyed the thought of a rollercoaster. I've had many opportunities where I was at various sundry parks all over the place, went with other kids and was just like, hmm, that doesn't seem like it's for me. But I'm going to tell you, when you first get married and you realize that your person really loves something, you want to try really hard to do that. So this was me. This was me.
So it was our honeymoon. Very first rollercoaster for you. I picked Beastie Boys-
Amena Brown:
Did.
Matt:
Fight For Your Right To Party. What'd you pick?
Amena Brown:
I picked Kanye West, Stronger.
Matt:
Okay. Cool.
Amena Brown:
I know it's hard to say no. Feelings are hurt. Feelings are hurt.
Matt:
We'll bypass that little moment.
Amena Brown:
Feelings are hurt.
Matt:
Sorry. So anyways, we get on that rollercoaster, find out that Amena really hates rollercoasters.
Amena Brown:
Wow. Wow. One of my most embarrassing moments happened on that rollercoaster, y'all. Wow.
Matt:
Has vowed to never ride a rollercoaster again.
Amena Brown:
First and last rollercoaster that day. Literally the rest of our honeymoon, I was like, Babe, ride as many rides as you want to ride. I will be waiting at the bottom, reading my Kindle until you come back.
Matt:
Which is a picture into our relationship.
Amena Brown:
Yes, that's true.
Matt:
Both working and marriage.
Amena Brown:
Yes. Accurate. Accurate.
Matt:
So anyways, flash forward to this event. It very well may have been that you didn't go with me. I just know that I left the state. I was thinking, how cool is this? I was just on my turntables, rocking beats in front of all these people. And now here I am in line to get on a rollercoaster. This is an awesome day. And I do remember that it was something they had with the Transformers. I don't know if one of the Transformer movies had just come out or something along that line. So they had a dude in a massive transformer costume, turned into the truck and then next thing you know, he's up and walking around and talking. And I was like, how cool is that? And then I happened to walk around the corner and saw the dude with the head off of the costume and I was like, whoa, I think I got a picture of that somewhere or a video. I'm going to have to check my phone.
Amena Brown:
Okay, we need to find that.
Matt:
So anyways, so yeah.
Amena Brown:
That was your day.
Matt:
That was-
Amena Brown:
So you got to do that, y'all. We were talking through some of our most fun free stuff and when Matt brought this up and I was like, I'm pretty sure we didn't go because I would've remembered going back to Universal Studios with you. So I'm just laughing at whoever was like, yeah, come on. And Matt got on the van and rode over there. Wow. Love to see it. I'm glad you enjoyed it Babe, because it's hard for free things to come across the table and neither one of us get to enjoy it. So I'm glad you got to do that.
Matt:
That's one of the things about road life that is much different when you're working in your own city, just going to events. Road life was you would be in a green room and somebody would walk up to you and be like, "Hey, do you want to", insert blank? Whether there was a certain event that had this really cool company that made these watches. Remember? And you're like, "Do you want one of these watches"? And you're like, "Sure. I want one of these love watches".
Amena Brown:
Love a watch. Yeah. Watches are great.
Matt:
I remember us being at an event, it was a health event and I had just been looking into this new thing called a Fitbit.
Amena Brown:
Yes, that's right.
Matt:
Those are so cool. And they're like, "Hey, would you like a Fitbit"? And we were like, "Of course we would like". And they just gave you one. And I remember that day wearing it thinking I got a billion steps and I looked down, it was like 200 steps or something. I was like, "No way".
Amena Brown:
Y'all have never seen two people marching in the hotel that night trying to be like, "Why doesn't it, I thought I got so many steps", like marching, trying to make up for the steps. Wow, I forgot about that. What a time. That was a great free thing. I want to also shout out that event because I was there to do one poem. They had commissioned me to do a poem according to the theme of something they were doing at the event. And right after I did my poem, Michael J. Fox was the keynote speaker. And shout out to my GenX people listening to this podcast because I didn't speak to Michael J. Fox, he didn't speak to me. But boy, did Matt and I just stare and stare and stare at him. It was like big, "Oh my gosh". Our little kids. I know that Michael J. Fox has done more with his life than be on Family Ties and star in Back to the Future. However, that's what was most important at the moment. Just seeing him in person and being like, "Oh my gosh".
