• Jason Sikora, RADER’s Technology Specialist and Discover Lafayette’s Sound Engineer, Shares Memories of Touring with Music Icons

  • Aug 3 2024
  • Length: 1 hr and 3 mins
  • Podcast

Jason Sikora, RADER’s Technology Specialist and Discover Lafayette’s Sound Engineer, Shares Memories of Touring with Music Icons

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  • Discover Lafayette's sound engineer, Jason Sikora, has a voice many of you are familiar with, as he’s participated in our interviews over the past seven years, ensuring a finely-tuned, professional podcast. Jason Sikora pictured with Butch Roussel during a recording of Discover Lafayette Podcast. But many of you may not know his interesting back story, or how he came to live and work in Lafayette LA. A native of Detroit, Michigan and graduate of the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, Jason has a rich collection of memories to share and insights into how rock concerts are orchestrated. Jason's dad worked for Ford Motor Company in Detroit, but when Jason and his two brothers were young, the family moved to Hartland, Michigan to be able to escape the city life and its accompanying declining socio-economic factors in the 1980s. Describing Hartland as "basically a truck stop," it was much more. Jason graduated from Hartland High School, playing drums in its marching band and eventually serving as the Hartland Eagles' mascot. Sadly, Jason's younger brother, Kris, died when he was 11 years old, from a blood disorder. Kris' life and death had great meaning, however, as researchers were able to study his condition. Jason stated that today, people with Kris' condition would survive. Upon graduation from high school, Jason hightailed it to Hollywood, California to attend the Musicians Institute ("MI"), a college that was known as a 'player's school,' meaning that students were taught the skills to make a sustainable career in the music industry. While many young people could qualify to be a guitar tech based upon their self-taught abilities, Jason credited MI for a valuable education and teaching him guitar repair and cable management. " I started playing guitar in 6th grade, so I had six to seven years of experience with signal flow, how to solder microphones back together. I learned a lot in high school with my band, messing with pedals and guitars and amplifiers. I did learn guitar repair, cable management and how to get tone while in college at MI." Andy Brauer hired Jason right after graduation from MI, to work at his shop that specialized in instrument and musical gear rentals. Jason had the good fortune to work with Faith Hill in his very first gig, being hired to work at Skywalker Ranch to assist in recording track sessions. "I got to hang out with the best musicians in the world for a week: Mike Landau, Dean Parks, Paul Bushnell, and Vinnie Calaiuta are monster players!" Jason also got to witness the regular lives of performers such as Faith Hill, her husband, Tim McGraw, and their children, and realized how fortunate he was to be a part of this experience in the ordinary lives of superstars as the album was being cut. Jason then met Michael Lockwood, a guitarist who hired him to be a touring guitar tech for Aimee Mann, performing sound checks and restringing guitars, ensuring that all would go well during concerts. Jason would continue this type of work for several years, working with greats such as Lisa Marie Presley, Britney Spears, and the Goo Goo Dolls, as well as other acts during what he calls his 'lost years from 2004 to 2006', such as Hanson, Gerard McMahon, Puddle of Mudd, and the recording of "A Mighty Wind," an album accompanying a movie of the same name, featuring Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Jennifer Coolidge and many other staples of comedy culture of the time. "The work ethic is very different when you're on the road. You're not allowed to be sick. The show must go on. If there is a half million dollar guarantee and there are 10,000 people out there, your rig has to work. There was always a doctor out there with water, vitamins, and oxygen. You have to do the show. There's no back-up. No one else would know my rig," says Jason Sikora. Asked if he missed traveling on the road for months as a time as a guitar tech,
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