Motörhead’s leading woman for 9 years, Kim Hawes is a legend when it comes to tour management. Here’s what you missed at her book club session.
Words: Leela Brunsdon.
Kim Hawes is an absolute rocket of priceless knowledge and experience when it comes to being right in the thick of the music industry. With a humble start behind the merch table at gigs, slinging out posters and t-shirts for the likes of Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Rush & Black Sabbath.
Kim got flung into an intense tour with none other than rock and roll’s wildest stars, Motörhead, and in a twist of fate became their tour accountant when her predecessor was nowhere to be found (more on this later…), and then swiftly and gracefully graduated to their tour manager and remained on the road with them for 9 continuous years after. Kim Hawes assumed her position as one of only six female tour managers in the world at this point in time.
In later times, Kim moved into the world of crisis management (Kim herself prefers the term “troubleshooter”). And now, after the successful release of her memoir, Lipstick and Leather, on the nitty gritty lifestyle on the road, Kim travels around enlightening listeners about some of her wild experiences.
Lipstick and Leather by Kim Hawes front cover.
Last month, Kim Hawes visited BIMM for an exclusive and intimate book club session. ICYMI, here are some of the pointers from the book club session full of advice if you’re considering going into tour management or simply just being involved with bands whether that’s performance or behind the scenes.
As previously mentioned, Kim began her journey on the merch stand, but always had a twinkle of inspiration and wanting more. In the 70s, it was pretty uncommon for women to be doing managerial roles and was told to her face that her head was in the clouds when expressing her desire to climb her way up – here’s what a particular tour manager said to her after her first-time touring with a band.
I first met a tour manager on the very first tour, obviously. And see, he said to me at the end of it – did I have a good time? And I was like – it was amazing. Had the most amazing time ever. And he said would you want to do it again? I was like, Yeah, I’ll do this again. I said, but I want your job. And he was like my job? Women don’t do my job. You can’t be a tour manager. There are no women doing this. And it must have done something up there, because, yeah, I loved it. Years later when I went back, said “Hey! Guess what I’m doing – your job, I’ve got it.” Everybody took a long time. It took an awful long time. 10 years in fact, of slaving away, up the ladder.
Kim Hawes
A young Kim Hawes photographed on tour with Motörhead.
Now, to the serendipitous story of how Kim Hawes came to her destiny of becoming Motörhead’s tour manager. The story is better told in Kim’s own words, so here it is:
Things were different then so basically, the band decided that it was time to do their Christmas shopping. And they wanted 2000 pounds each. But they wanted 1000 pounds in sterling, for when they got back to the UK. And they wanted 1000 pounds in French francs. Easy to do. But that’s like 8000 pounds, on a Saturday morning in Paris when the banks are shut and you haven’t actually got any French francs, or any Sterling at all.
So, I basically went out and I trudged my way around Paris and managed to get all the currencies done. The fact is, then I needed a signature from the tour manager to say, here you go guys, there’s the cash you wanted. Trouble is, we couldn’t find him.
Photographs of Kim on tour with Motörhead from her personal collection.
It got so bad that we got the maid to open his room because we had visions that the poor guy passed out on the floor, and had been dead in there for like a day. He hadn’t. He’d gone home. He’d had enough and he’d gone home. But he didn’t tell anybody so suddenly we were without a tour manager for that night. In those days, settlements were done in cash. And so, we phoned London up and just said “What’re we going to do?” And they said, “It’s okay, Kim – everybody, the crew, and everybody knew what they were doing anyway.” It wasn’t like I had to step in and go, this needs to be done, that needs to be done. I just had to do the settlement. That’s the biggie.
And that was said, like, “Go on Kim, have a go, go in, do it.”
So I did. And, and that was it. That was all it took for it to go like, completely across London. “Have you heard this, this woman has actually done – this girl is actually tour managing for Motörhead.”
It was like, hold on a second – all I did was sit in a room and count money and things. That’s all we did. And I got people back on the ferry to get home. But that was it and no more and yeah, and it had gone across the pond that quickly that it was just word of mouth, you know, like, it was like a buzzword. It was absolutely nuts.
Kim Hawes
And just like that, Kim assumed her position in music history as one of the mere six female tour managers in the late 70s.
