Chelsea Joyce
I
SOUNDING OFF
her associate’s degree, Joyce found herself across the globe.
“I left for a trip for what I thought was going to be three weeks to Israel,”
she says. “I canceled my plane ticket back home and ended up traveling
around for 10 months.” Joyce backpacked from Israel to Greece, Turkey to
Egypt and, finally, to India. “I changed a lot because I learned how to be inde-
pendent. I proved to myself I could be.”
Upon returning stateside, Joyce earned her degree in sociology at the UO, and
returned to sound, working up to 60 hours a week. She finds that “sociology and
sound relate in a lot of ways,” because of working with diverse folks in a danger-
ous job with heavy lifting and high voltage where “people are a liability.”
Now, Joyce’s days are filled with soundboards, sound checks, sub-snakes and
XLRs. But the confidence she gained through travel may be her most valuable
asset. “When I’m dealing with a band and I seem nervous, they don’t have faith in
my abilities. Especially as a woman too,” she says. “A lot of bands don’t know what
to think because they don’t see a woman much behind the board. Sometimes it
works to my favor and they’re like ‘Wow, she must really know what she’s doing,’
and sometimes people doubt me because of it until I prove that I can do it.”
Although Joyce loves working in sound, because it’s “never-ending learning,”
she eventually wants to stage or tour manage. She’s hopeful for more women in
the field. “In the past month,” she says, “there have been two girls who have
come up to me while I’m mixing and said ‘Hey, I’m studying sound. Can I shadow
you some time? It’s great to see a woman doing it.’” — Alex Notman
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t was somewhere between New Mexico and New York that Chelsea Joyce
decided to stop wearing a bra. The 26-year-old sound engineer was midway
through 2012’s Warped Tour, and she was sleeping, eating and working
14-hour days alongside 12 dudes on a bus, as they rolled from city to city, park-
ing lot to parking lot, doing sound for the 50-day rock tour with 41 shows.
“It kind of sucked because when I got off work, and I was exhausted, I felt like
I still needed to keep my sports bra on,” Joyce says, laughing. She worked as the
“patch master,” the person who sets up mics, wires the stage and the PA system.
“About halfway through, I was like, ‘Screw this! ... I don’t care what I look like and
screw them if they care.’”
After eight years (on-and-off) in the sound business — working at McDonald
Theatre, Cuthbert, Sam Bond’s, WOW Hall, Matthew Knight Arena and festivals
— Joyce shrugs these kinds of moments off. She says there are not many
women in the field because of a self-fulfilling prophecy fueled by the
intimidation of a male-dominated industry. She’s had to deal with come-ons and
low expectations, but is convinced that a quick wit is the best defense. “My skin
has gotten so, so much thicker because of it,” she says. “It’s pretty awesome.”
But like anything worth living your life for, it was a journey to get to that
thick-skinned place. Joyce first fell in love with the music scene going to punk
rock shows as a teenager in Bend. By 18, she knew she wanted to study
sound and headed to Full Sail University in Florida, where she spent 13 “crazy”
months studying sound, lighting, video and sports broadcasting. After earning
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eugeneweekly.com • March 21, 2013
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