Matt:
I am standing behind Teen Wolf. I could reach out and touch his head, but I didn't.
Amena Brown:
Wow. I also really wanted to add to my resume at that point that I opened from Michael J. Fox, you know what I'm saying? It was like a Michael J. Fox concert. Basically I was the opening act, has shared stages with Michael J. Fox is the actual fact, because we did kind of share the stage.
Matt:
Now one time I do remember thinking that we were going to get something in a green room was some sunglasses of some sort.
Amena Brown:
Oh, yikes. Yikes. Yikes.
Matt:
And we're like, "Oh cool". So we went up to the table and picked out these sunglasses and they were like, "Yeah, the price will be..."- And we were like, "What"?
Amena Brown:
It was very expensive. I remember being very expensive. And I remember it was one of those companies where it's like every purchase you make is like a donation in some way to some underserved or underprivileged community. And so at that point you thought you were going to get free sunglasses, now you're not. But now you feel bad to be like, "Oh no, I don't want those people to be able to have eye exams". So we were stuck and had to buy those.
Matt:
Cool, cool, cool. Yeah. Let's put this on the... Which card are we going to put this?
Amena Brown:
Yikes. One of my favorite free things, and I still miss this one because we have not... There's some cities we've returned to, one of us or both of us have returned to, post our church traveling that we used to do. And so we've got a chance to go back and experience some of those cities. But Portland is a city that neither of us have been back to because we have not been booked there now that neither of us are really doing things in church market or Christian event type world. But I'm going to tell y'all something right now, the free passes that we received to the Adidas employee store, I mean, dare I say, is it life changing? I really want to say it's definitely wardrobe changing. Because we both received some shoes. The shoes you can get up in there, some of them you can't find anywhere anymore. So people would-
Matt:
And definitely not for the price you got them for.
Amena Brown:
Okay, we need to talk to y'all about this. First of all, Adidas is headquartered in Portland, as well as Nike though.
Matt:
Nike also. Yeah.
Amena Brown:
And we are both big Adidas fans. I do, since we're talking about road stories, I do want to bring up that I was wearing shelltoes at an event around the time that we would go back and forth to Portland and a lady walked up and she was like, "Oh look at you wearing those shoes. My 12-year-old daughter loves those kind of shoes", and I'm pretty sure that I barked back at her. "These are hip hop shoes. These are called shelltoes because run DMC wore them in the eighties, that's why I'm wearing them". I'm pretty sure I did that. That was probably a sign that my time in Christian market needed to be over.
'Cause I was like, I'm not wearing these because your little girl, your little teenage girl thinks they're cute. These aren't shoes you found in the Limited Too, in the mall. Okay. I'm wearing these shoes because my-
Matt:
A-a-dida.
Amena Brown:
Period. What you mean? Y'all can see it's still making me mad. Okay. Anyways, so we didn't know this until we got to Portland. Well no, that's not true because I think I put up a little post or something on Facebook or Twitter back then and told people we were going to Portland for the first time. We'd never been and asked them what should we eat? What should we do?
Matt:
I think you are right.
Amena Brown:
And so of course people posted up there different restaurants and stuff and any of you that are listening that live in Portland, know that Portland obviously is very well known for food trucks and stuff. So people were telling us different places to go and then they were like, y'all have to go... They knew us. So they were like, y'all have to go to the Adidas employee store and y'all have to actually go to the Adidas headquarters because there is a big shelltoes there. Big, larger than life, larger than you shelltoe, where you could take pictures. But here's the thing, you need a pass to get into the employee store if you are not what? An employee. So an employee has to put your name. I mean, this is how it was back then. So don't quote me now because I don't know what the security measures are now. But back then, an employee had to put your name on a list and if they put your name on the list, it meant whatever that day was, anytime that day that the store was open, you could go in there.
