It’s not everyday the phone rings and the voice on the other end asks you to go out on tour with Madonna, but that’s what happened to Full Sail Recording Arts graduate Sean Spuehler. “I just got a call from her manager saying that it looks like it’s on,” he says matter-of-factly. “We start rehearsals in March, and at the moment, we’ll be going straight through towards the end of September.”
A fixture of Madonna’s creative inner circle since working with her on the landmark Ray of Light album, Sean Spuehler is once again getting set to head out on the road for her latest world tour – in support of 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor – where he’ll translate his studio talents into her legendary live performances.
“Because I work with her on the albums, when it comes down to doing them live she likes to have a studio person on hand,” Spuehler explains. “So I’ll be doing her vocal sound and vocals effects for all the shows. And it’s actually like a performance, because it’s my job to make her sound a certain way throughout the show, and she’s very specific with the effects, even changing them up through the verse and chorus! She puts me right in front of the stage so that she can constantly look down and give me the ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ sign. It’s a stressful job since she perceives the whole show through the way I mix her vocals in with the music, but ultimately an exhilarating one!”
With Madonna’s latest dance-flavored album introducing some adventurous new directions for the pop icon, the thought of bringing those arrangements to a live setting presents just the kind of challenge Spuehler thrives on. “She’s not afraid to change it around, so you always have to be on your heels. Stuart Price, who produced this latest album, will be the musical director for the tour, and will be basically reworking every song… So we’ll get in a room and take the old original multitracks of the old songs and figure out what to keep and what new elements to put into it. And it’s pretty incredible to rework these classics like that – combining the disco club thing with a live band on stage. I love that she’s not afraid to change things up like that.”
After over a half-decade working with Madonna, it’s still not a rarity for Sean to be taken aback by how hard she works to keep her career evolving along with the industry. As he explained, that dedication is also a big part of what makes his career a continual learning experience. “I think the main thing with her is that her work ethic is like no one else,” he says admiringly. “And it’s really obvious why she is where she is – it’s no accident. She has a big hand in shaping each step of her career – she just works works works, and she expects you to do the same. And because she’s doing it as well you’re always motivated to give back as much as you can. And I absolutely love that aspect of it. It’s such a great experience to be around someone with that much drive after all these years.”
As he gets ready to pack his bags for yet another road trip with Madonna, Sean Spuehler stopped to reflect on where the past seven years with the pop legend have taken him. And while looking back to his earlier days in Full Sail’s Recording Arts, he may have never pictured himself making his living out on the road – but after being out there with Madonna, he couldn’t imagine filling his time with anything else.
“Me being on the road is not what I ever trained for or imagined would happen, but I just kind of fell into it,” he says. “It’s not something that I would be doing with any other artists, it’s very specific to Madonna, because it’s just a great experience being on the road with her. One thing I can point to specifically, is being in Dublin on the last tour, and we played outside of a castle in front of 85,000 people, and just looking back and thinking how incredible it was. There’s a lot of moments like that. I think the atmosphere of a world tour is very inspiring and different.”
