In five short years, the Newbury Park, CA-based quintet The Neighbourhood has made its presence known, earning a prime spot at SXSW, performing on Jimmy Kimmel Live and performing in Europe and throughout the U.S. Currently on tour supporting Wiped Out!, the band’s second album, The Neighbourhood is selling out halls and theaters.
The North American leg of the Wiped Out tour kicked off on May 6, at Seattle’s Showbox SoDo, and wraps up on June 18 at the Firefly Festival in Dover, DE. Following a brief respite, The Neighbourhood sets off on its European tour leg, which begins Aug. 13 at the Summer Well Festival in Bucharest, Romania.
Band members include vocalist Jesse James Rutherford, guitarists Jeremy Freedman and Zach Shane Abels, bassist Mikey Margott and drummer Brandon Alexander Fried. Everything about the band is new, from their music to their gear — including the Roland M-5000 live consoles used by Tomas Wolfe and Jason Hines at FOH and monitor positions.
The View from Crew
FOH engineer Tomas Wolfe grew up in L.A. and attended the Los Angeles Recording School. When he took the only class they offered in live sound, he fell in love with it to the point he quit school. “I was hungry to learn anything I could [about live sound], so I got a 40-hour a week internship at the Viper Room on Sunset Boulevard,” he says. “They had a lot of engineers come through and the caliber of talent was really deep.” He also start interning at the Roxy Theater down the street, and when they needed an engineer to do sound for their smaller room, he got the keys and drove off in his first paying sound gig.
For the next two years, he worked the L.A.. club circuit. “I wanted to go out on tour but was making a pretty good living with the club scene, and it was hard to break into touring at a big level,” Wolfe says. A friend persuaded him go out with Io Echo at a mere $100 a day, and while he reluctantly took it, he never looked back. “I just fell in love with being on the road and working with one band every night, mixing in completely different elements.” That band never broke, though, so when the opportunity knocked to work with The Neighbourhood in August of 2015, he answered.
“We decided to use the Roland M-5000,” Wolfe says, adding that he is a self-professed console junkie and was eyeing it when it debuted a few years ago. He went to Roland’s HQ in L.A. and checked it out. “I really liked the desk, and they let me do a couple of shows with it in L.A. It sounds great, and I’ve really enjoyed building a relationship with the people at Roland.” Roland let Wolfe take it to Europe, where he says he “abused it” and it took those hard knocks well. “You’re not limited with this desk, and it’s very customizable. And the preamps all sound great.” While the board is the 16×16 model, Wolfe likes its 128 freely definable audio paths. The console has allowed Wolfe to build what he needs, and it is highly flexible, allowing him to adjust as needed to the wide variety of venues the band is playing in. The board is loaded with effects, including Waves, and he doesn’t feel he needs to supplement that offering at all. (Expansion options also include Dante, MADI, and REAC, among others.) He likes the multi-track recording option too. The band uses Autotune as an effect, which is used with his Ableton rig, but otherwise, he travels light, with pretty much the 80-pound M-5000.
The band is not traveling with P.A. and is using whatever speakers are in the house they are playing in. “Using a different P.A. system every night can be challenging at times, but that’s what I love about this [gig]. If we were in the same venue every night, I’d get bored.” The vast majority of places are dressed with excellent P.A. boxes, but still, they are all different. Even more different are the acoustics, but a five-hour load-in and a solid sound check allows him to dial in everything before the first note of the show, and do so comfortably.
Mic-wise, it’s all Shure. For the drums, it’s 52s and 91s, and then the 81s on the cymbals. The bottom snare has a KSM141 with a Beta 56 on the top. Interestingly, for the three guitarists, they have taped a Beta 57 to a SM57 and stuck it in front of their amp. “They are all in-phase — which is crazy, but it works,” Wolfe explains.
The Monitor Side
Monitor engineer Jason Hines is new to the band, but not to Wolfe. Coincidentally, Hines was one of Wolfe’s mentors at the Viper Room. Hines grew up in Holtville, CA, and worked for Goldenvoice for eight years at some of the hottest venues including the Fox Theater, Roxy Theater, Fonda Theater, and others. On the road, he’s done monitor engineering for Lauryn Hill; FOH and tour managing duties Troy Van Leeuwen’s side project Sweethead; and also worked for Shadmehr Aghili and Ebi Hamedi. He just recently joined The Neighbourhood through Wolfe’s recommendation.
Hines is also working with a Roland M-5000. He’s running it with the S4000S I/O’s cruising at 96k with two Xi-REAC expansion slot cards. “I’m also pairing that with their digital snake S-4000D splitter and power distro for three M-48 personal mixers.” No other outboard gear need apply.
The band is all IEMs, though the drummer is using the Roland M-48 personal mixer to create his own monitor mixes. “We are using the Shure PSM-900 paired with either ACS Custom or 1964 in-ear pieces. We’re also employing Wireless Workbench and RF Venue’s Vantage software, and an RF Explorer 6G handheld spectrum analyzer to allocate all the frequencies.” As is typical, finding everyone clean frequencies every night is the challenge. “That and finding a clean shower at the end of load-out,” he laughs.
Energy on the Road
The band sticks mostly to a steady set list night to night, though they are always tweaking some aspect of their show, Wolfe says. “This tour is a great experience all the way around. I love loading in, checking out the room, setting mics and working with the crew. I still get nervous right before they play because I want everything to go right. Even if it’s been a long day and I’m tired, right when they start playing, I get this burst of energy and a natural high watching the crowd.”
The Neighbourhood Wiped Out! Tour
CREW
FOH Engineer: Tomas Wolfe
Monitor Engineer: Jason Hines
Backline Tech: Jonathon Burlew
Playback Tech: Jeremy Zendajas
P.A.
Main P.A.: Supplied by Venue
FOH GEAR
FOH Console: Roland M-5000
Mics: Shure Beta 52s, Beta 91s, SM81 cymbals, snare top Beta 56; snare bottom KSM141; guitar amps Beta 57/SM57 taped together; stand vocal mics, Shure SM58, Beta 58
Wireless Mics: Shure UHF-R
MONITOR GEAR
Monitor Console: Roland M-5000
Stageboxes: (2) Roland 96kHz S4000S
Snake: Roland REAC S-4000D splitter
IEM Hardware: Shure PSM-900
IEM Earpieces: ACS Custom, 1964 Audio
IEM Mixers: Roland M-48
RF Tools: Shure Wireless Workbench software, RF Venue Vantage software, RF Explorer 6G spectrum analyzer
For more info about The Neighbourhood, visit thenbhd.com.
