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Phone interview with Christina Martin of Backstage Artist Lounge

April 8th 2010, Los Angeles CA

Andrew: What is the Backstage Artist Lounge all about?
Christina: The Backstage Artist Lounge tours with a lot of bands you would know, like Motley Crue, Alice In Chains, Tool, Slipknot and we work backstage hosting the bands' area where companies give out their products and take pictures among doing other things. We every kind of product and it's a lot of fun. We also do charity on every tour date. So yeah we kind of take care of the bands on the road (laughs).

Andrew: What brings you to the Golden Gods event tonight?
Christina: Revolver magazine is an official media partner for 2010 Backstage Artist Lounge so they asked us to attend the black carpet for a wonderful photo opportunity tonight and of course to catch up with a lot of the bands we've worked with. Some of the guys that'll be there tonight like Slash and Rob Zombie, we have a summer tour coming up with them and they'll be in the Backstage Artist Lounge very soon.

Andrew: How and when did this thing start and what do you think of your success so far?
Christina: It started about four years ago with the first festival being Pointfest in St. Louis which is the flagship festival partner of the BAL now going on for a year. These days we have about thirty tour dates a year all over North America and now in the Caribbean, thanks to the 'VH1 Best Cruise Ever'. It is very successful right now. I basically work 24-7 and don't sleep anymore (laughs). We have a lot of responsibilities to make sure that all the corporate sponsors are happy with their present backstage on tour and it's really fun. So I don't mind working constantly (laughs).

Andrew: How do you come up with new ideas to keep improving the services that you are providing?
Christina: We try to think what would be fun to rock stars basically. Some of the coolest sponsors we got this year are Floating Coolers. We're going to have those on the Kid Rock and VH1 cruise and as you can imagine, they are coolers that float. And like last year we have slippers that light up so that when you're on the tour bus and it's dark, you have light. So that's what we try to do. The band Blue October said that it's like a rock stars' paradise. So we just try to give them a great experience. The bands are pretty much stuck on location for an entire day with eight hours to kill backstage (laughs) and the BAL gives them a place to hang out, get awesome free stuff and have a good time. We plan it in advance and put together which companies are going to do which tour dates and how they want to do it. They get really creative. Our wardrobe partner this year is called 'Ksino' and they're all about poker and gaming. So we 're actually installing a poker tournament backstage for Limp Bizkit, Three Days Grace, Seether and some other bands. So we basically can do just about anything and it makes kind of a big difference.

Andrew: You said you go on tour. How does that exactly work?
Christina: We have the Backstage Artist Lounge tour bus. It's all girls (laughs). This year Anama Clothing is wrapping the tour bus and we will be rolling around through a bunch of different festivals. We have Pointfest, Buzzfest, Rock On The Range and lot of great tour dates. On every tour date we have thirty bands, and sometimes fifty bands. So there is a whole lot of artists and it's worth it for the sponsors. We just hit the road and work. We leave the day after tomorrow for the summer tour (laughs).

Andrew: What are some of the major events you've enjoyed most in your four-year history?
Christina: One of my favourites is Rock On The Range, where we have 60 bands in two days and it's incredible. This year it's on May 22nd and 23rd in Columbus OH. We have Rob Zombie, Three Days Grace, Limp Bizkit, Slash and a lot of great bands. About 60,000 fans attend it. We are really looking forward to it and we have a huge backstage artist lounge. The sponsor for that particular festival is CREAM, which is alcohol infusioned whip cream, so we'll be giving that out to the bands (laughs).