So I think the first time we went to Portland, we were trying to finagle it. We were trying to see if somebody could hook us up and we never to get the hookup. But let me tell y'all something. Shout out to being married to an extrovert. Okay. Because we went to an Adidas outlet store shortly before we were about to get on our flight. I think our flight was later, almost in the evening. And the event or whatever we'd done was done in the morning. So we had checked out of our hotel, we had all this time to kill. So Matt's like, "We couldn't find a pass, let's just go to the outlet store". So we went to the outlet store and Matt found a couple of cool things there and I don't know where I went. I don't know if I went to the bathroom, whatever. But I know you started talking to the employee. Do you remember doing this?
Matt:
I do. And I remember that I just so happened to have on some prior pair of shelltoes and a full Adidas tracksuit, which is just regular daily wear for me. I've looked back at, just because Halloween just passed not long ago. All the pictures of me from any Halloween party I have DJ'd, have always been me in an Adidas tracksuit with some sort of mask on. So one year I'm a Jabberwocky.
Amena Brown:
A Jabberwocky B-boy.
Matt:
One year I'm werewolf B-boy.
Amena Brown:
A werewolf B-boy.
Matt:
Some mask, I don't even know what it is, B boy. So my goal is by the time I'm an old man, to have nothing but tracksuits-
Amena Brown:
I support that-
Matt:
In my closet and I've got a nice little collection going on and specifically mostly of Adidas. So I was in a aisle, and so I was like, "You know what, let me just"... They would talk about my tracksuit and oh yeah, I pretty much wear nothing but Adidas a lot of times. And they were like, "Well, you know about the employee store"? And I'm my mind, I'm like, "I do know about the employee store, what you know about the employee store"? And yeah, just one thing led to another and they're like, "Man, we got to put you on the list". So I remember they picked up the phone and dialed and said, "Hey, Matthew Owen plus one". I was like, "Yo".
Amena Brown:
Wow. I'm pretty sure I went to the bathroom because I'm pretty sure I came back from the bathroom thinking like, oh okay, he bought his purchases. I guess we'll find somewhere to eat or whatever. And you were like, "We just got into the Adidas employee store. We have to go over there right now".
Matt:
We had to move quick.
Amena Brown:
We had two or three hours probably before we had to go to the airport.
Matt:
Yep.
Amena Brown:
Y'all, okay. Now, when you get to the employee store, the items in the employee store, don't quote us what it's doing now, because we don't know.
Matt:
I don't know.
Amena Brown:
But back then the employee store, the items were 50% off of everything. Everything, y'all. Everything. So did we go into the employee store and go absolutely wild in the store? Well yes, we did. I don't know, I don't know if y'all watched supermarket sweep growing up, was that us in the employee store? Because it is almost like you're not stealing because you know that everything you're getting, you're going to pay for it. But you feel like this is a rare experience.
Matt:
It is my obligation. This is not an opportunity that's given to everyone. I am here, this is my obligation. I'm doing this for the culture.
Amena Brown:
I'm going to tell y'all right now that I came home with some red suede-
Matt:
Oh still upset.
Amena Brown:
Shelltoes-
Matt:
Still upset.
Amena Brown:
That cost like $35.
Matt:
And remember we had to buy an Adidas gym bag that day just to be able to fit... It was a good size gym bag just to be able to fit the stuff that we bought from the Adidas store.
Amena Brown:
We bought so much stuff.
Matt:
And had to carry the gym bag onto the plane.
Amena Brown:
Because I was like, surely I'm not going to check this bag with all this new Adidas stuff in here with the tags on it. Surely I'm not going to do that. I'm about to carry this bag on so I can see it and know where it is at all times. Wow. Wow, y'all. What a time.
Matt:
Let me tell you something else I do remember about this flight. On this flight I got food poisoning.
Amena Brown:
Oh my gosh. That was that same flight.
