Lonnie Stoner - The UnCUT

The Hardest Working Stoner in Eugene
By Alison Chriss


Stoner keeps a personal Hall of Fame plastered on his walls so that when you enter his house you see his face once in the flesh and fifty times again in frames. Look closely and see his face coming out of Gene Simmons ass, or find him four people away from Dave Matthews. There he is with his arm around local radio-lady, Downtown Deb, and another with close personal friends, the Zen Tricksters. Walk into his kitchen and above an insane collection of Celestial Seasonings and Yogi Tea, and a shelf of stale peeps, assorted candy, cookies, chips and overall junk food buffet, is the “Woodstock Wall” decorated in posters and photographs from the legendary 1969 show.
He may just be the hardest working Stoner in Eugene, Oregon. Dubbed by the Barenaked Ladies as “The Best Name in Rock and Roll” before their musical tribute to his unusual name, Lonnie Stoner, roadie-extraordinaire and video technician sits amidst the hidden talent of the city. When he returns home “to rejoin his life in progress,” he says Eugene is also where, “I come to lick my wounds.”
Stoner said that for him, Eugene is just the place to be. Originally drawn to the area for the annual Country Fair, his visit he said that by the time he left, he said “Yep, this is where I’m comin’.’” Born in Sacramento and raised in San Francisco he left California after about 35 years. He says his stuff has been in Eugene for about three years, but he’s only really been here for a year and a half, on and off.
Puff Daddy spat Cristal in his face and Brad Pitt requested where to get condoms from him – with a spit clause in his contract and safe-sex knowledge, he has toured the world with and recorded the beautiful and crazy moments of Mariah Carey, Eminem, and The Who, to name a few. His collaged walls and collection of concert DVD’s with his name racing by in the credits, serve as proof of his proximity to fame.
He grew up loving video. “I was one of those kids that got yelled at for watching too much TV, and all I can tell parents is, ‘Hey, bear with your kids because they will get something out of it.’” At about age 15 he would sneak out at night to work the graveyard shift at a local radio station. He was in the military for three years, where he received his GED and according to Stoner, that was one of the things that helped prepare him for the regimen of the whole “get up and do it again.” He was in radio promotion for awhile, which took him around quite a bit. He joined the Bill Graham organization, not to be confused with the Evangelist, Billy Graham, and that job opened doors to many opportunities.
Stoner called Bill Graham, quite the promoter, and said he was a great inspiration to him. Graham is credited with setting the standard for large-scale, well-produced rock shows and connected Stoner with The Pretenders and Jesus Jones. Graham died in October 1991, leaving an absence of and the loss of a strong figure in Stoner’s life. After Graham’s death “I kicked around for about a year and did anything and everything I possibly could do that wasn’t involved with music,” he said.
Later, he visited a friend who owned a video and tour warehouse. Stoner said he made a “tacky comment” about how unorganized the facility was and he was hired to organize it. He worked there for three years and just watched it all, wanting to get in on the action. He explained his frustration during his tenure at the warehouse: “I kept watching Tina Turner go out the door, Paul McCartney went out the door, all these tours that they were doing and constantly promising me, promising me, then finally I quit,” he said. Then he got his “backstage pass” and got a job on the Kiss tour. “That was basically my college,” he said, “doin’ Kiss for five years I could basically go just about anywhere I wanted in the video business…only because it was like surviving a war. I was still mentally intact, sort of.”
During his five year stint with Kiss, Stoner was on his way to bachelor-hood, divorcing his wife, from which he adopted his legendary name. Believing it’s never too late to reinvent yourself, and being born without knowing his father, he says the name on his birth certificate is fictitious to him. “It’s a name that doesn’t exist with anything,” he explained. So, when he met, fell in love with and married Mary Anne Stoner, her father became more of a father to him than any other male role model. He thought, “Hey, why can’t I? She can take my name so why can’t I take hers?” He took his wife’s name all those years ago and he kept it!
After Stoner left the tour, applying for other “roadie” positions became much easier. At an interview for a job he applied for, he said, “The guy paused after I told him I did Kiss for five years and he said, ‘Oh my God, are you ok?’ And I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he goes, ‘Ok, how soon can you start?” With this position he continued his education and transformation into a Lonnie Stoner of all trades.
He loves to take pictures, and just bought a new Nikon camera, but is far more a video connoisseur. He summed up his video experience and commented that, “It’s not that I know what a good shot is, so much as I know what a bad shot is.” He continued, “You can look at any television and you know when something is being presented to you as an art form or whether it’s just being thrown at you.”
