David Lehr
David Lehr is every artist’s dream. As head photographer and videographer for country (and now pop) demigod Morgan Wallen since the pre-fame days back in 2018, he’s been chipping away at a cinematic aesthetic that prioritizes exhilaration, momentum, and a generous splash of rowdiness.
And yet the true ace up David’s sleeve is subtler, and perhaps even more powerful. With skills honed as a producer, he’s developed a signature twist: editing to his own unique remix of the country singer’s songs, often interwoven with tracks from total opposite genres.
It’s an intriguing hook, often leaving you wondering if you’ve just caught a bit of an unreleased snippet, or a new collaboration, as Wallen’s reverb laden voice echoes off into the distance. Then something else entirely will crash down, jolting you awake. The thunderous chorus of Limp Bizkit’s ‘My Way,’ for example. Or the eerie synth pads of Travis Scott’s ‘SICKO MODE.’
In retrospect, it seems obvious: Wallen himself is an artist whose musical taste extends far beyond country, so why shouldn’t his videos? For a phenom who already feels like the most relatable, fallible, ultimately human individuals the genre has seen in decades, it’s just one more reason to like him.
This is to say nothing of the videos themselves, which are part Jay Alvarrez travel vlog, part Lyrical Lemonade music video, and part ESPN highlight reel. David is at his best in a warp speed maelstrom of speed ramps and special effects — vibrant color grading, zooming transitions, and hand drawn animations — all of it perched atop the roar of stadium crowds. By meticulously stacking tiny details, his work captures the unrelenting fervor for a live show from one of the most popular artists in the world.
Ticket prices for Wallen’s concerts have risen precipitously since 2019. (Trust me, you don’t want to know how much they cost.) For all those watching from home, David Lehr’s videos make you feel, for a minute or so, like you’re really there, at the center of the action.
For the full interview, read on.
How did you get into photography?
It was kind of a hobby of mine when I was younger. My parents, and my mom specifically, got me into it when I was younger. I did photography in [the 4-H Club] when I was pretty young for several years. Then when I went to college for music production and was living in Indianapolis producing for a lot of rappers and some rock bands up there, charging hourly for studio time, they saw the camera and they were like, “Oh, can you shoot us a music video?” It’d be 200 or 300 bucks for a video, or a quick photo shoot for 50 bucks. I didn’t have any plans of doing it full-time when I moved to Nashville, but one thing led to another and now I'm doing it. There was a lot of money to be made there, and it's definitely been my primary source of income for several years now.
What prompted the move to Nashville?
My two roommates and I moved down here together. We had the band [The Boulevard] together, and we knew we wanted to live together, write songs together, and make music together. We came to Nashville just to visit, hang with some friends who lived here already, ‘cause we were curious about moving here. That weekend, I faked pay stubs and got us into our house that we still currently live in today, because we loved it so much. That was toward the end of 2016. Been here ever since.
We still love it here. I don't see any chances of us leaving anytime soon. When we moved here, I'd saved a bunch of money, personally. I didn't work for almost a year. I did some photo shoots, sure, but we were just mainly interested in making music together. We wrote a ton of songs. But you know how life works — I blew through my savings pretty fast, and started driving for Lyft. [Laughs]
What do you really love about Nashville?
The people. It just seemed like everybody was down to try to have a good time no matter what you were doing, whether you were writing a new song or going out drinking or playing a board game … or just having a conversation. Everybody just seems here for it here. Most people come here wanting to do something creative, and I love that. A lot of that just comes down to being a good hang.
Plus, there wasn’t a whole lot going on up [in Indianapolis]. One of the reasons why I wanted to leave is because I wanted to work in music production with artists who were serious about what they were doing, not people who were like, “Oh, I wanna just show off to my friends and then go back to my job.” At the end of the day, they're not trying to do it.
I’d be beating around the bush if I didn’t mention the elephant in the room here: Simply put, what was the Morgan Wallen connection? How did that come to be?
