Walter from p 16 who were building this stuff as a creative outlet was amazing.” Wijesuriya became part of the Walter crew and helped create their next two art cars, projects that became game-changers for the team. The Coming of Kalliope and Heathen By 2013, Strawn and the Walter crew had grander plans for their next art car. Ryan Tucknott, general manager for Walter Productions, says they wanted to add fire elements and a better sound system. They’d also acquired two more crash trucks, including one in good enough condition to dismantle. “At the time, we had the concept to create an artistic DJ sound stage that also shot a ton of fire,” he says. “But we quickly realized that everything we wanted to do to this fire truck, which was in great shape and still had a working engine, would’ve basically meant having to destroy it to fit everything. One of our community members in our brainstorming sessions just said, ‘Let’s get a trailer and let’s have it towed behind the truck.’ It was genius.” The result was the fire-breathing truck Heathen and mobile sound stage Kalliope. Since the Walter crew didn’t have any experience with pyrotechnics, Rob Larson collaborated with the Purdue University School of Aeronautics and Astronautics to build a “combustible vortex ring gener- ator,” a propane-fueled fire cannon that shot huge columns of flames skyward. “Rob worked with them on this class project to build a flame effect to shoot off at Burning Man,” Strawn says. “It’s just a wild collaboration. There’s all these grad students, future rocket scientists, we’ve worked with them to come up with some- thing that we ultimately ended up executing on playa.” Kalliope, which Strawn says was “envi- sioned as a Gypsy wagon or circus wagon,” was built from a 1969 Fruehauf semi-trailer and outfitted with a 40,000-watt sound system, massive speakers, and giant letters equipped with incandescent light bulbs that spell out its name. Tucknott says crowds can hang out on either of its levels and even get close-up views of a DJ in action. “One of the things that Kalliope does is that it breaks down these barriers. It’s inclusive, and recognizes that we are all participating together. It’s not spectators in the audience or [a DJ] on stage,” he says. Local DJ Sean Watson says performing on Kalliope is “a total trip.” “As a DJ, normally there’s a separation between you and the crowd, but not on Kalliope. You’re up on there and people are dancing everywhere, causing it to rock back and forth, looking over your shoulder, patting you on the back,” he says, laughing. “It’s a different experience.” Strawn says Kalliope got a lot of attention after it debuted at Burning Man in 2013. “Everything really changed because 18 Burning Man has these areas that are more ‘sound camps’ and suddenly we were one of those,” he says. “Suddenly, we were getting more attention.” That includes attention from concert and event promoters who were at Burning Man, including employees of New York- based marketing and event company Superfly, the creators of Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee. They’d been wanting to book an art car for the event, and Kalliope fit the bill. Bonnaroo and Beyond In June 2014, the mobile stage and Big Red traveled to Bonnaroo. Watson, who performed on Kalliope at the festival, says it was an “unbelievable experience.” “We had a parade with Big Red driving around Bonnaroo and it brought this whole crowd [to Kalliope] like a Pied Piper,” he says. “I believe we had 9,000 to 11,000 people at the stage on the Friday and Saturday night when the other stages started closing. It ended being only us running at night and we’d play until 8 in the morning. We became the sixth stage at Bonnaroo.” It was during one of those sunrise sets when Valley native Amber Giles, who DJs as Mija, got the biggest break of her career. Watson says she was originally scheduled to play a nighttime slot on the Friday of the festival, but got bumped to early Saturday morning. It ended up being a boon for Giles, as dubstep superstar Skrillex teamed “We came in and it had audio recording and editing bays, a large soundstage, and one of the bigger [cyclorama] walls in the Valley,” Strawn says. “We thought, ‘We could really do something here,’ and create a unique space.” Walter Productions was also adding new people to its crew, including Valley resident Lonna Olson, who first encoun- tered Big Red at the Grand Avenue Festival in 2015. A friend was working at the event as a Walter ambassador, a greeter who informs the public about the art cars. Olson wound up filling in for her briefly and ended up volunteering with Walter full time. She’s now a veteran Burner who goes by the playa nickname Gizmo and a part- time employee who has the company’s logo tattooed on her arm. “Walter believes everyone gets a second chance. I was out of work, on disability, and not doing anything with my life,” Kelly says. “After I started with them, I thought, ‘This is unbelievable. How did I get to do all this? How did I get this alter ego, which is bigger than I could ever imagine?’ And I get to meet people, make them smile and laugh.” Tucknott says Walter has been a gateway to Burning Man culture for those unfamiliar with the event or its culture. “We’ve sometimes been a bridge between what we call the Default World and the Burning Man world for somebody that’s never experienced it or had much exposure to it,” he says. “We also provide an ability to connect deeper into that community and culture and get exposed to it in a very safe way. As they say, the rabbit hole is as deep as you want to go into it.” Walter Productions A scene from Kalliope at Bonnaroo in 2019. up with her for an impromptu back-to- back deep-house set as the sun came up. “It was the craziest night, everybody was late, and all the sets were getting moved around. [Skrillex] knew her already from the time in 2011 when she promoted one of his shows,” Watson says. “They saw each other at Bonnaroo and when she got up to perform, he came and immediately plugged in with her and played. We had a field full of people with the sun coming up and Skrillex playing house music with Mija. It was amazing. She absolutely slayed it.” Videos of the set blew up on social media and Giles became an overnight sensation. Within weeks, she moved to L.A. and signed with Skrillex’s label, OWSLA. She wasn’t the only one to benefit. Strawn says they were inundated with offers to bring the Walter art cars to events across the U.S. As a result, they decided to fully incorporate Walter Productions. “When we started, we were doing just Burning Man and a lot of community service stuff with parades and such,” he says. “But by the time we were going to Bonnaroo, it just made sense to create Walter Productions as its own entity.” They were making other moves, too, including buying a former recording studio for Arizona label Canyon Records located at Seventh Avenue and Roosevelt Street, which later became Walter Studios. The Rise and Fall of Lost Lake In 2017, Walter Productions teamed up with Superfly and local concert promoter Stateside Presents to put on the three-day Lost Lake Music Festival at Steele Indian School Park. Headlined by Run the Jewels, Chance The Rapper, The Roots, Pixies, and The Killers, it attracted more than 45,000 people to the park and its art cars. The company also debuted a fire attrac- tion called Floatus, which consisted of a dozen pyrotechnic jets shaped like lotus plants that floated on water and shot a series of flames choreographed to a rock music soundtrack. Jeremy Watson, Walter’s vice president of creative development, says it was origi- nally designed to be a larger art display that didn’t pan out. “We discovered it days before the festival. So in a very short instance of time, we became aware we needed to pivot and do something else. It became a late-night napkin sketch turned into a CAD file turned into a prototyping and full-scale fabrication in the span of a few days. And it became one of the hits of that show. A lot of projects with Walter have endured challenges along the way, and it’s those challenges that lead us into an even better result beyond what we’d originally envisioned.” Despite the large turnout, Superfly canceled a second edition of Lost Lake in 2018 due to a lack of ticket sales. Strawn is diplomatic about the >> p 21 SEPT 1ST–SEPT 7TH, 2022 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
