Wayne Pauley joins Bart on the podcast this week. He shares stories of growing up and how music was always a part of who he was. He talks about getting his start into the music scene, his decisions to go to LA and how he ended up in Nashville. He has worked with all different genres of music all over the world and shares the things that he has learned during the different stages of life. He has spent the last almost 10 years working with Lee Brice. He shares what his role is, how they have adjusted during COVID and stories from the road.
Meet Wayne Pauley:
Wayne Pauley hails from rural West Virginia and moved to California at age 19 to pursue a career as a musician. While playing, Wayne found jobs working as a sound engineer in local clubs and for local bands in the area. In 1995, Wayne moved to Nashville to further his skills and career as a sound engineer and production manager. Since working in music for over 20 years, Wayne has worked in every genre of the music business.. The range of artists he’s worked with includes Ray Charles, Jars of Clay, Trisha Yearwood, Marty Stuart, Joe Diffie, Sawyer Brown, Celtic Woman, and the Nashville Symphony Orchestra among others. One of the many highlights of his career includes working for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. He has also worked on several television productions including seven seasons of the USA Network show, Nashville Star that produced Miranda Lambert.
Since 2011, Wayne has been the front-of-house audio engineer and production manager for Country Star, Lee Brice. Brice’s tour started with 7 people and little infrastructure to 27 people with full production, multiple trucks for sound, lighting, backline gear, and buses. Brice’s tour has played in stadiums and festivals all over North America.
What Bart has to say:
Wayne has packed a lot into his life. His resume is really a who’s who of music. And if you ever meet him, ask him about his Evel Knievel suit. We’ve been all over the country together and had a lot of fun along the way.
In this episode, you’ll hear
One of Wayne’s first gigs in Nashville was as a monitor guy at 12th & Porter for a band called Four Wheel Drive, who’s frontman was Keith Urban. He was paid $50 for the night
Wayne had to mix a 42 piece orchestra with 11 mics for Ray Charles because Ray hated one mic per instrument, so he had to mix sections of the orchestra.
What it was like working with the Celtic Women while on tour across Europe.
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