Matt:
Same flight. I will spare you the details, but there's a few places in life you don't want to find out you have food poisoning.
Amena Brown:
Oh yikes.
Matt:
And that is way up in the sky in the airplane. If I remember correctly, I was sitting in the middle seat.
Amena Brown:
I think you were sitting in the middle lane.
Matt:
The person next to me fell asleep 'cause it was a night flight.
Amena Brown:
Ooh. It was. It wasn't like a red eye. Why did we do that?
Matt:
So having to carefully climb over the lap of the person sitting next to me-
Amena Brown:
Multiple times.
Matt:
Yes. While you about to lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it. Got to let it go.
Amena Brown:
You only get one shot.
Matt:
I think I took a couple shots.
Amena Brown:
You did. And then the hard part about having food poisoning on a flight is there are regulations as to when you are allowed to be up going to the bathroom. So that period of time where the plane is about to ascend, you're not supposed to be walking around during that time. But if you have food poisoning, you can't tell your stomach that.
Matt:
We have definitely been on a flight where it wasn't one of us, but we have definitely been on a flight where someone was in the bathroom and the plane couldn't land because somebody was having some, I'm guessing tummy troubles.
Amena Brown:
I mean one time-
Matt:
They were out there and they had to make the announcement. "Sorry folks, we're going to have to circle the landing before"-
Amena Brown:
One time I know it was me. There's at least one flight we were on that I remember the flight attendant knocking on the door to the bathroom, like "Ma'am, you have got to come out of here".
Matt:
So on this particular flight, this is where we came up with the rule to not eat fish from the airport.
Amena Brown:
That's it.
Matt:
That happened on that trip.
Amena Brown:
That's it, right there.
Matt:
When in the airport, do not order the fish.
Amena Brown:
See, I'm glad you brought this up Babe, because we've talked previously on these road stories episodes about how a writer, how an artist writer ends up sounding like it does. So when people book you and especially when you're getting booked for things in church world, people really despise the idea of a writer. But in regular, you got booked for some event they're looking to see your tech writer, which is all of your sound equipment and different all of the connections you need, audio, video wise. And then the rest of your writer could be a food writer because you have dietary restrictions. It could be a writer regarding what you need as far as your backstage expectations, all these things. All these things are very standard in the entertainment industry. But when you are an entertainer or an artist now going into a church setting, your writer is despised because it's basically like you are not focused on.
Matt:
But why do you say you need heat and air? If it's cold, why do you need a heated space to be in? You're only about to get up and speak or do poetry. Why would your vocal cords need any form of warmth?
Amena Brown:
Who cares about you get pneumonia.
Matt:
We got you outside in the wintertime.
Amena Brown:
Who cares? We're here with the Lord.
Matt:
You're going to leave here and it's not our problem.
Amena Brown:
So this flight moment was a moment of an internal writer. There's some things that we put on the writer that the people who would book us would know these are the expectations, but there were also things that we had internally. And that moment right there, I'm going to tell y'all, even though it sounds so wild, sometimes you will go to a very nice airport that might have a very well-known sushi restaurant inside of it. But we have said in our internal writer, we don't do that, okay. We're not doing fish, whether it's cooked, fried, raw, we're just not.
Matt:
No more fish in the airport.
Amena Brown:
No, I forgot about that, Babe. I forgot about that.
Matt:
Okay, come to Portland.
Amena Brown:
If you're going to eat fish, just eat it while you're in Portland is what we're trying to tell y'all.
Matt:
One of those food trucks. Amazing.
Amena Brown:
Go to a food hall.
Matt:
Food trucks eat, incredible.
Amena Brown:
Fantastic. Restaurants great. Do not do that in the airport, anywhere.
Matt:
Anywhere.
Amena Brown:
I don't care.
Matt:
No way.
Amena Brown:
I don't care.
Matt:
It's done. That's a life lesson.
