Rock star riders are an endless source of fascination and amusement. Some, like Van Halen’s, have even attained legendary status. The band famously requested a bowl of M&M’s with the brown ones removed, in order to ensure the rider’s safety protocols had been strictly followed.
After all, that’s what a rider is mostly about. To the layman, it’s a list of stuff the band or artist want in their green room, but that’s usually just one page of what is a fairly lengthy document covering an artist’s needs when it comes to things like security, PA, and production.
In the case of Jack White, it also includes one hell of a delicious recipe for guacamole (take it from us, it was a hit at the Tone Deaf Christmas party), but it’s Jack Johnson who may just have what we reckon is the best rider of any musician we’ve seen so far.
As The Huffington Post reports, the surfie singer-songwriter has used his rider as an opportunity to spread environmental awareness, lower his impact on the planet, and even change the way the world’s music venues approach their own environmental impact.
See, the thing is, we love live music, but concerts and tours, particularly big ones, create a lot of waste. In fact, the bigger a show or a tour is, the more waste it generates, whether that be a carbon footprint from plane travel or just plain old trash.
That’s why Johnson’s rider is ethically-minded with respect to the environment, featuring all-caps stipulations such as “RECYCLING MUST NOT BE THROWN AWAY WITH THE TRASH” and requests for energy-efficient light bulbs installed throughout the facility.
“You hear all these horror stories of people’s riders requesting one color of M&Ms or super fancy champagne,” Johnson tells HuffPo. “We just figured, all right, let’s be demanding with these, because we know they’re not going to switch back to those energy-draining bulbs once the show is over.”
Yep, Johnson’s rider basically Trojan Horsed energy-efficient light bulbs into the music venues of the world. His rider even requests venue owners purchase carbon dioxide offsets to cover all of the energy used during the show.
“I didn’t know if I needed to keep touring, especially when I considered the environmental impact of what I was doing,” Johnson, who’s made enough money off of record sales to comfortably live off, told HuffPo.
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“There’s a great song [by Elvis Presley] that I always think of,” he said, “because one of the lines sums up the way I feel: ‘If my friends could see me now in this fancy hotel room, they’d ask me, ‘What on earth are you trying to prove?’”
So Johnson decided to turn his tours into environmental fundraisers. He forced venues to go green if they wanted to host his lucrative shows, travelled on buses and used generators powered by biodiesel, and invited nonprofits to come to his shows and educate fans.
Meanwhile, every cent of the profits generated by his live shows went to nonprofit organisations and venues like Maryland’s Merriweather Post Pavilion even received a $9.5 million grant from the local council to revamp their facility to be more environmentally sound.
“It’s just the responsible way to tour,” Johnson told HuffPo. “If I’m going to keep doing music, I have to help keep the industry I’m a part of be more responsible.”
