There is a great need for stage shows

Roger Staub grew up in Thayngen/SH and completed an apprenticeship as a typographer before becoming self-employed at the age of 22 to work as a stage and lighting designer for the theater. As a music fan, he played in various regional bands before becoming responsible for the stage show in the local "supergroup" Buffalo Ballett. Thanks to a cultural grant from the city and canton of Schaffhausen, he spent some time in Los Angeles for the first time in 2006 and settled permanently in California two years later. Here he worked as a creative mind on the conception of shows by Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar and Steve Jobs, among many others. In 2020, he moved back to Zurich, where he founded the "strategic branding agency" LoF* leads.

 

The band Animal Collective once told me that the big arena concerts in the USA are a kind of kilbi. The fans meet in the parking lot long before the concert starts and have a picnic. Did you experience that too?

It depends on the venue. One of the most casual places in LA is the Hollywood Bowl, a huge amphitheater with 15,000 or 20,000 seats. You can get in early, have a barbecue, it's a real happening. Or at the Forum in the south of LA, in Compton, there's a gigantic parking lot, people meet up for a beer beforehand. It depends on the location. At the Staples Centre, also in LA, you go to the Taylor Swift concert and then go home again, everything is organized.

 

What attracted you to the combination of music and visual elements back then?

Good question. I've always made music myself, but I've never written a song that I felt I - let alone an audience - would ever want to listen to again. But the love of music and making music was there from an early age. I played in bands when I was 14 and found everything super cool. Coming from a graphic designer background, I was perhaps also a little inspired by the Swiss star graphic designer Hans-Rudolf Lutz, who brought together typography, art and music into a visual experience with Unknownmix slideshows. Something like that simply fascinated me. Later, with Buffalo Ballet, I started to use light and imagery to somehow set the mood for the music. I liked that and so did people to some extent. And so it went on. I made my way through the Swiss music scene via Züri West and Lovebugs and at some point I realized, hey, that's cool, but the bigger the production, the bigger the challenge. That's how I came across LA, a place where the really big shows are conceived.

 

Pink Floyd and Velvet Underground, but also the Munich band Amon Düül 2, experimented with image projections right from the start in the sixties and started the first "fashion" for multimedia music shows. What role models did you have?

The problem for me was, of course, that in Switzerland, as everywhere else, economic reasons dictated the size of productions. Taking someone else on tour who is responsible for visuals is an investment that has to pay off a little over the course of a tour. For a band like Züri West, it was probably a bit easier, because they played 50 or 60 concerts over the course of the year, most of which were sold out. That gives you a certain amount of planning security and the money for a stage show is easier to legitimize. It's incredibly difficult for smaller bands to justify additional costs. Nevertheless, there is often a need for a stage show. I can see that with Ikan Hyu right now, they are already thinking very visually. I see a great desire among artists to present themselves on stage in some way that goes beyond the purely musical. Which of course doesn't make sense for every band.

 

Ikan Hyu are an interesting case. The duo has a ZHdK background. It is possible that the combination of visual arts, dance, performance and music in the same building has a mutually inspiring effect.

Sure! That can totally be a reason why people are thinking in visual concepts in this particular case.

 

But now again: Who were your role models in the days of Züri West?

Of course you have role models. For example, The Nits and their live program Urk. They also made very theatrical installations, which always fascinated me on the album covers. In terms of stage shows, I came from stage design in the theater, lighting design. Creating drama with a spotlight, making the individual musicians stand out against a stage backdrop, that always fascinated me. And then at the beginning of the noughties and even in my early LA days, that just started to happen a bit with large-scale LED walls. Before that, you could almost only really experience it with U2: the Popmart or Zoo TV tour. In my perception, that was the first time a band had appeared with video screens and LED screens. At some point, they became more affordable for a wider range of bands.

 

Don't you have the feeling that concerts of this kind lead to a material battle that only the most successful artists can afford? That the music business is completely dominated by the record multinationals, as it was in the 1970s - which in turn results in a huge restriction of artistic freedom?

That can be good. Of course, I've already thought about it: How will these live shows develop? Can this gigantism continue somehow or will only Rihanna, Beyoncé, Rosalia or Taylor Swift be able to afford it in the end anyway? I think there are already two poles. The rich and the not-so-rich. The latter certainly includes all sorts of indie bands who want that to some extent and can afford it. They have to make do with more modest means, but compensate with imagination and wit. So the gigantism remains at the top level, where people are always trying to top each other with the latest gags. But it's possible that occasionally there will be an overstimulation, as is slowly becoming the case with the Marvel superhero movies. But I have the feeling that we haven't quite reached that point yet. I've also felt for some time that certain stage shows are less about visual overkill and more about a clear, artistic, almost installation-like approach. Kendrick Lamar, for example, his last tour was almost an art installation in which he moved.

 

Is this the intersection with the company you have now? LoF*where it's more about branding? That artists think carefully about what they stand for and what they represent, and not simply about a comic show?

That is, of course, the noble ambition. The challenge is also the desire to find out what are the appropriate ways to stage artists in the spirit of their music and personality. So it's about the conscious choice of means, not simply about having a little more LED space than Beyoncé. Time and again, you see cool new implementations. The 1975, for example, who almost went on tour with a Broadway set. They had practically no LEDs, but instead recreated a real apartment in which they moved around. If the concept, the music and the band's aspirations match, I think that's cool.

 

Can you give us a few clues about the size of an LA budget for the visual appearance?

The details of the budget have always been kept under wraps. All I can say is that three to five million dollars are easily spent on the stage design and several 100,000 dollars on video content design and production. Of course, you can calculate very differently for a world tour than for a Swiss tour.

 

How has LA influenced and changed your perspective on the meaning of a visual show?

