Ah, the merch girl. We fall in love with her at every show: The way her brow mists over with sweat while folding box after box of purple hoodies; her guileless and lightening-quick method of determining everyone’s tee-shirt size; her cheerful tendency to divulge juicy band tidbits.
The unsung hero of all tours, she’s ballsy enough to take to the open road with a bunch of beefcake roadies and sometimes-snobby band members all in the name of the next good show. And she’s practical enough to figure out how to make a living doing it.
Here’s our tribute to three of the finest merch girls in the business, the ladies behind the tee-shirts and bumper stickers of the Plain White T’s, the Matches, Chevelle, OK Go, Finger Eleven, +44, Papa Roach, and They Might Be Giants. Love ’em as much as we do? Don’t forget to tip!
AileenMain Merch Gig: Plain White T’sWhat’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you on the road?The Vans Warped Tour is always prime opportunity for crazy moments, and I’ve done three Warped Tours. In 2007 I spent the summer working for a non-profit,
Shirts for a Cure. Cleveland started out as a beautiful day, but by mid-afternoon we were hit with one of the worst storms I’ve ever witnessed. It lasted 90 minutes with three rounds of hail, five inches of rain and tons of lightning strikes. It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced.
I thought I was going to get blown away. My tent survived the storm but was mostly crushed, and a lot of my merchandise was soaked through.
How did you become a merch girl?I moved to New York City to attend college in 2002 and got my first taste of what it was like to be a “merch girl” by selling T-shirts at local shows for a friend’s band from Long Island. I was a Music Business major at NYU headed on a path to working at a record company upon graduation. After three college internships, including a year of working in the A&R department of a major label, I decided that I needed a new atmosphere. I had met
the Plain White T’s earlier that year through my job at the label and learned that their merch guy had recently quit to pursue a more normal life at home. I jumped on the opportunity to try something new that summer and started touring with the band full-time once I completed my college coursework in 2006.
What’s it like to be a girl on the road with all-male bands?When I first started touring with Plain White T’s it was the five guys in the band and myself, touring in a 16-passenger van and sharing one hotel room. I always made sure to wake up first so I could have a clean shower and towel in the morning and sufficient time to dry my hair. I’m a low maintenance girl, but I’m not going to completely abandon my female routine just because I live with a bunch of dudes. They don’t cut me a lot of slack though. Sometimes I get made fun of if I show up wearing a casual dress. At least now that we tour in a bus I don't have to worry about taking too much time in the bathroom.
What’s the best part of your job?Traveling all over the world is a definite perk of having this job. It took a lot of hard work and luck to get to this point, but it’s great to be able to pay my bills without having to sit at a desk from 9 to 5. Occasionally we also get to tour with a band that I really love. It’s a privilege to be able to listen to some of your favorite bands every night on tour.
What’s the worst part of your job?One of the major downsides of this lifestyle is not being able to spend very much time with my family. You get used to it, but living out of a suitcase can be a total pain in the ass. It’s extremely difficult to build and maintain significant romantic relationships when you're living on the road for most of the year and it’s even harder when most of the people you meet have a similar lifestyle.
Another one of the toughest parts of being a female merchandise manager is earning the respect you deserve. It’s a guy’s world: If you’re too flirty then no one takes you seriously, and if you’re a hard ass then everyone just thinks you’re a bitch. On top of that, you could have an impressive résumé and great references but there’s a very strong chance you still won’t get hired for the tour because you’re a girl and the band (or their wives) won’t allow any on the tour.
What are some of the biggest misconceptions about my job?I can actually think of four of them off the top of my head:
• Merch people are easily dispensable. Being a guitar tech or sound engineer requires obvious skill, but it takes just as much skill to handle a band’s merchandise—especially if they’re moving $50,000-100,000 worth of merchandise each night. We get a lot of flack from techs who have a holier than thou attitude, but what they don’t realize is that they won’t get paid unless we’re selling the T-shirts. Merchandise is crucial to even the smallest bands; how else are they going to pay for gas?
• Merch people have the easiest job on tour. If you’re a serious merchandise manager this couldn’t be further from the truth. I make sure to load in merchandise when the gear gets loaded in, otherwise I won’t be able to take advantage of the venue’s loaders (some local crew scoff at the idea of carrying merchandise into the venue). If I plan to load in at the same time as the gear, this usually means I need to be in the trailer early to do pulls from the stock so I have enough merchandise checked in for the show.
