Exploring Life & Business with Courtney Klimson of The Roadie Clinic

Today we’d like to introduce you to Courtney Klimson.

Hi Courtney, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers. 
I’ve been a student of music since the age of 3 when I was put into piano lessons in Rochester, NY – home of Eastman School of Music. Growing up, our school district was focused on the arts more than sports, so I became competitive in trying to become the best piano player, vocalist, and French horn player I possibly could – until we moved to southern Illinois and the music focus turned into farming and sports for that town. I carried my passion into college, but it was there that I realized that I probably wouldn’t be talented enough to perform professionally, but I still felt like the music industry is where I belonged. So, I switched my focus from being a music performance major to a music business major. 

Post-college, I married my husband of 20 years, Paul, and we quickly entered the land of weekend warrior touring in country music, based in Nashville. I worked for a record label, and within a year of getting that job, the music industry was flipped upside down by the introduction of Napster and digital music. We quickly saw the writing on the wall, left the label and country music, and moved to NYC in 2005. We ended up primarily in that region through 2020, and we both ended up working in various sectors of the entertainment industry. That included 7 years of broadcast experience through my husband’s work with Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Saturday Night Live, and then The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. While he was there, I was building a pro-audio installation division at Masque Sound, and we started our own company, Theory One Productions. 

When The Tonight Show moved from LA to NYC, I was the production manager for that first show featuring U2 performing at the Top of the Rock. That experience led me to quit my day job and manage Theory One Productions full-time. We worked with The Roots, Kelly Clarkson, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, and Drake before Covid came along and destroyed our industry yet again. 

It was merely months before COVID-19, in July of 2019, that the idea for The Roadie Clinic formed, and we took off running. In all of our years of touring, working with hundreds of crews (*see the 7 years of broadcast), and our insights from various sectors of the industry, we were confident we could build something meaningful for our little part of the industry. When the pandemic hit, we thought it would crush our dreams, but we persevered, and I have now transitioned from running Theory One Productions to being the Executive Director of The Roadie Clinic full-time. Our mission is to empower + heal roadies and their families by providing services + resources tailored to the struggles of the touring lifestyle. 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
If there weren’t challenges, I doubt I would be where I am today. I’d say my struggles can be distilled down to 3 themes: mental health, chronic pain, and financial. 

I wasn’t diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder until about the age of 30. I remember distinctly when my husband came home from a long tour where we hadn’t really had a chance to connect in 9 months. Every day he walked in the front door, I had a panic attack. I was living with a stranger. I had a major mental snap and ended up taking a leave of absence from my job, getting into a gym with a personal trainer, starting therapy, and beginning to take meds for the anxiety. I wouldn’t change any of that for the world, as it allowed me to grow in my empathy towards others who are struggling with their mental health. 

During all of the mental health issues, I was also living with chronic pain. I had 7 knee surgeries because the first 4 surgeons didn’t believe that I had a tumor that I kept telling them I felt. Finally, at the age of 35, my 5th opinion came back and told me I needed to see an orthopedic oncologist. Fun fact – even living in NYC, there were only 3 of those kinds of doctors in the tri-state area, and none of them took insurance. Fast forward to current day, and I am a proud owner of a knee replacement. But it took a solid 25 years to get here. In addition, I was finally diagnosed with fibromyalgia after about 5 years back and forth with doctors and medications. 

And financial. You see – in touring, there aren’t any benefits of any kind other than being able to “see the world.” So, I often held down day jobs that allowed us to have access to healthcare coverage. We never knew where the next gig would come from. When I got my first job at EMI CMG, a record label, we had gotten down to $40 in our checking account. The day I started there, my husband started working in country music, and we started a season of never seeing each other. We also were part of “those” people who received 2 mortgages right before the recession hit in 2008, so we lost $150K overnight in that condo purchase. Fast forward to Covid, and within 5 days, we lost every single job we had booked. We ended up on unemployment and Medicaid for the first time in our lives in 2020, but we’ve never been more thankful for those resources when our industry shut down. And – it forced us out of our NYC dream home and into a tent in a construction site (our building for TRC) for 2 weeks…because back then, nobody knew what Covid was all about, and we didn’t want to be responsible for spreading Covid from the epicenter of NYC all the way into Michigan. Yeah…that was definitely a challenge. 