Presenting art forms and living on the road, Stoner most recently returned to his south Eugene home from working on the Journey, Heart and Cheap Trick Tour. Other great acts on his resume, and some featured on his wall, include Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban. He’s worked with a few other rap acts including, Fat Joe, for whom he contributed to a video, Foxy Brown and Lil’ Kim, who he witnessed get into a “knock-down drag-out dispute.” He also worked at Lollapalooza and the Tibetan Freedom Fest, which is where he met and spoke with Brad Pitt.
He said at the Tibetan Freedom Fest, “My job was to sit backstage with the stationary camera, and they would bring people in to interview them; I was the sound guy.” He explained that Brad Pitt had just started dating Jennifer Aniston and at one point during the middle of the interview, they stop and take a break and “He leans in and he asks me my name and if I know where to get any condoms,” said Stoner. “Knowing that there was a safe sex booth, Planned Parenthood thing right down the row I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll be back in a minute’ and I went and got him some condoms. I tell the story to my friends at home and they’re like ‘Yeah, sure.’ About a week later, headlines of the National Inquirer said ‘Brad Pitt Seeks Condoms at Tibetan Freedom Fest and Can’t Find Them.’ Now, I myself wanted to call and say ‘Hello! Get your story straight because I’m the one who gave them to him.”
Stoner explains that with a life on the road, and working on tours that “roadie-ism” is a double-edged sword: “I feel proud of being there but at the same time people get the image they’re all ‘groadie.’”Although each video and tour he’s been credited on gives him various titles, overall he is a video technician. They “basically pay me for my zooming and focusing abilities,” he said.
Stoner said he want to shift over to director soon; he directed some of the filming for Heart but has yet to be credited. He also directed some rap acts, with some credited and others not. He is pushing this year to become a “fledgling director,” as he calls it. He may be home in Eugene for now but his future plans are anything but uncertain and since his return last fall from the Journey, Heart and Cheap Trick tour, he has been anything but lazy.
Finding a local job is difficult for him. He’s a member of the Eugene chapter of the theatrical stagehand union, recently working as an electrician for the Hult Center’s production of Annie. “Realistically, in this business, unless you have a job already lined up that’s the next step – you’re looking for another job,” he said.
In terms of music industry insight, Stoner explains, “Most of what I do is on a large scale because, when you go out of theaters into arenas, you need video.” He explains that there has to be some kind of justification for that last seat in the house being $100.00. Video is a luxury and he explained it’s the last element added and the first cut out of a concert experience. He said, “The field I’m in is kind of limited but fortunately, I’ve been doing it so long.”
Life on the road has its ups and downs like anything else. “You make damn good money when you’re on the road but you have to balance it because when you come home, you’re not making anything,” he said. Supporting whatever you have going on at home is key; his decorated home proves his ability to do so.
He keeps a very open mind in work and in life. He has to try everything until he finds something he “jives” with. He says he still doesn’t feel like he’s found it. Perhaps his “fledgling directing” will be his big ticket in the business. However, he stressed that if you’re chasing the dollar sign, you’re probably in the business for the wrong reason. Stoner’s reason for being in the business boiled down to, “I loved going to concerts, but I didn’t like paying for tickets,” he said. “I guess the thing that I love about music is it’s universal – no matter where you go, there’s a sound there’s a noise, there’s a resonance.” He believes that music soothes the savage beast and is an infinite thing; it’s always been here and will always be here.
The music has taken this Stoner on many whirlwind adventures. With directing in his future, that dream tour may be just around the corner. He said if he could tour with anyone he would pick two: Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin. He admits his real dream tour would be “One that lasts a couple of years and pays very, very well – oh, oh and get treated like a human being.” He elaborated saying that on tours like The Who and Dave Matthews Band, when you don’t have a want or a need that can’t be met, that’s the dream right there.
For now, he said, “I’m on a list of fresh meat that knows how to curl a cable; they call me and ask if I’m available, and when I’m not working, I call them and say, ‘I’m available.’ It’s a two way street.” His current plan is to pick up a leg of the Keith Urban 2009 tour in March. Stoner claims he lives just one minute at a time and one day at a time, but unlike the popular addiction recovery mantra, he says, “It’s not twelve steps, its life.”
Lonnie Stoner reflected on his past, present and future and said, “To me, this whole thing is just…bizarre. I mean I’m a ghetto kid from Sacramento, what do I know about any of this stuff?” His narcissistic tendencies ambivalently matched with self-humbling comments makes you wonder if he is even aware of his achievements, or if he is just so accustomed to a lonely life on the road, the lifestyles of the rich and the famous, that it’s just another day. This self-proclaimed “legend in his own lunch-time,” 52-year-old, prolific roadie-extraordinaire gained a flexibility in career from living a life on tour, and will keep him going with the flow (as flowy as his long, gray and weathered hair) until he ends up shrugging his shoulders in Eugene again to plan his next production.