special thanks to Marshall Y. and Chris M. for the great articles
Students Beau Tepper and Callie Prickett started WonderLab Productions in January. They cater to a variety of local talent — designing and booking for bands around town. Photo by Taylor Merck | The Red & Black
STUDENT AT WORK: Duo designs, books Athens musicians
Beau Tepper can’t sit still.
He fidgets when talking about his life, filling in the details in fits and starts.
“It took awhile,” he said. “I mean — this whole thing…”
The last years seem jumbled for the third-year Atlanta native. But there is an easy, clear division in his life: before Callie Prickett and after.
Tepper didn’t know much of anything until almost a year ago, when he knew one thing for certain.He came to Athens as a history major and ended up a businessman.
“If I wanted something,” he said, “I was gonna have to go out and get it.”
He came to this after a period of soul-searching, brought on by turmoil.
Freshman year was hard, and it was at the end of sophomore year that Tepper began putting the pieces of his life together.
Last May he approached New West Records, asking for a job — really just looking for a way in.
“I massaged my way into the industry,” said Tepper, now a junior at the University.
He found one, a surprise that now feels like fate. At Tepper’s first gig for the company, some night last May, he met a girl working the merch table.
This was Callie Prickett, who did more than sell merchandise.
She had a degree in graphic design from Georgia Southern, and her posters had already appeared around downtown — for the 40 Watt, and others.
Tepper was struck.
“I was obsessed with her work,” he said.
Soon, he became a little obsessed with her, too, and they started dating.
But here the story skips, bending back on itself to the following September, when Tepper went to Max Canada and presented himself as a “booking representative.”
Owner Neal Nelson didn’t take people at face value like that, not often and not off the street. But he had a feeling about Tepper.
So he said yes.
The first show Tepper had anything to do with was on Dec. 2, starring The Tumbleweed Stampede and it went perfectly.
A month later he had a business.
“And we were like, ‘We should make a logo,’” Prickett said.
WonderLab Productions — so named because of the couple’s pets — is ostensibly a team effort, but they both have clear roles: Tepper books and promotes, while Prickett designs.
The customer base built slowly and then quickly all at once. WonderLab has been behind for more than 20 shows in the last four months, even helping to co-produce an event at SXSW.
A musician recently asked Prickett, “Have you heard of Beau Tepper?”
“People are starting to notice,” Tepper said.
But it could always go bigger, a fact that he is constantly conscious of.
He pushes and pushes and pushes sometimes, and there has been a strain in his relationship with Prickett.
But that’s because she could be better, he said — he’s sure of it.
“She knows what she’s doing,” Tepper said. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, I can do that …’”
Prickett cuts in, sardonic.
“He’s a good talker,” she said.
And word is getting around.
WonderLab may die in Athens, the couple said, but only out of necessity: after college comes, well … something else.
“I think it’s better we didn’t have a plan,” Prickett said. “We’ve only exceeded our expectations.”
Tepper aims to do so again.
He isn’t stopping.
“I don’t know what I wanna do in the music industry, honestly,” he said. “I just know I wanna be there.”