Probably should note that starting a nonprofit is NOT for the weak of heart, and that in itself has offered quite a few challenges. 

But through it all, it also created growth. And I truly wouldn’t change any of my experiences as they created the woman that I am proud to be today. 

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
The Roadie Clinic is an advocacy group committed to providing a safe space for roadies and their families to heal while off the road and to advocate for – and empower them to obtain – a healthy work environment while on the road. Our three-story, multi-faceted facility will offer mental health services, career coaching, education, advocacy, financial guidance, family services, recovery resources, and temporary housing when available. Operating as a 501(c)(3), TRC will offer its facility (and currently offers its services) both in person and online for little to no charge to touring professionals and their families. 

I wrote the concept for The Roadie Clinic back in July of 2019 while living in NYC, and by October of 2019, we had purchased what would be our flagship building for TRC in Niles, MI (where we would later move to permanently on March 20, 2020). After 20 years of touring and getting to a point where we wanted to give back, I knew that this was the direction we needed to go. It all stemmed from decades of talking to fellow roadies and hearing the same 6-7 issues: paranoia, isolation, mental health issues, broken marriages + families, and substance use/abuse. While there are plenty of nonprofits in the music sector to help with these issues, none were focused specifically on the crew. And there definitely wasn’t a place we could go to be with like-minded people. 

After 4 years, we offer a few resources that help us stand apart from the rest: 

1. RoadieDocRX – the first telemedicine + virtual mental health platform available to roadies and their families, able to use it nationwide, and it can be paused or canceled at any point without any fees.

2. CrewPeeps: A Roadie Partner Network – operating as a monthly support group and private Facebook group; we just launched this resource last week and are already excited with the number of partners who have registered.

3. Roadies in Recovery – a 12-step meeting led by roadies for roadies

4. Global Care Network – I was able to network the care sectors in music in Australia, Canada, the US, and the UK. We’re looking to expand into Europe this coming year. We meet quarterly and review what’s happening with touring around the world as well as support those who offer care.

But more than all of those things, the building is truly what sets us apart. We’ve been able to help up to 1,000 people virtually since we “opened” our doors, but I look forward to hosting wellness retreats, leadership retreats, family/partner-themed experiences, and the random tours that pass by our exit on I-80 that need some love and a home-cooked meal (and a bed that doesn’t move). We will have a retail store, commercial kitchen, 6 lofts, 3 bunk rooms, 2 soundproof therapy suites, and the offices for the Executive Director within that space. And we’re almost done building our production offices across the street in a different facility, one that will also hold a world-class recording studio. When the studio opens, they will give 10% of all profits to The Roadie Clinic, as will the retail store in our flagship building. 

We hope that what we are building with The Roadie Clinic will be generational, something that is around long after we’re gone. Time will tell… 

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I still surprise my own mother with the fact that I am most definitely an introvert. Being the Executive Director and face of a nonprofit, you really can’t hide anymore. If you invite me to a party, it’s 50/50 that I’ll show up. I can handle big meetings and teach and listen, but by the end of the day, I need and want desperately to hide. We also choose to be an open book in the work we do, being very upfront and honest about our daily struggles, and that still makes my stomach churn every time I open up. I think I even dragged my feet on this interview for a couple of weeks too many because I really don’t like the attention being on me. But I digress… 

Equally, my creative side. If you didn’t know me in college, you would never know that I sing or play instruments. So, it’s fun to pop that out here and there… 

Contact Info:

• Website: www.theroadieclinic.com, www.theoryoneproductions.com
• Instagram: @theroadieclinic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theroadieclinic
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-roadie-clinic-3b418a208/