about mark workman

Mark Workman grew up in Petersburg, Virginia. As a child, he wanted to be a herpetologist and study reptiles and amphibians until he discovered Alice Cooper and Kiss. From that day forward, he was mad about rock ‘n’ roll and dreamed of a career in the music business.

In 1979, at age nineteen, Mark left the mountains of West Virginia, where he’d lived with his grandmother for three years and worked as a coal miner. He traveled across the U.S. on a Trailways bus to Hollywood, where he didn’t know a soul, to find a way into the music business. With only a hundred dollars to his name, Mark found a day job and enrolled in Los Angeles City College at night, where he studied electronics technology.

Three years later, Mark got his break in the music business and began working as the lighting director for the rock band Steeler. For the next thirty-three years, he traveled the world as a tour manager and lighting designer with many famous rock bands, such as Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, Danzig, and Testament. Young people worldwide had often asked Mark how they could get started working for bands, inspiring him to write One for the Road: How to Be a Music Tour Manager, the only book on music tour management.

As a lighting designer, Mark designed high-impact lighting performances for many music tours, including the infamous Clash of the Titans (Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, Testament, Alice In Chains, and Suicidal Tendencies) in 1990/1991 and American Carnage 2010 (Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Testament), as well as for many music videos and live DVDs such as Machine Head’s Elegies DVD filmed at Brixton Academy in London and Megadeth’s Rust In Peace Live DVD shot at the Hollywood Palladium.

In 2015, Mark left the music business and started a new life. He went to work for a major treatment center in Malibu, CA, studied hard in the early morning hours, and earned his certification as a drug and alcohol counselor. Promoted three times, he rose to the position of facilities manager. After four years there, the pandemic hit. He retired and began writing his debut novel, which is nearing completion.