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When Oasis toured Britain last year not a note could have been played without the aid of entertainment specialist, Stardes, which employed 19 trucks to make sure the band's equipment was on site on time.
Hanging on the wall behind David Steinberg's desk is a gold disc awarded for Suede's 1994 album Dog, man, star. On another wall are three Wet Wet Wet gold platters. Radio 1 thunders out constantly from a ghetto blaster, but not loud enough to drown out Steinberg's booming tones. He has the sort of voice that can make itself heard above Del Amitri or any one of the countless other bands that his successful Sheffield-based fleet transports around the UK and Europe under the Stardes banner.
Today he's fighting off a flu bug that has already felled wife and fellow director Susan. He is complaining that he must lose some weight, but otherwise, life's not so bad. He had 19 trucks out on the 1996 Oasis tour, and other clients include Boyzone. Daughter Sara is proving an increasingly useful asset to the business.
She's been given 10 bands to look after, Steinberg explains. They all seem to like her, and he reckons she's doing a good job. She's just had Stardes's 1997 tour for Blur confirmed.
Dressed in a blue denim shirt, a souvenir from Tina Turner's "Wildest Dreams" tour, and surprisingly camera shy (he politely but firmly refused to be photographed), Steinberg is no one's idea of a conventional haulier. He started off in catering, worked in nightclubs, managed a country club in Berkshire, then moved back to Sheffield when that went sour on him.
He took a job working for a local rental company this was about the time the miners brought down Edward Heath's government," he recalls. He hired a van to a band he knew, and was subsequently asked to organise transport for a tour. "It mushroomed from there," he says. By that time he'd left the self-drive-hire outfit, and was soon arranging transport for "a lad I'd known for many years called Paul Young, who at that time sang with a band called Q-Tips," he remembers. Travelling in style in Stordes's customised PSVs. "That was one of our first major tours," he says. "After that we worked for Simple Minds, before they got big, and for U2 when they first started. By 1983 business had expanded so much that he started to buy his own vehicles. He also bought an off-the-shelf company which happened to be called Stardes.
Wheel bearings
He still has his first tractor unit, a remarkably healthy-looking Daf 3300 that lasted for 10 years on its original engine. "Last year we had to sort out its rear wheel bearings, but after that we sent it up to Stornaway with Pulp without any trouble at all," he says. At the lighter end of the scale he runs a lonely Volkswagen Transporter that's earmarked for disposal, plus seven VW LT35 high roof vans. The latter are being phased out in favour of Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 312Ds—he's bought six.
"They carry guitars and drums for the smaller bands," he explains. "Going up the weight scale, to 7.5 tonnes, we run a couple of MAN 8.150s which we're hoping to sell this year, plus a couple of MAN L2000s. We've not been happy with those because we've had clutch trouble."
Steinberg spent over Lim on vehicles last year. The latest 7.5-tonners Stardes has acquired are Leyland Daf FA45.150s. "We operate a lot of Dafs, so it made sense for us to buy them," he says. "Daf has excellent backup for when they go over to Europe. MAN offers brilliant support in Germany, but you'll struggle a little bit if you have a problem in places such as Spain and Italy." Efficient emergency back-up is vitally important to Steinberg. "If one of our trucks goes wrong, you can't tell the hand, 'you'll have to hang on where you are for a couple of days while we get the part'," he says.
One can imagine Liam Gallagher's reaction. And he'd be right to be, shall we say, mildly distressed." After all, they'll have a show in another town the next night, so you've got no choice but to send out another vehicle while you're waiting for the first one."
Fitted with 20ft box bodies, Ratcliff with alloy platforms, alarms, long-range fuel tanks, sleeper cabs, and powerful stereo systems, Steinberg's dozen 7.5-tormers carry band equipment and catering facilities. "It's a bit like feeding an army on the march," he says.