I was doing some freelance work, but I wasn't getting enough clients, so I was driving for Lyft. And then in the span of about a week I got scammed out of $7,000 for a web design project, and I got fired from Lyft because they had switched security companies and dug up a speeding ticket from when I was literally 16. It was just a speeding ticket, but they suspended my license from it, and then Lyft’s new security company found it and banned me for that.
One of my friends had told another friend about my situation, and they felt bad for me and threw me a bone to do a behind the scenes video shoot for a singer named April Kry. That ended up turning into me going on tour with Lynyrd Skynyrd, which was my first touring gig. I was just filling in for [my roommate] Dalton, but then that turned into me working with this other band. I’d made friends with their old video guy, and we're still good friends. He shoots for Jake Owen now. Someone had asked him about needing a content guy for Morgan [Wallen], and he had already made a connection with me from that band I was working for. So he was like, “Oh, you should talk to David!” So it all happened through my buddy Matt.
I’d never met Morgan, never even heard of him. When they sent me the info, I think he had like 40k followers on Instagram. ‘Whiskey Glasses’ was just starting to pop off. That was the first song I heard when I was driving down to meet him, and I remember thinking, “Wait, this is actually really sick.” I was going through a breakup at the time and it just hit me. At that point, I hadn’t heard a lot of country music that I connected with. I felt like, “Okay, this could be fun.” Then I met Morgan and we just got along really well. We’re the same age, and I just believed in him when I heard his songs. But I definitely couldn't have imagined it’d turn into this.
To step backwards for a second, when you were on the road with Lynyrd Skynyrd, what were you doing for them? Was it “content,” videography, photography, editing?
It was pretty similar [to what I do now]. It was photos and video of the event, for a recap video. The whole short form recap video thing was just catching on on social media at the time, 2017-2018. It was just blowing my mind that I could even make money doing that. The recap videos were definitely a selling point. That video aspect of it is so important nowadays, and it was really starting then. So it was definitely a focus on that. I remember thinking, “Man, this could be a thing.” I can see why people like to watch ‘em ‘cause it's just so engaging on your phone. It's like you went to it but you didn't have to, you know … go.
I'm always curious how much labels know about what they’re hiring for, and how specific they are about what they actually want created, whether it’s photos, videos, reels, etc. It’s interesting that you used the word ‘recap.’
I've worked for several labels and artists over the years, and everyone is a little bit different as far as the creative freedom they give you. With Skynyrd they were very flexible. They had done some recap videos, but never anything like what I was doing for 'em with these shorter, fast paced edits. It was a new thing. At the time they were familiar with longer, slower edits. They were trying to showcase the final world tour for Lynyrd Skynyrd — they wanted to show that off. But everybody's a little bit different, and you have to build relationships with the people you're working with to see what they want and what they're like and how you can showcase their artist. Or if you’re talking with the artist directly, you have to see how they want to be presented to the fans.
“That first tour with morgan, there were some venues with like 500 people. But every single show was sold out, and every single person in the room was screaming every single word.
I’ve been with other bands before, and that was not the case.”
Last time we spoke you mentioned that before you first went on tour with Morgan you were “losing money hangin’ out in bars, and getting screwed financially.” What changed?
When I first moved to Nashville, I had saved up a bunch of money, but I wasn't trying to get a job other than working on music. So we'd end up going out and drinking a lot, and that's where a lot of my connections that I still have to this day came from.
“How did you get the job with Morgan?” is a question I get a lot in my Instagram DMs. I feel like getting the job with Morgan was based off whether or not we got along. Building a relationship with an artist is a whole thing. Building a relationship with anybody is a whole thing. The way to get into photography, in Nashville at least, is just meeting people. Talking about what you're doing and talking about what they're doing and, and then checking out what they're doing. See what you can do for them. If I saw an artist I liked, I wasn't super worried about money, ‘cause I had saved up money. I'd worked at the Apple store in Indianapolis for years through college, so I'd saved up some cash and I always just wanted to get into people's stuff. I just love creating. That was always my goal.
