b u l l e va r d
On the Roadie
Jef Hickey
He’s the man the bands want behind the scenes, who parties almost as hard as he works. The Red Bulletin caught up with rock’s most-wanted fixer
Hit the road Hickey’s first tour was with Megadeth in 1985. He went on to work with Danzig, Motörhead, KISS, Mariah Carey, Slayer, Madonna, Billy Joel and Slipknot Roadie reckoning Believes that rock stars and strippers go well together because “they work the same hours”
From left: Hickey has roadied for the likes of Megadeth, Danzig, Slayer and Type O Negative
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A good roadie – and there are thousands of them – tunes guitars, wields lanyards, and always has a supply of batteries and clean socks. Jef Hickey has risen to the top of his profession, with those tools in his locker and a thousand more, earning the title of the most famous roadie in rock. Like a savvy butler or political aide, Hickey knows there’s more to his job than lugging equipment and deciding which babes get backstage. In his early days, he learned one of his smartest moves: when first handed a band’s tour schedule, call major companies in all the cities on a band’s schedule, invite their top people to the show and thus ensure that the band would be hooked up with the best swag. Sitting outside a cafe in downtown LA, Hickey sports traditional roadie uniform: band T-shirt and tattoos (including his ex’s name crossed out; finger tats spelling ‘I REFUSE’ and, inked in Swedish on his belly, ‘hard drugs, loud guitars, and I love whores’). He recently returned home from touring the US with Swedish metal band, Crashdiet. The Scandinavians had a lot of fun crossing the desert: “They were so into cactuses. They had never seen one before.” Self-deprecating and charismatic, he halts his storytelling to tell a passing female that she has “nice tits”. The compliment falls naturally from his lips in a way that it must have many thousands of times before, dating back to when his career started in 1985. Then aged 17, he hopped on the bus with Megadeth in Providence, Rhode Island, and went on to work with every band in hard rock – from Slayer and Motörhead to Korn and Danzig – as well as Madonna, Billy Joel, Mariah Carey and Luther Vandross, who required Hickey to FedEx his toilet seat to every show location. Hickey says there are several things that make a good roadie. A good sense of humour, and the ability to hang are
paramount. If you can’t party with the band, things are going to get awkward. This aspect of the job has never been a problem for him. “If things were getting out of control right now, I’d probably be naked and making love to that tree,” he says, motioning towards a jacaranda. That said, you also have to be able to get the job done, no matter how late you were up the night before. Hickey has never let play get in the way of work. One time he was arrested in Illinois (“for a minor incident”, he adds), and the day after being released he was on a tour bus with Type O Negative. The festival circuit is a fixture in Hickey’s professional life. He remembers running away from Sharon Osbourne at Ozzfest: she was mad, he says, that he was filming a movie called Crew Sluts without her permission. This is just one of many stories in the memoir he’s writing. He has tickets for this year’s Download festival in the UK, and is looking forward to being on the other side of the stage for a change. That said, ever the pro, he has offered his services to two bands on the bill. “I’m going to be there, so I may as well help out,” he says. No rest for the Hickey.
“ If things were getting out of control right now, I’d probably be naked and making love to a tree”
Follow Hickey at www.facebook.com/ jef.hickey
WORDS: Caroline Ryder. photography: Chris McPherson, GETTY IMAGES (4)
Born Milford, Massachusetts, May 14, 1968