Stepping up to 17 tonnes "we had eight but we've thinned them out a bit, and now we've got three" he has one Daf 1900. The others are all Leyland Daf 65 Series at 210hp, and equipped with Sky Cabs. "We're acquiring another one later this year that will be fitted with a Super Sky Cab, to give the driver that bit more living room," he says. Complete with twin bunks, a 600-litre fuel tank, and an alloy body, he's hoping it will be on display at this year's IliTE show at Telford.
The 17-tormers are kitted out with high-volume box bodies with a 9ft internal height, and have aerodynamic side skirts and Zepro tail lifts. All bar one of his 31 tractors, a mix of 4x2s and 6x2s, are Dafs (the odd man out is an MAN). They're predominantly 430hp 95 Series Super Space Cabs with York Big D low-height fifth wheels, and some boast 600-litre diesel tanks.
"They're built to Voyager specification, which means a microwave, a TV, and a CD player," he says. He likes to look after his drivers, but adds that there's the practical point that a high spec truck is much easier to sell if times get tough. The fifth wheels are air-sliders. Controlled from the cab, they allow the gap between the back of the cab and the front of the trailer to be opened up to stop the latter fouling the former when the driver is negotiating ferries,
Left-hand drive
He also runs a brace of left-hand drive 95 Series pumping out 500hp. "We bought them in 1994 because we wanted the Super Space Cab, and at that time it was only available on that model," he says. "Running at just under 38 tonnes we've been getting a minimum 8mpg, and sometimes 9mpg." He's aiming to acquire one of the new 95XFs, scheduled for launch at the Brussels Truck Show this month. "But I don't think we'll see it before the summer," he says. Steinberg's most recent crop of trailers (he has 30) have been built by York. They're a mixture of 102m2 Blue Max boxes and 86.82m3 curtainsiders with sliding roofs.
In addition to his vans and trucks, Steinberg runs a fleet of Mercedes 312D and 814D splitter buses. With a secure compartment at the back, they're designed to carry equipment as well people.
Daughter Sara Steinberg is looking after 10 bands including Blur For '97. He also operates a small number of Toyota Previa and Ford Galaxy MPVs. Over the next six months he aims to buy 20 more vehicles. Apart from the 95XF, and the new 65 Series, many of those will be minibuses with interiors heavily influenced by American styling. That's Sara Steinberg's idea.
Captain's chairs
A 4-metre wheelbase Mercedes 312D with four captains' chairs, a settee, and a table is currently in build with Wombwell, Barnsleybased conversion specialists Onyx.
So how is a tour scheduled? "We'll get a list of dates and venues from the tour manager, who will have been given it by the agent," Steinberg says. "In most cases the date sheet will be all right, but on a few occasions you'll have somebody scheduling a venue in Manchester immediately after one in Madrid.
"Then we'll be saying 'it's a truck, lad, not Concorde' and something will have to give. We produce a guide showing the drive times to and from various places, including the drivers' rest times, and people usiially find that useful."
Carrying lighting, sound gear, scenery, and instruments, the Stardes trucks roam as far as Moscow and Athens. Gross weights have steadily risen from 28 to 38 tonnes. Customers want to cram as much on board each vehicle as they can because it's cheaper to hire, say, two trucks rather than three. With a 28-tonne gross weight limit, Switzerland can be a real headache. "We usually have to take an extra truck to take excess weight off." Russia isn't a bundle of laughs either, Steinberg adds. "Go from St Peterburg to Moscow, and it usually costs us from £200 to 4300 in what can best be described as bribes," he says.
Thorough searches are more a characteristic of Dover and the Danish/German border crossing, Steinberg says.
Festival sites pose fewer difficulties than they once did. Many of them are semi-permanent, and the tendency is to lay portable roadways across the mud.
Over the past 18 months Steinberg's diversified into more conventional areas of transport, carrying plastics for the car industry and irrigation pumps out to Poland.
But it doesn't matter if it's motor components or Manic Street Preachers. As far as Steinberg is concerned, there's a rate for every task, and he's not prepared to slash it to ribbons and run at a loss. "We have a price for our services," he says. "If we don't get it, we won't do the job; and we won't weep."
L by Steve Banner