Next up is some seriously genius advice with a little trick on how to stay safe as an independent woman on tour and security in hotels. Simply being a woman and going anywhere alone comes with its dangers, and Kim goes on with a deterrent for intruders if it ever comes to that.
It all stemmed from when Kim first ventured to America on tour when a manager asked her “What piece do you want Kim?”. Coming from England, she had no idea what he meant by this. “What are we talking about?” she said.
Upon realisation that she was being asked about a firearm, she swiftly says “Oh, I don’t like this. I don’t carry anything, I carry a pepper spray around my neck, and I’ll squirt them with it. But I’m not going to carry a gun.”
On short-term notice, Kim decided to try out one singular martial arts lesson to then be told that it would take years to perfect physical defence mechanisms. Instead, the teacher gave her some wonderful advice that she’s taken along with her through the years.
The best tip he told her was as follows: most crimes in hotels are carried out by people who work at said hotels. They know who you are, which room you’re in, and who’s with you. This especially gains attention when you’re touring with big bands, such as she was with Motörhead. The same martial arts teacher followed up with this trick that Kim swears by, even to this day without being on tour with big names. It’s something to keep in mind as a woman travelling without company:
Take with you an extra extra, really big man’s t shirt, a pair of men’s socks, and a pair of boxer shorts. As you walk in the room, throw them on the floor towards the bed.
Right now, if somebody breaks in your room at night, they’re going to open the door. So, I’ll leave the bathroom light on. Always leave a light on so you can see as they’re coming in, or whatever, but they’re going to come in and then they’ll say – Oh my God, who’s she snuck in here? Who has she got in this room that we haven’t seen? Because he’s obviously a big guy, have you seen the size of that T shirt?
You know, they will be just as afraid and take off and go the other direction. Or if you’re out during the day hang them over the radiator. You know, just hang them. And it’s a perfect deterrent for a female being on their own. And it’s something I still do now. I still do it even if there’s no cash, I still do it just safety wise.
Kim Hawes
To round off, Kim left us with some general advice on essential skills required to succeed in the music industry. Something Kim kept reminding us of was the necessity of being organised. A great example, in her own words, is as follows:
I learned how to be organised. And it was through mistakes.
It’s the tiny things, I used to wake everybody up by phone every morning. I would get up two hours before we would leave the hotel, one hour would be spent getting myself together. Once I was together myself, that’s when I started work. And I would speak to every single person, wake them up in the morning. Because I knew then that they were awake. I could have organised a phone call, the hotel could have done it. But it takes everybody time to get up.
Lemmy from Motörhead. Photographed by Kim Hawes.
You have to anticipate the problems and deal with them before they happen. Always checking, double checking things, triple checking things to make sure that nothing’s gonna go wrong.
I’ve walked into venues where stages have been too small. And yet it says in the contract that they’re this size, so now we need extra stage building quickly. It’s no good walking in at three o’clock in the afternoon and the stage isn’t big enough.
Where exits are towards dressing rooms. Just so that if there was a load of people outside, you had alternative ways out. You even count, take note to the second how long it took you to get from the dressing room to the stage. You know, you’d have that down pat for the day, oh, it takes 48 seconds to get there. You put the music on and the band has to get from here to there. You don’t have them standing around at the side of the stage, you don’t do that.
Stuff like, what’s traffic like in that city? At that time of night? What time does the train stop tonight?It’s no good saying like, you’ve got two headliners on, you’re adamant that your band want to be the last ones on stage. The last ones on stage – you’re going on at half 10. The last train and the last bus finish at quarter to 11. So now, tell me which headliner would you rather have, the one where there are people in the venue, or the later one when everybody’s gone home? You know, it’s those kinds of little things.
You have to learn a city as if it was your own backyard [or] your own house.
Kim Hawes
And finally, some perfect advice for students…
If you love music enough, go and work in a venue. And I don’t care what you do in that venue, you’re just in the right place. I have employed all kinds of people that worked in a venue and it was just because they were there at the time. And I have employed caterers all the way through to drummers.
Open your eyes and take the world in.
Kim Hawes
For even more insight into the crazy life of Motörhead’s tour manager and all the experience that comes with it, I highly recommend giving Lipstick and Leather a read.Find ithere. And for more information about Kim Hawes, check out her website.
LDN 