Amena Brown:
My other favorite, this is not a free thing, but I guess ended up being a free thing. But I don't think it was necessarily a perk because of the gig that we were at. But y'all, I love to celebrate my husband and I love birthdays in general. People that I love, I love a birthday. So Matt is my favorite person in the entire universe. So when his birthday comes up, I'm like, everything stops. So one particular year, it was the same year that Alabama Shakes released their album Sound and Color, which if you have not listened to the album, I want you to stop right now and go save it on whatever place you listen to your music. The whole album.
Matt:
That album for me for a long time was my, after the gig, you get on the plane, you've already done whatever you were holding space for what you had to do and trying to keep in mind, so when this transition, when that thing happens, when the, but the unwind, you get on the plane, put your headphones on and go, phew. That blooooom, when those chords come in at the front of the album, oh I just feel like, oh just let it go. Whatever happened, whatever didn't happen, whatever you got right, whatever you got wrong, whatever applause you received, whatever applause you did not receive, just let it all go sink into this chair and just let the pilot get you wherever you are. And do not order the fish.
Amena Brown:
And do not order the fish please. That's a big portion of it. So my husband, y'all, he loved this album so much that I was trying to figure out how we could go see Alabama Shakes when they went on tour after the album released. So this is another trouble of being on the road as much as we were then because you were just taking gigs. For a while, we were just taking gigs as we could get them because there's always a period of the year that's going to be slow or that's going to slow way down. But you don't always know when it's coming. Especially in the type of work that we did. There was some summers we had that was our really slow time. There was some years that came that January and February were just slow as can be.
It's going to come but you don't know when. So for many years that meant we didn't feel we could be really discriminating with the gigs that we took. We really had to be like, oh shoot, that one fell on his mom's birthday or fell on my mom's birthday. So that meant you're not at your nine to five job where you can get off at five and say, oh let me just swing by my mom's birthday dinner. You are in Kentucky or wherever we were. So we would have to work around some of those types of celebrations of people that we love. So when I'm looking, trying to see, okay, when are they going to come to Atlanta? The day they were coming to Atlanta was some day that we were already booked out of town. So I was like dang, we're not going to be in Atlanta.
I just happened to look to see where were they going to be on Matt's birthday and they were going to be in Columbus, Ohio. And I was like, okay, now how can I figure this out? So then I'm looking at all the dates we have around and y'all, a gig happened to come in for a festival, is a Christian festival in Mount Vernon, Ohio. And it was maybe three days before Matt's birthday. And I was like, okay, number one, I definitely want us to take this gig because that would get me, instead of us having to figure out how to drive or fly or whatever to Columbus, if we're already in Ohio, this is great. So we took the gig and I think the gig was Matt DJing part of the opening of the festival. And then we had a period of time that we were going to be on stage together.
And this was very similar to what a lot of Christian music festivals were like, it's full of Christian bands and some DJing, some hip hop acts. And so we also got booked in the performance we were doing that was spoken word and DJing. Right. Okay. So first of all y'all, the ways that I am having to tell... I'm not telling lies to my husband, but I'm needing to tell some half truths regarding what we're doing. So I'm telling him, "Hey I know we have this gig in Mount Vernon, I think we should stay over for a couple of nights and experience Columbus". And he's looking at me like, "Okay, I don't know what there is to experience in Columbus", but this is the plus to having a very laid back husband because if this were him planning this for me, then I would've been like-
Matt:
Oh my gosh.
Amena Brown:
But why would we stop in Columbus? Because is there really something to see there? I don't really think-
Matt:
So many questions.
Amena Brown:
That was a city that you see things. I would've asked a thousand questions.
Matt:
My wife loves a surprise, but the process of surprising my wife, she does not love. It's complicated.
Amena Brown:
That's unfortunate that I love surprises but I want the surprise to make sense. And typically if you're surprising someone you are having to do things that don't make sense. I'm going to try to practice it Babe, because you did a really good job. When I said this to you then you were just like, "Huh, okay. Yeah sure. If you think that's a good, yeah I bet I got some stuff I could work on or whatever that we could work on it while we're there. Sure. Yeah. I've never been to Columbus". He might have thought that was a terrible idea but you just went along with it. Okay, so let us begin with the gig.