If I’m selling the merch, I spend the next few hours setting up my merch area and my display. When the band is done playing, the techs pack up the gear, put it in the trailer, and then get to spend the rest of the night drinking beer and hanging out. The merch person will be the last person out of the club, usually after a long night of selling merchandise to kids who don’t know what size T-shirt they wear. When we’re not on tour, I spend a lot of time planning for upcoming shows with our merchandise company.
• Touring is a 24/7 party.
• Girls on tour are just there to get closer to the guys in the band. Yeah, okay, a lot of times this is true, but those girls don’t last long.
MonacaMain Merch Gig: The Matches What’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you on the road? I think that's an impossible question to answer without incriminating someone. There was the time that we were out with
+44 in Seattle and it was ferociously storming. The sewer drains overflowed in the club so we had to load in through brown water. My favorite is when a band on tour changes the words of the song to include my name while they’re playing to a bazillion people. I’m that vain. Don’t judge, judgers.
How did you become a merch girl? I kind of fell into it. I got a Bachelors degree in Music Business and was losing my mind behind a desk every day. My roommate and best friend Ben was guitar teching for
the Matches. The dude that was supposed to sell merch for them on the Plain White T’s co-headline tour bailed at the last minute so Ben asked if I could fill in. I could and did and the Matches and myself fell in love. I’ve been with them for three years now.
What’s it like to be a girl on the road with all-male bands? Smelly. Boys stink. For the most part you quickly become one of the guys (but better smelling I hope). But they all run to you for advice or to hear that “Aw, baby are you okay?” when they show you the knot on their head from another battle with the neck of their guitar (which they inevitably lose) or to play with their hair as they complain about some hussy that hurt their fragile little feelings. So I guess you’re somewhere between a mother and best friend.
What’s the best part of your job? The constant change. You are always in a different place and the characters are ever changing. Every two months you are plopped into a new group of 30 or so guys (and the occasional girl) that you will spend every day with. It’s just enough time to fall in love and say goodbye.
What’s the worst part of your job? The saying goodbye. There is so much of it. It makes me so sad every time. That and the fact that I could be making a lot more money working at a different job.
RikkiMain Merch Gigs: Chevelle, OK Go, They Might Be GiantsWhat’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you on the road? Well, I guess there’s crazy good and crazy bad. The craziest bad thing that I’ve ever had happen is one time when I got so sick I could barely even stand up throughout the show. Our bus had gone into the garage during the day and was late getting back for load in. I asked my crew if they’d mind loading my merch tubs into the trailer and they said they would. I didn’t find out ’til two days later that all of my merch had been left in Nashville at the venue. The venue ended up being closed for the better part of a week, and it took nearly two weeks to get it all back.
The craziest good thing was probably just recently when I was in Indianapolis. My wonderfully crazy, Canadian bus driver decided to take our bus racing on the Formula One track at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway! We had three security trucks with lights flashing, trying to flag us down to get us off of there.
How did you become a merch girl? I worked in concert venues for several years and did marketing for record labels and bands, so I was pretty heavily involved in the scene. I had been wanting to tour for a while, but it was hard getting a job starting out touring with no touring experience and being a girl. Finally, I had a friend who kept sending my info to anybody who would contact him about tours if he wasn’t available, and someone took a chance on me.
What’s it like to be a girl on the road with all-male bands? It’s basically like touring with a large family, where you have a lot of older brothers (even if you’re older than them) and they all like to pick on you. I like being bus mom. I take care of everyone.
What’s the best part of your job? I get to travel for a living, be with people I enjoy, and there’s really no such thing as boring.
What’s the worst part of your job? Stupid questions! I get a million a night. I’m at a festival tonight and someone asked me “Where’s the My Chemical Romance shirts?” I was confused for a second and then said, “My Chemical Romance isn’t even playing this festival at all! This isn’t Hot Topic! We don't have a hundred band shirts.” People ask if they can put stuff on lay away or will try to barter with you on a price. You can’t barter at the mall; you can’t barter here, either.
Who do you work for? [I’m the] main touring merch girl for
Chevelle,
OK Go, and
They Might Be Giants. This year I’ve also done a lot of stuff for
Finger Eleven and am currently filling in for
Papa Roach as we speak. I work as an independent, so I have the freedom to work for whomever calls me. It’s pretty nice.