Susan’s Inside Writing: Inside Roadie Poet’s Rhythm

The responses I’ve gotten to this week’s Roadie Poet entry surprised me. I never would have expected you guys to read the poem as a song. Thank you! That’s high praise and I’ve got much-needed warm fuzzies from what you had to say, especially about that last stanza.

I wanted to pause and talk about where it came from, because to me, the story behind it is sorta cool.

Whenever Roadie Poet tugs on my consciousness and tells me he’s got something to say, I always picture him like my friend Toby, who does his share of roadie work, both on and off the road. He works full-time for a band and gets a lot more interaction with the band than RP does. Toby also has the most incredible speaking voice; I used to love to hear him talk. (and like most men in my life, his e-mails usually consist of a word or two but a phone conversation can last an hour, which is a good thing when you’re speaking with someone who’s got a great voice.)

But there’s another component to RP, and that’s a woman I used to know when I worked in radio. She worked at Metal Blade Records, as a rep to radio stations like mine; I spent a week with her when I was weighing a job offer from Roadrunner Records. Lori’s cool people.

She left the relatively safe world of record labels and went on a wild ride, eventually winding up as a roadie. I believe she’s still there, working for Sesame Street Live, last I heard.

Her name came back up last week, when I had #2 at dance classes. The ballet instructor was talking about how she’d gone to see Sesame Street Live when it was here and how she’d cried as she sat there and watched. It turned out that she’d been part of the company.

A-ha! I thought. I knew there was something about this woman that I had been keying into since I’d met her this year, and that something is our love of the touring life. We’ve both got it in our blood.

She gave it up to have a more stable life. I gave it up because I knew, long-term, I could never sustain it. Not if I wanted to be a writer, too — which is the reason I turned down those job offers at record labels. Being a writer is something I need to be. Yet my passion for music is also something I can’t deny.

Thus, ShapeShifter. And Deadly Metal Hatchet, and Chelle LaFleur, Kermit Ladd, and Roadie Poet.

And, thus, this week’s Roadie Poet.