Interview: Warped Tour (Video Interviews)

Warped Tour

I went out and talked to a variety of people and bands at Warped Tour this year. I also had some fun with some of the artists and had them respond to YouTube comments and, for fun, sing some public domain songs as well. I’ve broken up all of these interviews for your viewing pleasure.

Regular Interviews

Bands Respond to YouTube Comments

Bands Sing Public Domain Songs

GoFundMe Started for Warped Tour Medic

Warped Tour

A GoFundMe for Warped Tour’s medic, Travis, has been started:

In the course of his job as a music tour medic, Travis is usually the one to be helping others, keeping them safe and healthy while they are away from home. While on tour in Spring of 2018, he went to the nearest hospital because he was not feeling right. That hospital sent him on his way, telling him he was fine. Unfortunately they missed the cancer that had developed and Travis wasn’t diagnosed until he returned home in the summer. Because of this, he missed valuable treatment time.

It will never not depress me that we live in the richest nation in the history of the world … and people have to crowd fund for medical expenses.

Warped Tour is over. Will the culture it created reckon with its demons?

Warped Tour

Taylor Telford, writing at The Washington Post:

Overlooking the sins of powerful artists has felt intolerable in the era of #MeToo, but at Warped, taste is tethered to identity, and what comes next for its audience is complicated. The tour has flourished because much of its music is confessional and intimate. It fosters a devotion in the young, marginalized and vulnerable that rarely fades with age. Now fans are wrestling with whether the culture can adapt and evolve, or whether its worst roots run too deep. […]

Until I got to college, I actively disliked female musicians. I was enamored with the myth of the tortured artist; I chased it not only in my taste but also in my personal relationships. Now I wonder if some of these failures can be traced back to the music that shaped me. In part, I want to scrub myself of its influence. The problem is that I wouldn’t know myself without it.

This entire piece is really good. I hope this music scene can learn from the mistakes of the past. Sometimes I see signs of progress, and sometimes I am at a loss for words.