“Lighting started in high school, I went to a school of the arts. I interned at a production company in Charleston, South Carolina when I was a kid and they put me to work. I try to connect to the artist’s songs and personalities in my designs and interpret their songs visually the best I can without distracting from them. We talk about songs and origins of them and try to get inside them as much as possible. Jason Isbell’s set is three stained glass windows with his wedding logo in it. Each window represents one of his family members–himself, his wife Amanda and the baby, so they are always with him on stage. They are all colored differently to match their personalities. I try to make Jason’s song “Cover Me” up intimate because it is so intimate between Jason and Amanda. I try to image the moonlight after a storm. It can take weeks or months to design a show because shows are constantly evolving. I do a lot of my designing late at night and I listen to the music while I sleep and get up and work. Ideas come from the subconscious. This is the escape, I don’t clock in or work in a cubicle. I draw, I have always been into art. Currently I am designing for Lake Street Dive, Jason Isbell, Old Crow Medicine Show, Rhiannon Giddens and Chris Stapleton. They are all different because their personalities are different and the shows require different looks. I will incorporate elements of things I have seen, but I try to approach it in a different way. I approach lighting in a non-aggressive way. I don’t focus lights into the crowd, unless it is required, and limit my movement with the rig because it is more impactful if you have restraint. As I get older I learn to refine restraint. I can tell when the audience reacts to audio and lighting. I love the creative design but I also love running the show. The fixtures are automated, but they are still run live. We don’t run a time-coded or single push button show. The band is too dynamic to do that. Jason is a great guy to work for. It has been a good experience and a different genre for me. Our company, Pulse Lighting, is a boutique lighting company and we light people who we have a connection with as artists. The owners of the company have a philosophy that you do great lightning when you are happy and if you are happy you are going to do great work. I am happy.”