Chiropractor to the stars tours with Radiohead
Toronto’s Shannon McEwen has built client list through word of mouth and reputation
A wall in Shannon McEwen’s east-end Toronto office is covered with framed thank-you notes from rock stars.
“Thanks for saving me!” wrote George Daniel, drummer for British rock band The 1975.
In loopy letters, Canadian singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne scrawled “thank you for coming on tour with me” on the cover of her 2007 hit album, The Best Damn Thing. From Robert Plant to Lorde to Atoms for Peace, McEwen is chiropractor to the stars.
“I think I forget that what I do is cool because it’s just part of my life,” McEwen said. “I’m lucky that I’ve been able to develop relationships with people who a lot of people around the world would idolize.”
Along with running her own business, Upper Beach Health & Wellness, McEwen spends between three and six months a year on the road, touring with music legends.
McEwen’s decade-long stint with Radiohead continued when the band kicked off its world tour on April 11 with a show in Santiago, Chile. The band is playing two sold-out shows at the Air Canada Centre on July 19 and 20.
“(Radiohead is) amazing,” she said. “They’re really intelligent men. They’ve always been welcoming and inclusive with me, they’re interesting to speak to.”
She is part of the band’s core crew, working, travelling and living with them on the road.
“Being with them for 10 years, I look forward to seeing them and catching up — ‘How’s the family,’ ‘How are the kids?’ ” she said. “It’s nice to be part of something like that.” On tour, McEwen works to strengthen and rehabilitate her patients’ bodies when they’re not performing.
“Imagine having to get off a plane after travelling and being tired and sleeping in hotel rooms, and then having to stand in front of 20,000 people and perform,” McEwen said.
“So my job is to help them always feel great on stage, but also make sure that if something does come up, that I’m there for them to help them get through the next performances as well.”
Much like people who work in an office or spend the day at a computer keyboard, musicians and athletes get repetitive strain injuries, McEwen said.
She may help singers with their diaphragm, or muscles in their throat that influence the voice box. Drummers often need help with their forearms and wrists, and guitarists with their elbows or thumbs. Through word of mouth and reputation, McEwen’s client list has grown since joining Lavigne’s 2007 promotional tour for The Best Damn Thing. She calls Lavigne “awesome” and Robert Plant a “rock legend.”
But first and foremost, the stars are her patients and her colleagues. McEwen is fiercely protective of their privacy.
“I think, when you’re working with musicians and people who are public figures, it’s reassuring (to) them that everything that happens between us is confi- dential,” she said.
McEwen briefly worked with Radiohead in 2006 when the band performed in Toronto. Two years later, she joined them on tour for the first time.
“I remember just meeting the band in the hotel lobby (in Miami) and being like, ‘Holy crap, I’m on tour,’ ” she said. “And I didn’t really know how a tour worked. I didn’t know you have to wear a pass, or how radios (work). They handed me a radio, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know how to use a radio.’ ”
McEwen quickly picked up tour etiquette and learned the bus rules, like not leaving your bags everywhere.
“It was scary and exciting in the beginning, when I started,” she recalled. “Now I’m used to it. I know what I’m getting myself into.”
McEwen even loves sleeping on tour buses: “You’re being rocked to sleep at night.”