Matt:
Okay.
Amena Brown:
So I want to be Matt's manager so bad. That's a terrible idea and I most likely never do it because I am too emotional about him to really be his manager. But when he has a gig that is not the two of us and it's just him doing a performance for 20 minutes to an hour, I am his ruthless manager. So we get to this festival and I want y'all to know Matt is still DJing on actual turntables. I know everybody isn't and I have opportunities to throw shade and I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it right here. But Matt is still DJing on turntables. The room we're recording right now, we're literally staring at his turntables.
Matt:
Side note. I bought these turntables I think around 2000. I bought one of them in 2000 and one of them in 2001. I'm now at a place where I'll be working at a venue and somebody's like, "Oh cool, look at those vintage turntables". They'd be like, "When did you get them"? And I'll tell them and they're like, "Oh I was born in 2003".
Amena Brown:
Yikes. Please hush your mouth please.
Matt:
Anyways, back to your story please.
Amena Brown:
Please y'all. Yikes. Okay. So they had Matt set up to be the first act on. He was going to DJ, I think you were supposed to DJ the first hour or so.
Matt:
I think something happened before me.
Amena Brown:
Oh did it? Okay.
Matt:
I do think so because I think what you're about to say is that the sound guys were like, "It's our break". And they left me out there in front of this festival crowd with no sound support whatsoever. And so I think something was happening before me and I think I fell in what would've been their lunch hour if I remember correctly. Because they were, I can't remember if it was union or because sometimes you go into a city and there have been gigs that we found out, "Oh they've booked me to be here with Amena for this thing and want me to do these things. However, it's union. And so in order to have you DJing, it's going to cost this event this exorbitant amount of money for someone to be able to stay with you, and-
Amena Brown:
Because if it's a union, if the sound crew is union, there's a lot of restrictions as to how many hours they can work continuously versus the amount of breaks that they need to have. Because this has happened to us, I remember in some downtown Chicago venues and stuff like that where they'll be like the union has told us we have-
Matt:
This building is a union building.
Amena Brown:
We have these breaks, we work this long. So for your average conference, during what would be their breaks, is the time that you might have planned to have a DJ up spinning while people are walking into the room. But according to union regulations, they cannot be there running sound at that time. They're supposed to be on break unless you're willing to pay what for a lot of these organizations were exorbitant amounts of money. Now in this event setting, we were not dealing with a union crew, but we were dealing with an overworked sound crew that had not had breakfast. This lunch was like the first meal they were going to be eating that day.
Matt:
And sound techs at events are interesting personalities. They're usually not happy to be there.
Amena Brown:
No.
Matt:
They're not usually not happy to see you.
Amena Brown:
No, they have not been told. They haven't even been told about you.
Matt:
Typically they're very unimpressed.
Amena Brown:
It's true though.
Matt:
Oh, you can't take it personal.
Amena Brown:
It's true.
Matt:
I've always tried my best to go out of my way to learn their names, to talk, to show them respect. Like "Man, thank you so much. Thank you for making sound". Because it is a team effort. Nobody does something by themselves. And I'm sure that they have stories of people who have walked in, the different personalities that come in as an artist that are, there's personalities out there, and so we've just always made it our goal to make sure we see someone, we say hello, talk to them, what's your name? Do our best to show them some kindness and just some human warmth.
Amena Brown:
You give some extra please, and some extra thank you. Like Matt and I both are southern born and raised, and I don't care where we travel to. We going to give the people that southern hospitality. And when you talking to somebody that's running sound, it could go a lot better for you being kind and respectful and gracious to them. However, this situation didn't matter how gracious we were. Those people were like... Matt gets there, gets all set up. And the interesting part about when Matt's DJing that people don't always think about when they're setting his sound up is he needs to be able to hear himself, what he's spinning. So they didn't have a monitor. And I think you also didn't have control over how loud it could be. They had left it at a level. And so people are walking up to Matt and people talk to DJs crazy. I don't know if y'all knew that, but they talk to DJs real crazy. So they're walking up to Matt. Man it sounds good, but we can't hear it. Can you cut it up?