We have a music studio in our house, and we were doing writes all the time with different people, especially when we first moved here. I worked with Kane Brown and their team all through 2021 — one of the first people I met in town was one of their management people. That’s just where my mind goes anytime anybody asks me, “How did you get into it?” It's just like, “Man, just go meet people.” That’s where the ‘hangin’ out in bars’ thing comes from.
As for ‘getting screwed financially,’ that was when I got scammed. I took this one web design client, and it’s a long story, but he duped me. We’d talked on the phone, and he had this really good story and sounded super legit. He was supposedly building a website selling haircare and skincare products. He was American. It was believable. He paid me with a credit card, and I had spent some of that initial deposit money on assets for the website we were building together, and on rent, as well. Except it ended up being a stolen credit card. The credit card company got their money back, and it had to come from somewhere. The guy who scammed me was long gone by then. And that $7k at that time was just deadly to me. I literally woke up and looked at my bank account and it said negative $6,800.
Damn! Okay, back to a happier topic. Do you have any favorite haunts in Nashville, since you mentioned the bar scene?
My go-to spot is definitely Red Door [Saloon] in Midtown. Also, Rosemary [& Beauty Queen] is a good spot. East Nashville is pretty cool in general too. Midtown is my vibe.
What’s the best thing about your job out on the road?
Man, if we're talking simple, it's definitely catering.
That might be the best answer anyone's given in these interviews.
My roommate Clayton could be a professional chef, but I'm not that way. I can cook spaghetti and that's about it. I just lose sight of it ‘till I get home, ‘cause then I have to buy my own food and cook everything. But I mean, the shows are awesome.
The coolest thing with Morgan, specifically, was that first weekend I remember going out with them. There were some venues with like 500 people. But every single show was sold out, and every single person in that room was screaming every single word. I’ve been with other bands before, and that was not the case. I felt like I'd gotten really lucky. This was somebody I’d want to try to stick around for. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses with Morgan either — nothing in this business is guaranteed. But we all believed in him.
What’s a piece of gear you can’t live without?
My camera, a Sony a7S. I started with a7S II, and I have the a7S III now. That thing can see in the dark, and for shows that's what you want, especially when you're in theaters and clubs and smaller venues that don't have all this lighting to bounce everywhere.
This last year I rented a Canon R5 a lot, and some of the nicer Sonys, but this year I’m gonna just stick with the a7S. I definitely love that a7S sensor. It's something special.
Do you use a gimbal when you're doing that kind of videography work?
I used to use it a lot more, but last year I barely touched that thing. I like hand held a lot. I'm big on editing. I'm a total nerd on editing. You can stabilize pretty much anything. If you're shooting knowing you’ll want to stabilize the shots later, it's not that hard.
You gotta think, too, we’re doing shows. Whenever I do a smaller budget music video and we're not renting out DPs and stuff, I'd probably use my gimbal for the performance shots. It’s a different look you're going for. But with shows, especially Morgan’s shows, we want this rowdiness to come through. It’s authenticity.
He’s an artist I've always loved in that sense. Back I first met him, he definitely wasn't that big of a deal. [When he got famous], it could have gone either way. But he's still the same person. So authenticity is something I'm always trying to keep in the videos and in the photos. Handheld to me just feels more like, “We're just here.” I love that.
You’ve been on this roadshow life for a while now, and you’ve obviously improved as a photographer and videographer since that first tour with Florida Georgia Line. What do you think you’ve gotten more skilled at over the years, and why?
Building relationships with the people I work with is probably the most important thing for me. And then always trying to beat my last thing, so to speak. With where social media's at, it’s about trying to hook people. It's hard because I honestly don't want to look at it like that, but I guess I’m just trying to be real about it. I consume media all the time and I definitely have a faster pace in my mind now than I used to when I'm scrolling through things. It’s the pace of the edits, really listening to the music, and trying to figure out how to get people to feel like they're really there. And that they want to go. A lot of that comes down to the speed of the edits, and the music. It just adds to that stimulation in your brain. I honestly think editing is what I've gotten better at more than anything.
