Central Oregon women share their experiences in the music industry

Bend native Smith has been director of Les Schwab Amphitheater for 19 of its 20 years, ushering the venue through its early growing pains and controversies into a top Oregon concert destination for artists such as Dave Matthews Band, Michael Franti, Jack Johnson and more.

Q: My sense being in the industry, or industry-adjacent, is that more often behind-the-scenes roles with concerts, you’re not very common — a director of a venue is usually a man. But that’s just my sense, that might not be true at all. What are your thoughts?

A: I’ve got a fairly narrow view based on the experience. I haven’t been backstage at a lot of different venues across the country. And there’s always challenges. … Whatever industry that you’re in, typically you see a larger male component than female component, and there’s always a challenge that goes with that. One of the things that I love the most about the music industry is that they take you as you are in general. And you can come with tattoos head to toe and crazy colored hair and whatever outfit you have on and you’re accepted. And some of the most brilliant people I’ve had the opportunity to work with do not look like the banker down the road. They are unique individuals and they don’t judge me or anybody else that they’re working with in general based on their gender. It’s provided a different level of freedom than I was used to in the past.

Q: How have things changed in recent years, over the years or in the years you’ve been doing this?

A: I don’t know whether I’ve become more confident myself or whether the workplace environment has changed, but I’m in my mid-40s now and I don’t care as much about what you think as I did when I was in my 20s. I can’t see clearly enough whether it’s me or the workplace that has changed, but it’s probably a little bit of both. I think that as a society we evolve and we try to be better at all times, and at a baseline I think everybody truly is trying to do their best. I think that we’ve just evolved as people and become better.

Kris Arnold

Arnold has been the music director and midday DJ at modern rock station 92/9 (KRXF-FM) for close to 14 years. She hosts the local music show Highway 97 every Tuesday from 8 to 9 p.m. Before coming to 92/9, for 12 years Arnold was vice president of alternative radio promotion at Atlantic Records in Los Angeles, where she worked with Danny Goldberg (known for managing Redd Kross and Nirvana, among others).

Q: I had it in my mind, but I’m kind of being proven wrong, that it’s not common to see women in certain roles in the music industry — if it’s not a woman who’s a performer, a lot of times in the industry it will be women in public relations roles. But at least in Bend, that doesn’t seem to be necessarily proving true all the time?

A: I guess you’re right. … My boss — I had a bunch of bosses — but my boss in the promotion department (at Atlantic) was a woman, and I think she always tried to support women as much as she (could). So I feel like we had a lot of women on our staff, which was really great.

I just try not to look at people as gender. I try to look at people based on who they are as a person, and in the job setting, how well they do their job. I feel like I’m such a music head in general and I’ve always been passionate about music and the bands that I love. I’m not stupid. I just feel like the jobs that I’ve had, I’ve earned them.

… But I am very pro-women. I feel like we get the backseat so often. I just heard this story on NPR the other day about the pandemic, and how an X amount of the women in the workforce are not in the workforce anymore. And the numbers are such that it’s the same as it was in 1982, because the women are staying home with the kids who have to be homeschooled. And that just broke my heart.

Q: From your perspective having been in the music industry for a long time, do you think it’s better in the music industry or worse in the music industry for women, just in general?

A: I think when you have a male-dominated industry it can be difficult on women no matter what. But I try not to focus on that stuff. I mean, personally, I always try not to focus on that; I just try to do the best job that I could do. But there’s that kind of attitude and sexism and misogyny in every industry, every single one. … At Bend Radio Group, I feel like our owner, Jim Gross, and Mike (Flanagan), who’s our program director, I feel like they respect everybody — man, woman. Mike and I have deep, deep discussion about music and I don’t think he ever thinks of me in any other way than as a peer who loves music. I think I’ve been pretty fortunate in the jobs that I’ve had.

Rindy Ross

Vocalist and saxophonist Ross, along with her husband, Marv, started the band Jones Road in Bend in the 1970s. After relocating to Portland, the group changed its name to Seafood Mama and then Quarterflash, and scored a No. 1 Billboard Mainstream Rock hit with “Harden My Heart” in 1981. The Rosses retired Quarterflash and their long-running folk group, The Trail Band, in 2019 to focus on duo performances.

Q: What have your experiences been in an industry that has a reputation for being, at times, difficult for women to be in?

A: It’s interesting. I think women have — women in the music industry have greatly changed since I was that girl who plays the saxophone. I mean, it was just so unusual, and that is less of a big deal that a woman is playing an instrument. And in fact just the Grammys (on Sunday), it was kind of swept by women and women songwriters. So I think much has changed and I’m so glad to see that, but yeah, it’s been a progression, as women in the workplace in general has been a progression over the ages.

I certainly had my experiences in recording, et cetera, where — I know one particular producer that we worked with that, I won’t mention his name. On our third record, we were actually making the record in France and he was English. And he would only take feedback from Marv. I could say something like, ‘Well, you know, I think blah blah blah, this song needs this,’ and he would sometimes not even acknowledge I was speaking, and then other times just kind of nod his head and completely ignore it. And then Marv could come and say the exact same thing and he’d go, ‘Oh, done deal, bro.’ So it was very interesting and extremely nerve wracking for me, and I just learned to speak through Marv. I had to speak through my husband, which is never an ideal type situation. I think there’s a whole lot less of that, that women have more of a voice, which is how it should be, that women’s voices are just as valued and respected as a man’s voice.

Beth Wood

Singer-songwriter Wood is well known to Sisters Folk Festival audiences, and in April 2020 she relocated to Sisters from Bend (before that she lived in Portland and

Eugene). She recently launched the virtual performance series She’s Speaking alongside songwriters Kristen Grainger and Bre Gregg (see sidebar for more information).

Q: What have your experiences been in an industry that has a reputation for being, at times, difficult for women to be in?

A: I’ve been doing this for almost 25 years now. There have been multiple times in my career where I have been told, “We can’t add your song because we already have too many women on the radio this week.” Or, I was in the final stages of negotiating with a national publisher about being an on-staff writer with them, and they came to us the following week and said, “Ah, I’m so sorry we can’t do this; we have too many women writers already.” It was maddening. There’s nothing I could do in either of those situations.