Matt:
We can't hear it way back, across the field.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. So Matt's turning what would normally be his controls of the volume, but he can't do that because of the way the sound is. So I try to become his manager and I'm like, "Where are the sound people? How could they set him up and just walk away? What are the vibes"?
Matt:
They left me with a festival.
Amena Brown:
It's an audience out here. What are we doing? And this is another fascinating thing because this was being run by college students.
Matt:
Once again, we have such a young team. Isn't it cool?
Amena Brown:
So sometimes you'd see a student and you'd be like, "Hey, where did the sound people go because he needs to be able to turn, we need more volume. He needs his monitors". And they'd be like, "Oh, I'll go find out". They would go and be gone for 20 minutes. So you're like, "Okay, wherever they are, it didn't take that long". So I finally was like, I'm going to be his manager for 20 minutes. I go to wherever they're like, I think they might be eating. So I go there and basically the sound crew was respectfully or disrespectfully like, "We are not leaving here until we all eat food. So whatever's happening, we'll know nothing about it until we finish eating this food". And on the one hand you're like, now that I know about events, I'm assuming these are people that were here setting up things at five in the morning and probably now is two. And-
Matt:
They're through.
Amena Brown:
This their first time eating and probably not really receiving much gratitude for what they've been doing all day. So I'm like, I can feel it now. But just as a wife-ager, as a wife-ager, I was not feeling it. So then I had to run back over to Matt and tell him is what it is, Babe. These people are not coming back. I think they finally made it back in your last 10 minutes.
Matt:
Maybe. But it's that thing. You get out there and you're like, all right, we about to figure it out. We about to find out whether and we're going to find out what type of crowd this is.
Amena Brown:
That part.
Matt:
Whether they going to rock with you or you about to be background music, which I'm fine either way. Just let me know. If you want a party, oh I'm the guy for you. But if you just want this to be background, I gained nothing from forcing a party that didn't want to be a party. So you find out what the crowd's going to be. You find out who you working with, and you get out there and you figure out and you just try to do what you can. But either way you don't order the fish in the airport.
Amena Brown:
Do not order the fish in the airport and do not talk crazy to anybody running sound.
Matt:
Nope.
Amena Brown:
Even if the sound is not going well, still don't talk crazy to them is what we just want to tell you. Okay. So mind y'all, we are like three days ahead of Matt's birthday and while Matt's DJing, by the time I calm my blood pressure down from realizing there's nothing I can do to get this sound situation fixed, I have already purchased the tickets for this Alabama Shakes concert. And I can't remember if I was talking to somebody, I think I was telling someone this that handled some of our booking stuff at the time. And I had told them like, yeah, we're going to stay on after that gig. We're going to stay in Ohio 'cause I'm surprising Matt with these tickets. And they were like, "Oh, I actually know somebody that's working with Alabama Shakes right now".
So there was a young lady who used to work for the company that was booking us at the time and she was now working with Alabama Shakes and they were like, "I don't know if she can do anything, but it might be worth hitting her up just to see if there's a way that maybe y'all could upgrade your tickets to get like VIP tickets or something". So all this time, I'm keeping all of this from Matt. I'm writing back and forth because I'm like, I don't know this is going to happen. I write to her. And of course she was always wonderful. So she was like, "Oh my gosh, it'll be so wonderful to see y'all". And she was like, "I don't know for sure". And she was like, "I probably won't know until that day. Is that okay"? And I was like, "Everything's okay. Anything you can do"-
Matt:
This is how we live our life.