How did you get into remixing songs for these videos?
Music was where this whole thing started for me. If I didn't love music so much, I'd probably have looked at other fields. There’s so much opportunity outside of the music industry. I have a degree in music production, and I've been making music since I was 13. I was pirating music software from my old PC, just trying to dabble. The first program I had was called Cakewalk Sonar.
Right before the pandemic, I was doing so many videos, sometimes one every single show. It started to get a little monotonous. We were all feeling that things were getting kind of stagnant. It's the same show — there are only so many tricks I can pull. I had done a couple little mini remixes. I wasn't even opening up an audio software to do 'em — it was just moving some extra impacts around, stuff like that. But I knew there was an opportunity there. I got the stems from our drummer, and just started messing with them. I can’t remember what the first thing I stumbled across was, specifically, but it was a really sick bass-line with the vocals on one of those songs. And I tried it out, showed Morgan, and I was like, “Dude, I'm trying something crazy here, so if you don't like it, it's totally cool.” [Laughs] And he was like, “Dude, this is insane.” I started putting more time into messing around with the music and then that turned into a huge part of it this past year.
I gotta give Morgan a lot of the credit on that ‘cause he’s open to it. And he loves hip-hop music. He's a forward thinker.
I don’t know anyone else who’s making quite the same style of videos you are.
I feel lucky with Morgan being so open to my ideas. If I believe in an artist, I want to make them as big as I possibly can, and showcase them in the best possible way. I like country music, but I didn't grow up on it. So my history of social media and consuming things has always been in more of the rock and pop world. That’s where my influence comes from.
Also, you gotta give credit to the country music fans. They’re more here for the music. In the pop world, there’s more competition. You need to do more to get people’s attention. Country's a genre where you don't necessarily need to do it, but if you do, it makes a huge difference as to who you can reach. Especially if you have an artist like Morgan, who's younger, and really wants to be himself.
The world of country music, in my opinion, has traditionally been a little stunted. Everything from music videos to marketing can occasionally be painfully out of touch, and a lot of artists simply can’t be convinced to care about the whole “social media thing.” What’s the difference for you? How did your creative output become so central, and so valuable?
It's hard to convince labels and even artists of your vision. Again, I got lucky with Morgan because he believed in me. And I had to prove myself and bring something to the table first. I couldn't have just walked in with these remix ideas. It was received better because of how much time I'd put in with them and in with other labels. Sometimes the best thing is just to be open to them not liking it. “Okay, so what don't you like about it?” Be open. [What you’re doing] might not even be a bad idea, but maybe it doesn't fit the artists that they’re working with right now. For example, working with Kane Brown, the things I’m doing with Morgan wouldn't have worked for his image. He doesn't have the same songs. He doesn't have the same fans. The aesthetic is different.
How did you arrive at the Morgan Wallen video aesthetic? You mentioned “rowdiness,” which I think is spot on.
It’s definitely been a learning curve for me. I messed with the gimbal a lot. I’ve rented everything you can think of. I've done it all. Stumbling across this vibe has been a journey. But it’s always been about showing Morgan for who he is. Seeing how people reacted [was also big]. I noticed a huge difference in the numbers when we started doing the remixes.
“You have to know for sure that whatever you’re making is going to bring out the artist, extend on their message.”
The one reel with that Limp Bizkit song ‘My Way’ is definitely my favorite. Tell me that story.
We started using songs by other artists at some point last year. It was just a fun way to showcase what kind of music Morgan liked. He'd given me a couple Limp Bizkit songs and I picked that one. I was like, “Dude, it'd be so sick if you said any of these words on stage. ‘My way or the highway,’ that'd be a sick one.” He was onboard with it, but we hadn't talked about when he was gonna do it. It’s a hard thing to time a moment to just turn around and mouth some lyrics from a completely different song. Every night he’s doing ‘Cover Me Up,’ and the cell phone lights come out right at the beginning, and there's a moment of silence right before he strums the first chord. He’s talking to the crowd for a second and then turns around to cue the band. I’d walked up over on stage to get photos and video of the cell phone lights real quick at the beginning, and he turned around and just mouthed the words to it. It was perfect. It just didn't seem like the song he would do it on, the slowest song of the set, this big special moment with all the lights.