The aim of a major American production is often to offer viewers the latest, the best, the never-before-seen. And this aspiration and commitment drives and motivates everyone involved. I try to do the same with my productions in order to offer the audience an experience as far as possible.

 

Since Madonna and Michael Jackson at the latest, every cone of light at big shows has been precisely balanced. Otherwise, however, lighting at concerts was often neglected well into the nineties, and still is today. Is this due to the availability of technological resources?

The new possibilities of coordinating all the elements that take place on stage in the visual field have of course helped enormously. But you can't necessarily compare a concert with the theater. As I said, I come from the theater. There are 50 spotlights in the theater, and they are all there to make the actors and the stage set visible. Everything is set with millimeter precision, illuminated so that there are no shadows on the faces. In a concert, it's exactly the opposite. There are 300 spotlights, 280 of which create some kind of image, and 20 are aimed at the musicians themselves. Light is used there to create images. It is a design tool to create images with light.

 

A production like Beyoncé, your first in LA, you've really been thrown in at the deep end! I imagine there are 50 people working on a show like that, there are insanely long committee meetings every day. Isn't it terribly difficult to come up with your own ideas? How do you assert yourself as a Swiss person in LA?

Of course, it depends on how strongly the contribution of ideas is desired. On the one hand, it has to do with the artist and how much they rely on a close-knit team. In Beyoncé's case, there was a show director, a creative director, a musical director - she had her team with whom she created the show. As part of the realization team, you still have some opportunities to contribute ideas. It's much more difficult with larger productions. But in the case of Puff Daddy it was completely different. I was in direct contact with him a lot about how he envisioned the show, and he also allowed ideas. There is no formula for how it works.

 

In which productions have you brought in the most personal things?

In 2015, the tour with Puff Daddy with all the old R&B stars who were on the road with Puff Daddy, there was a lot of input possible. In the case of Green Day, too. As soon as you get into rock'n'roll, the teams are massively smaller than for a pop show. With an R&B show like Beyoncé or Taylor Swift, you have management, personal assistants and blah blah blah. Your core crew is already 20 people, and with the rest of the crew it's 100 more. It's usually a bit simpler and more manageable in rock'n'roll. Bands like Green Day are quite a family affair, you're closer to the artist there.

 

What is it like to sit in the audience during the main rehearsal for a show in which you are involved on a practical, creative and emotional level? And then at the premiere?

 The moment when the lights go out in the auditorium and the audience start screaming in anticipation of their star still gives you chicken skin. As a result, you are still excited yourself and hope that everything will work out. During the show, it's more of an emotional rollercoaster between joy and relief if it works, or stress and heart palpitations if something doesn't work out.

 

Can you remember any particular disasters?

At the Swiss Music Awards, the motors of the LED walls failed shortly before the doors opened and had to be partially replaced. As the dramaturgy of the show depended on the LED walls being able to move, it was quite a shock. But it worked out after all ...

 

Now you're back in Switzerland. You established yourself internationally almost 20 years ago. Is the technology now so advanced that you can benefit from the budgets of Los Angeles from Switzerland?

That would be nice, but unfortunately it's not true in this case. I still have productions like this, I've been working with Def Leppard for almost 10 years, and they have a bit of an international budget that we can operate with here in Switzerland. But in a way, it's also a short-lived business. You drop out because new people come along or because the artist wants to work with others. From that point of view, I have to be in LA a bit to stay up to date, to meet people, agents. That has thinned out a bit over the last few years. But with the focus on our branding agency, that was also a conscious step. I now more or less do what I'm asked to do and am no longer as active in the live event sector as I used to be.

 

Don't you miss it a bit, the music business?

Totally. It doesn't really matter what size of production it is, but the whole beginning of the concert, it gets dark, they come on stage, it gets light, it starts. I miss some of the thrill and all the madness. With the big productions, you're sometimes locked in a venue for six weeks, arriving there at 3 or 4 in the afternoon, the artists are rehearsing on stage, rehearsing choreography. Between 7pm and 10pm there may be run-throughs and rehearsals with the artists and band. Then from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., that's the creative team's time. Then we program the whole show, every single light is programmed. At 7 a.m. we take the shuttle back to the hotel, go to sleep, then back to the venue at 3 p.m. At some point you no longer know whether it's Thursday or Sunday, 4 in the morning or 5 in the afternoon.

 

You'll miss the after-show parties too ...

Of course. If you're a bit on the level, you fly somewhere in a private plane, all the parties where the stars are present, that's pretty exciting. But, yes, you've had that and it's good that there's something else.

 

Will you stay in touch with the people you worked with?

With certain people, yes. Maxwell, for example, although I haven't seen him for a while. It's very cool when you realize that you appreciate each other and trust each other.

 

What was your personal show highlight?

Jay-Z at Yankee Stadium was the biggest hip-hop party to date and correspondingly impressive.

 

And the best party?

The after-show party with Puff Daddy in his dressing room after the concert at the Barclay Centre in Brooklyn.

 

The best shows you've seen in Switzerland?

Evelinn Trouble at m4music. The Young Gods tribute show in Montreux. Pike in the Hallenstadion (editor's note: Roger Staub was responsible for the visuals at this show).

 

Alone at home, what do you listen to voluntarily?

Very mixed. From Radiohead to Prince. Prince has been my great musical love since the eighties. I have a big soft spot for black music in general, from Marvin Gaye to Kendrick Lamar.

 

And now you have time for your own band again?

Exactly, haha! The decision to earn my living with the production of music, not with music per se, has always helped me a bit, I think, to have a relaxed relationship with music. When I sit at the piano or play a bit of drums or bass, I feel good. Then I'm happy, and it doesn't have to be more than that.