Joshua Weidling is an overachiever when it comes to filming and keeping his site Digital TourBus at its best. He spends long hours following countless number of bands on the road passing through just to catch a glimpse of their ride while on tour. The bands gladly invite him inside their tour bus to film. And, we get to see it all. For those unfamiliar, think MTV Cribs, except way cooler. There’s no time for the bands to clean house before he films, so Joshua gets the raw and edgy side of the bands’ unique lifestyle on the road. We also get to learn a little more about the bands in each video. Weidling is without a doubt a dedicated fan and a genius when it comes to delivering this kind of entertainment. We all want his job. Fact is, there’s no one else that could be this great at it.
Sunday, April 3rd, 2011
OCMM: Thank you for taking the time today to speak with us at OCMM. I was exploring your website and there are a lot of really cool things to check out. Fans actually get to see video of the some of their favorite bands in their tour bus and see how they live on the road while on tour. How did you come up with this great concept?
J. Weidling: I was actually reading an issue of Next Exit; its a section in an article of where they ask band members after the show what their favorite place is to tour in the starting line in Pittsburgh, their favorite venues. I don’t know how, that’s where I was looking. It was about 2 1/2 yrs ago. Generally that’s how I came up with the idea.
OCMM: So I imagine you do a lot of traveling yourself to catch these guys on the road?
J. Weidling: Yea I mean the cool part is, the venues they go to is generally around where I live. I went to school in Iowa and now I’m back in the Chicago area so most bands come to the suburban area where I live or in the city, it’s nice that I don’t have to go too far, 1-2 hours max for a drive.
OCMM: Any plans to travel further?
J. Weidling: Glad you asked that, actually next week I will be in Ohio for The Jamboree, it’s a metal hardcore festival. One of the bands is Asking Alexandria, and two days after filming them, they will be performing on Jimmy Kimmel live, so that’s really cool. So I will be traveling to Ohio, doing 20 videos in one day, all day, so I’ll have my backpack full of water, just filming all day. (The Jamboree) It’s a festival of all metal hardcore punk bands. It’s really inexpensive traveling; it’s worth it because at a festival I can get a lot of bands in one day. With the cost of gas how it is right now, it’s more economical to get to a place where I can film a lot of bands in one day. I’m thinking about going to Cornerstone in central Illinois, it’s a huge festival, 7 days long, hundreds of bands play; it’s a good place to film.
OCMM: Wow so you really put in a lot of personal time and hard work yourself to entertain the fans..
J. Weidling: Yea and I started in January of 2009. On January 1st, I started to develop this concept. It was that day after New Years; it was like my New Years’ resolution. I was thinking about it for awhile, developing it in my head, getting everything ready. In March of 2010 the website developed, on the 4th it went live. Throughout that time, I tried to gain a fan base on social networks, which really helped today even more than back then…throughout the whole development we went through social networks and talked about bands and how it’s developing…
OCMM: What is the most unusual item you have seen bands carry while on the road?
J. Weidling: Hard to say, especially for one that’s appropriate for this interview! Well one of funniest was Luis from The Secret Handshake. He’s got a pop electronic band. I filmed them while on tour in the summer of 2009. He had an entire container full of hardcore “magical gathering cards,” in case bands want to play with them or while on tour with them, and a whole box of comic books. He was pretty much the biggest nerd I’ve ever filmed. He had a lot of random things all over in his van. I’m not sure if your familiar with it but in the midwest there’s “Kum and Go” gas stations, the name says it all, they put it (the name) on boxes and t-shirts. He had a pair of boxers from there, just had a lot of stuff in his van; it was all nerdy stuff. That’s what I can think of on the top of my head.
OCMM: So far in your travels, who has the best crib on wheels?
J. Weidling: It’s not on the site yet, but Clutch. I filmed them a month ago, they were on tour supporting Motorhead and had probably the most pimped out slide-out on the bus, a lot of extra space. On the front of the bus it slides out for seats, it’s not common because you have to have enough money to afford it. They just had the classiest ride, a nice TV; it had a really homey feel, which is very uncommon for a bus, especially when bands are rowdy.
OCMM: Not only is Digital TourBus great for fans, but you’ve also got so many discussion boards that interest aspiring musicians, photographers, and writers.
J. Weidling: For video there’s never been like a site that really is dedicated to providing videos, a collection from anywhere, that’s what I started with, and I’m trying to add more about touring in general. I want to keep the site all about touring. Two to three weeks ago I started asking bands what their top 5 tours are. Right now we have 45 tours up on the site. People seem to like it so far, it hasn’t really caught on yet but I feel like in the summer when bands really start hitting tour, people will really start catching on. There’s tour reviews, those are cool, and it gets people excited about it. So if you want to find a tour, you can find it on the site. Tour news and updates: when something funky happens on tour, that section gets updated, the discussion forums have a pretty good amount of stuff. Probably the most popular is the music forum, a lot of people that work for me and with me, photographers, and my main video editor is a professional photographer, he will answer some of the questions on photographers, so it’s free knowledge. The site gets a little more artsy with videos, pictures, and reviews and stuff..
OCMM: That sounds great! By the way, congratulations on recently celebrating the one-year anniversary of DigitalTourBus.
J. Weidling: Yea that was a long year, but it went really fast. It’s exciting to see everything grow and continue to grow; it’s a ranking of self. We used the most widely accepted ranking of websites through the Internet, seeing it going from 1.3 million to 180,000, as far as traffic wise, it’s amazing. People are spending an average of 45 minutes a day when they view it, seeing 150 pages, it’s astounding to me, everyday… It fulfills everything I’ve put into this. This year we got a lot of new things planned, new types of content, we still have videos and tours and stuff. I’m excited for the future, and happy I have the one year behind me.
OCMM: Congratulations again on all of your success. We will be sure to let our readers know to check out DigitalTourbus.
J. Weidling: When everything posts send me a link, I’ll be sure to let our readers know about it so that you guys can get some hits too.
OCMM: Sounds great. Thanks so much again for your time today, take care!
J. Weidling: Thanks a lot, you too.
Be sure to check out the site here and review the latest featured video along with contests and tour announcements! http://www.digitaltourbus.com/