What’s the process for editing a video like that?
It’s a little bit different every time. The biggest thing this year was just kind of thinking about it all.
I learned everything in Premiere, but I switched over to Final Cut Pro ‘cause of the speed I can get through an edit. Once you have it all mapped out, I can be done in a few hours. But the biggest thing is figuring out the soundtrack, and figuring out how to keep people engaged, and how to keep myself engaged [Laughs], in watching it back with the audio. With some of those remixes, it’ll take me a couple weeks to land on it, and I've gotta mix it and master it and everything. But the video aspect of it is pretty quick. That [Limp Bizkit one] probably took a week of planning, but the actual editing time was probably under six hours.
I used to try to make remixes before the shows, and they'd be cool sometimes, but it almost always made more sense to make the remix after the shows, because didn't know what the vibe was gonna be like with the crowd and everything until we did the shows. So now picking which song is determined by how the shows went, if that makes sense.
I’ll be in the back lounge of the bus with my buddy Dom [Frost], Morgan’s guitarist, and we'll just be making songs. We have little speakers set up, I'll plug into the sound system and make music through the TV speakers, and just kind of map out some of those ideas. Then after the weekend of shows it's like, “All right, what do I have?”
I want to ask a bit about creative-biz economics. From what I can see, there’s a bit of a war going on between creatives, many of whom are working for free or next to nothing. After going through that phase, negotiations [for pay] can feel like treading into uncharted waters, and many creatives simply do not know how to do it. On top of that, labels and other big-name corporations often don’t have an understanding of the sheer number of hours it takes to shoot + film, cull, edit, color grade, VFX-enhance, and then revise such a massive library of footage. The worst-case scenario is that it just gets lumped in together as “content creation.” It’s this whole murky underworld and it seems strangely taboo to talk about. What’s your take?
What you gotta be real about is that there are a lot of people trying to do what you're doing. I still run into that. I'm pretty artsy, especially with computers and digital art, and I like making music too. The biggest thing for me was getting over the fact that not everybody's gonna like your ideas, and that’s probably where you have the biggest opportunity to learn. There are no right or wrong answers. That’s why I always come back to relationships. I don't know what it's like to go to film school, or photography school. I see a lot of those guys end up DPing for sports, or something like that, which is great. But if you're trying to get into the creative music world it's all about relationships. And you have to know for sure that whatever you’re making is going to bring out the artist, extend on their message, whether that’s through a music video, or a recap video, or even a photo. Something that fits for who the artist is, genuinely.
One of my favorite creatives out there is Billie Eilish’s photographer [Matty Vogel]. I don't know him, but I get a lot of inspiration from his photo edits. What he does wouldn't work with every artist. Not every artist would even like it. But it definitely works for Billie, and they must have a really good connection in that regard. Once you feel like, “I got something cool and even if they don't like it, I’ll still walk away knowing this is sick,” you probably have an opportunity. Even me, I'll get this little boost of confidence like, “I just did something great.” Then I’m like, “Okay, slow down, bub. Let's really look at this for what it is and not just get caught up in a cool new trick.”
It seems like your relationship with the Morgan’s team is very solid, so you guys can bounce off each other in a couple different ways. But it’s always interesting to me what people are being hired for, “content creation” or otherwise.
There's a trust aspect there. I've even hired out some personal friends to come out, and with a big show or a big tour, when you’re there for the first time it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so amazing.’ There's free liquor and pretty girls everywhere and the music's so great and everybody's having such a good time and you just want to be a part of it. It's easy to forget that you're there to do a job. This is the same thing as you going in to an office. I have plenty of fun out on the road, but you can't get caught up in it. Starting out with an artist, walk into these things [as a] fly on the wall, learn people, read the room, get a vibe for who everybody is, and then start building those connections. It's easy to lose sight of that when you're so caught up in [that feeling of] ‘Wow, this is the biggest thing I've ever done.’