Amena Brown:
We're happy to have it. So Matt and I did the festival, stayed there that night, drove into Columbus the next day. I think we had a work day or two in the hotel. Back when you were doing road life, you also have a lot of follow-up stuff that you might have to do after a gig. You might have reimbursements you've got to send back, you've got some other, sometimes we would film things for social media or whatever. So you might spend the day doing that and then you have another gig that's coming up. So you might have some contracts to sign. So I think we got a hotel, worked in the hotel for a day or two. And then when it got to be Matt's birthday, we went to a food hall. We ate Jeni's Ice Cream for the first time while we were there. Had some really great food. And I'm totally writing back and forth to this young lady about these possibilities.
Matt:
Think I had an Elk burger. I've never had Elk ever, except for that day. And I was like, that sounds exotic.
Amena Brown:
You did. The food was amazing.
Matt:
Yeah, it was really good.
Amena Brown:
I can't remember if I had pho. I think I might have had pho for the first time.
Matt:
I think you might be right.
Amena Brown:
While we were there.
Matt:
I'm pretty sure I was still calling it fo.
Amena Brown:
But bless our hearts, we learned wrong.
Matt:
I didn't know.
Amena Brown:
So I think I finally told you at some point that day on your birthday that this was all the ruse, that we really did not just need to come to Columbus to hang out, but that we were actually going to go see Alabama Shakes, which I remember you were very excited, but I don't think we found out until a couple of hours before that we were actually going to get to meet them.
Matt:
That's right.
Amena Brown:
Because they had a meet and greet before the show. So this is one of Matt's birthdays that I was like, man does God like you more than me? Because this is a really cool moment. So y'all, imagine that we're going to the backstage, all of this is pre-Covid time. So you just go backstage and people were taking pictures with Britney Howard, the lead singer of Alabama Shakes and her and the rest of the band, taking pictures of everybody. And I think at first we were like we needed to be the last people, I think, because we were the late add to the meet and greet.
Matt:
I think so, 'cause it seems like we were there by ourselves off to the side of the-
Amena Brown:
Yeah. So we were watching everybody go and then the young lady who had got us the hookup into this room, she was like, "Okay, it looks like there's going to be enough time. Come on, come on". So she takes us over closer to the band and she turns to Britney Howard and says, "Hey, these are my friends". She's like, "This is Amena, this is Matt and it's Matt's birthday today. Is it okay if they take some pictures with you"? First of all, Britney Howard is backstage, smoking a cigarette in a way that made me want to smoke a cigarette. I literally have never smoked a cigarette, but just watching Britney Howard smoke made me want to be like, man, maybe I should light up too, man. I see why they wanted to outlaw these commercials, 'cause-
Matt:
They just look cool and if it make you sing like that.
Amena Brown:
Oh my gosh. So y'all, Brittany looks at Matt, tosses her head back to the band and she says, "Hey guys, it's Matt's birthday", and all of Alabama Shakes turn to him and said, "Happy birthday, Matt". Took a picture with him and everything. That was the best. That was one of the best add-on trips we ever took.
Matt:
That was a good one.
Amena Brown:
It rained.
Matt:
Oh yeah.
Amena Brown:
You remember it rained?
Matt:
We still got pictures somewhere of us in these rain jackets.
Amena Brown:
Yes. Our little ponchos.
Matt:
Standing out, listening to the most amazing concert. Oh, it was so worth it.
Amena Brown:
It was glorious. Britney came out and just took up all her space in the most amazing way. Her vocal just, she's so young and she was really young then. And to hear this vocal that just sounds like gravel and whiskey and cigarettes-
Matt:
That was great.
Amena Brown:
It just sounds like 68 years of life in her voice. Like oh, that was a really great free freebie. The concert wasn't free, but to get into that VIP and for you to get pictures with them on your birthday, that was pretty cool Babe.
Matt:
Thanks Babe.
Amena Brown:
I love talking about road stories with you. This is lots of fun and there's more to come. So to tune back in next week, week after that, who knows? We going to pop back up in here with more road stories to tell y'all.
Matt:
Don't eat the fish at airport.
Amena Brown:
Yeah, don't eat the fish at the airport. See y'all later.
HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.