Parnelli NextGen honorees are live event personnel who haven’t been in the industry more than half their lives, yet are already making a mark. Here’s another live event professional who is now a member of the NextGen Class of 2023.
Emily Pearce’s professional career could have gone a number of ways, particularly after her stint in the U.S. Marines. Not sure of where that would take her, she instinctively kept exploring different aspects of music, and today she is the monitor engineer/RF Tech for the alternative rock band Blue October.
While performing music could have been one of the options before her (she’s a multi-instrumentalist), Pearce has seemed to have found her calling. “I’m more of a behind-the-scenes person, and I like the technical aspect of live sound,” she says. “I enjoy figuring it all out for the show, and when I’m not faced with some crazy load-in, I enjoy my ‘zen’ time of putting the rig together every day. I enjoy all the technical aspects: figuring out the monitor routing, making everything work as a system, everything. I don’t mind FOH, but don’t know if it’s my passion like being a monitor engineer.” She has been put in that chair out front a few times, like when she’s been on a show where the FOH engineer is also the tour manager and is called away on something pressing. “It is fun — but there are too many people out there!” she adds with a laugh.
Surrounded by Music
Pearce grew up in Sparta, a small town north of Grand Rapids, MI, in a house of music. Both parents played instruments and all her siblings played in the school band, including her. She started off on piano and later picked up clarinet, oboe, and percussion for the drum line in high school in addition to playing piano in the school jazz band. (Later, after moving to Los Angeles, she’d learned bass guitar). She tells a story of being drawn to music beyond performing without realizing it, as her childhood memories include being enthralled by the music of Michael Jackson, Journey and Metallica. Later she would “borrow” her older brother’s MP3 player and older sister’s CD player to get a fix of My Chemical Romance, Atreyu and Death Cab for Cutie.
A New Direction
A year in college studying music education at Grand Valley State University ended when Pearce followed a whim to join the Marine Corps where she aimed to get into their highly sought-after band. Alas, she didn’t get in, but that turned out to be a good thing, as a friend clued her in that it was not all that it was cracked up to be anyway. For four years, she worked in aviation at a military base in Yuma, AZ, and when she got out, she headed to LA.
“I wasn’t happy in the military, and music has always been my underlying thing,” she says. “I loved going to shows and loved the idea of everyone coming together for a couple of hours to enjoy a live performance. I wanted to be part of that experience.” So basically, “during the time in the military, I learned what I did not want to do,” Pearce adds with a smile. With GI Bill in hand, she enrolled at the Los Angeles Recording School in 2017. Once there, she “took a lot of volunteer opportunities and became that person who shows up to a gig and asked questions.” She shadowed a few people at White Oak Music and Arts and The Viper Room.
Climbing the Ladder
Eventually, Pearce began being more drawn to live events and came across Soundgirls.org, the organization co-founded by Parnelli Audio Innovator honoree and Pearl Jam monitor mixer Kerry Keyes. She networked there and landed an internship at the well-respected Schubert Systems Group in North Hollywood, CA. When she was later hired full time, Pearce credits that experience as being critical. However, as she says, none of those hired were handed a specific role, but were given experience in multiple areas, including work as a systems/P.A. tech, RF tech, stage tech and even as a mix engineer for notable artists. “There I cut my teeth learning d&b audiotechnik systems, loading trucks and working in the warehouse.” Her ability to learn quickly coupled with a Marine-style work ethic got her hired full-time. She gained more experience working sound at venues like the Sunset Strip’s legendary Whisky a Go Go and other local clubs and theaters.
During the pandemic, work dried up, and Pearce returned to Grand Rapids, MI, where like so many of us, she got into another type of work: “Retail? I hated it!” By 2021, things were looking up: her friend and colleague Mckenzee “Mac” Morley — a successful monitor and front of house engineer — connected her to Blue October. “I got on tour with them in 2021 and have been monitor engineer/RF tech with them ever since” — including the band’s U.S. and UK tours. Pearce keeps busy during that band’s breaks: she has recently squeezed in work with pop trio AJR and will be out with them again this late summer when they open for Imagine Dragons. After that, it’s another headlining tour with Blue October.
Loving the Road
Discussing consoles, she says, “right now I’m an Avid person, using their SL rig.” They bought that console, and “it was a privilege and an honor setting that up out of the box. But over the summer, I also had a chance to work on a Yamaha Rivage PM7 — an amazing-sounding console with some great features.” Pearce was quick to add that she also has experience on DiGiCo and Allen & Heath desks, as “it’s important to keep myself well-rounded.”
These days, Pearce is dealing with the typical challenges of touring. On the top of her list is handling frequency coordination for the wireless gear. “Finding space to put everything in the RF spectrum is the real challenge of monitor world,” she says. Another key for her — and another possible result from being a Marine — is staying extremely organized. Pearce likes to make sure all the gear goes back in the same place and the same order. She applies this to how the trailer gets packed and how it’s all set up and torn down, along with how everything is labeled and inventoried. “I have a photographic memory, so I’m pretty good at seeing when something is missing,” she says.
Pearce enjoys the road — and the people she is sharing it with. “The energy of the people you work with makes a huge difference. Blue October is really a family. We’re all best friends; those guys treat me well and the crew is just awesome.” While on a recent UK tour, they ran into a lot of issues from bus problems to venues with a lot of stairs. “Sometimes that’s grueling… but the worst day of touring is better than the best day in retail!”
That said, she’s excited to be where she is. “Things with this band are great, and I’m not looking to work with any specific artist, as long as I’m constantly learning and happy working with the people I’m currently with. It would be great to do some arena work, but as long as I feel like I’m a valued team member working with great people, I think I’m going to be happy. It’s a blessing to do this job.”
Some Useful Advice
To anyone interested in a similar career, her main advice is to be confident and be yourself. “Believing that you belong is a big thing. I know we all have imposter syndrome sometimes — I still do! But just being confident and going for it is really all I’ve ever done. I do know the landscape for women has changed quite a bit in the last few years. At one time, most bands didn’t want any women on the crew, and now sometimes, they specifically want it.”
She also appreciates that her road was paved by other women before her. “Sometimes I forget I’m the only woman on my crew because it just doesn’t matter, as long as everyone is professional and has a good attitude.” She does admit that she has been turned down from gigs because the members of the organization didn’t want a woman on the bus, but “that’s their loss.”
Pearce also offered a few additional bits of advice: “Understanding your place in a team is just as important as being the leader of it. Being teachable and asking questions when you don’t know something will make people trust you more than if you think you know better than everyone else. And if you’re mixing monitors, don’t take any criticism or negative comments personally.”