You’re clearly able to make this kind of job work for you as a full-time gig.
I've definitely had some conversations with my parents about it. My dad, specifically, is like, “I don't know how you do it.” But I love traveling. That's a big thing. If you don’t like traveling, it probably won’t be worth it because in the beginning, you might have to be in the trenches financially, at least a little bit. The nicer way to put that is just, live frugally. When I was first moving to Nashville, I had some people in my ear who were like, “When you get there, just get the nicest gear you possibly get and don’t worry if you go into a little bit of debt. Get the best gear and just give it your all.” And that's basically what I did. I was working with Morgan, but I believed in him and I just kept buying more stuff. I knew photo + video was something that I might like to do for a long time, but it was honestly just a hobby when I met Morgan. In the back of my mind, I felt like I was telling myself, “Oh, I probably won't be doing this for a while.” But here I am.
What’s your favorite thing you've ever shot or edited? Could be a photo, could be video…
That Arlington edit — it was a stadium show with a 3D photos. I really did have a lot of fun with that one. We used a Travis Scott song [SICKO MODE]. Personally I like that one the best — it just gets me so excited for next year. There are so many new things I'm gonna be trying editing wise, which I'm really excited about.
What’s your favorite show that you’ve ever shot?
Strictly for the scenery, Watershed is definitely one of our favorite places to go. It’s out on the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington. If we're talking shows, it’s probably the last show we did, which was one of our first full stadium shows we were headlining. But my mind goes back to some of these theater days. Sometimes I do miss those days where it was less than 2000 people and everyone is just screaming their faces off, you know? It’s just a different type of energy. Even in arenas and stadiums, it's just not the same.
It’s funny you say that, because the one time I got to see Morgan live was on my birthday back in 2019, and the stadium wasn't even full yet during his set, ‘cause he was opening up for [Luke] Combs. That was before things got really crazy.
What was cool about that show is that we’d just put out ‘Heartless,’ and Diplo came to the show. He had even remembered meeting me, and it was super cool to see how much an artist like Diplo believed in Morgan. ‘Cause I believed in him, and he was getting bigger every day, but it hadn’t popped off like it has now. It was cool to see a lot of eyes on him at that show. For not being a headliner, we were really bringing something to the table.
You’re on the road with Morgan doing photography, videography, editing, sound design, and social media, to name just a few things. What is that job title?
I'd be interested to come up with a job title that would actually make sense. If you ever figure it out, let me know. [Laughs] It’s tough. I honestly think there's so much opportunity nowadays with YouTube. If there's one thing somebody takes away from this interview, and they're trying to get into photography or anything creative, just get on YouTube and start trying messing around. YouTube has taught me more than any college professor, anything at all. There’s definitely a lot to pull from with so many different creative people spending their time giving tutorials and teaching people how to use equipment.
Who do you watch?
It changes all the time based on what I'm trying to do. It’s probably more audio and mixing than photo/video stuff.
Both of The Chainsmokers’ guys really inspired me. I'm pretty tight with Spencer Miller. He inspires me a lot in the way he does 3D photos. The other guy goes by @thatoneblondkid on Instagram, and he actually edits in Final Cut too, which I found out way later after being inspired by his edits. He has this one effect that he sells, which is basically like a bad TV effect; I remember seeing that and I was like, “That looks so cool.” I kind of put my own twist on it.
The Chainsmokers’ content was one of the most inspiring things for me before I even made anything. When we moved to Nashville, I remember just watching The Chainsmokers’ tour videos and just feeling like, “This is so sick.” Like, “If I were ever going to make videos, I'd wanna look like this.” To this day I still go back and reference some of 'em because I love what they're doing. They have a great team too. You just have to find somebody you connect with, believe in them, and then try to show them as best you can, you know? I don’t think the video guy's the reason why the artist is famous … but it can make a big difference.
