We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dave Decker, Jr. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dave below.

Hi Dave, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?

Did you see a monkey? Someone asked me that after a service trip to Central America years ago. Yes… I saw a monkey but you totally missed the point of what I’d just told you. This is what I laugh about with my spouse even today after coming home from working with the touring community- Invevitably someone will ask a question about my job that is A component but not THE component. I used to be very frustrated by this and it would shut down a conversation, but now I try to use it as an entry point for someone who CARES but doesn’t fully understand the SCOPE of what they COULD care about. Those I work with on various tours have a great hour where they are on stage, or practicing their craft in some way while the show is happening, but there are 23 other hours in their day where the real work of LightsOut comes into practice. I want folks to recalibrate the scope of what they understand as the work of the artist (a more full understanding of the 24 hours of their day), and when that occurs they likely will understand my work as a caregiver to the touring artist a bit better as well.

Dave, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

LightsOut exists to provide soul-care to those serving under the lights. I started this non-profit after years of working with a music festival and further years of getting to know the off-stage realities of the touring community. I saw a people group that was like any other, but their ‘workspace’ was a bit different than any other: non-linear relationships based not on TIME, but on GEOGRAPHIC connections that can create a complicated sense of community. My friend Chad Johnson says “a challenge of community is continuity.” He’s right. Touring personnel have complicated community because continuity is a challenge when your relationships are all over the US, but not necessarily based on day to day relationships, but city to city ones that don’t ALWAYS mean you are living without accountability, but certainly CAN put one in a situation of anonymity. Anonymity is not healthy for any of us, and when that is the baseline, healthy relationship with self and others is very challenging. As part of my work with LightsOut, I seek to move out of the geographic relationship world and into what many of us who have a home base in which we are consistently present typically exist: I try to help provide relationship and accountability that travels with artists in person and then subsequently over the phone. I don’t think I’m the ONLY person who does this in the artists’ lives, but that is one of the SOLE reasons LightsOut exists – as Tim Foreman of Switchfoot told me years ago, we believe “who you are when you step off stage matters”

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

THE way we supported artists was to travel to music festivals around the US as a family in Doris our RV, to provide food and respite and support in a physical way (some festivals didn’t have much/any artists hospitality for the 2nd stage, only at the main stage). On the way to a festival about 7 years ago I hit a pheasant and could not drive any further as the front windshield was almost completely destroyed and falling into the RV. My entire system of care was ruined (or so I thought). I had to pivot, after a small (huge) freak-out, and got a ride to the festival with a band I knew and THEY hosted ME for the weekend in their bus. I was STILL able to serve and care for and listen to and provide counsel to many folks in the touring community that weekend, and learned to throw aside a crutch I’d been focusing on and instead push thru to less being more. We kept the RV, we repaired it and still utilized it for summer festivals, but that pivot helped me change my mindset of HOW we provided care and actually removed barriers that existed because of my own mindset limiting where we could help. I now try to stay usable and available and ready to serve, and that has lead to way more adventures than I was open to in the past. Remaining rigid in your thinking about the HOW of what you do is very difficult to self-identify and very difficult to diagnose and even MORE difficult to stay viable in an ever changing landscape. Bruce Lee the dang thing – Be water!

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I love music, always have. From OLD Hank Williams Sr & Johnny Cash records and 8 track tapes that my parents had around to live concerts to iPods full of my own favorite music I’ve always loved music. It wasn’t until I started booking bands for a festival that I began to understand the realities of the REST of the day when the artists were off-stage. I cared about music, but didn’t really give musicians a thought WHEN THEY WERE OFF STAGE. I don’t think this means I was a terrible person (well, maybe it does haha) it just means I didn’t fully see what else was going on as I didn’t have access or knowledge of the other 23 hours in the touring musician’s life. One thing people can do to support the touring community is to look around. All of us are wired differently in how we see the world and how we serve, look around the room and pay attention to that which you pay attention, and then serve where you see a need. It all starts with noticing, caring, and serving NOT so you can get an autograph or photo or so you can TAKE something, you already get music. But instead, serve & offer to serve & build trust by just noticing what might be a need and offering to help and care and serve.

Contact Info:

• Website: LightsOut.me
• Instagram: LiveLightsOut
• Facebook: facebook.com/LightsOutPage
• Twitter: LiveLightsOut