In most scenarios, legendary rocker Neil Young and hip hop artist Post Malone wouldn’t be categorized together, but for Show Production grad Justin Stiepleman, these are just two more artists on his extensive resume.

When we spoke with Justin, he was four days into Neil Young’s Fall 2018 tour where he was taking on the role of general audio assistant. “I’m a PA tech, but most of it’s been monitor tech,” he says. “Ever since I was at Full Sail, I was always more drawn to the monitor side of things.”

After touring with Metallica, Post Malone, G-Eazy, and Don Henley, Justin was excited to be back out on the road again, this time assisting Neil Young and his crew. While he's excited for the new opportunities of this theater tour, Justin's previous experience has been mixing live audio for outdoor amphitheaters, which represents its own set of challenges.

Justin says that mixing sound for outdoor shows is unique because “you are dealing with all of the elements. You never know what the weather will be like. The mixing is different in every single place, but the weather is the worst part.” However, this indoor theater tour is already presenting Justin with new learning opportunities, such as figuring out the best way to load heavy equipment into a 100-year-old theater with no dock.

As Justin adds more tours to his resume, he is also thinking of an end goal of finding a crew to keep him on retainer. “I’d definitely love to find one camp to stick with,” he says. “That’d definitely be the goal to have, just a longterm thing, where I don’t really have to worry about the next job.”