Josh Rickards was all of 8 years old when he caught sight of life on the road for the first time. Even back then he knew he’d found what he was meant to do with his life.
“My introduction to trucking was with an uncle,” he said. “I rode with him in his Kenworth W-9 back when I was a little kid.
“Yeah,” he said in remembrance. “He had an 18-speed, and he was teaching me how to go through the gears and all that. I fell in love with it at that point. I knew that trucking is where I was ultimately going to be.”
Fast forward a few decades, and Rickards’ passion didn’t just pay off in a long-driving career. It paid off in a way that would fulfil the fantasies many folks might have had in their younger days — hitting the road with nationwide touring bands.
From hip hop artists like Kendrick Lamar and Little Wayne to recent clients including country mega stars Luke Combs and Zach Bryan, Rickards has entrenched himself within his niche.
“The thing about touring, is it’s really hard to get into but once you get into it, and you’re an experienced tour driver … well, that’s my thing,” he told The Trucker earlier this year as he navigated highway traffic en route to the East Coast, where he was joining up with Metallica on tour.
Like a lot of people in the entertainment touring industry, Rickards didn’t start out hauling guitars and amps for the rich and famous to stadiums and venues across the U.S. He actually started out rocking a delivery truck for Boar’s Head meats.
By the time he turned 21, he’d joined a West Coast record label doing marketing and promotions. The label hadn’t invested in a semi, so when they sent acts out on tour, they called on Rickards to drive the 30-foot box truck.
In time, he went on to earn his CDL — and he learned all he could about business with the dream of one day opening his own company.
“The label taught me the business side, both about the music business and about business in general,” he said. “In 2013 I left and started trying some different things, moved to Seattle, drove a tanker for a little bit.”
By 2017 he’d bought his own truck, and he got his DOT authority in 2018. Rickards Transportation Services LLC launched a year later and has grown steadily, by design, from there.
“During COVID, I was more about quality of growth and not rapid growth,” he said. “I know people that grew to 10, 20 trucks quickly — and now they’ve been caught in a down market for a while. The people that I knew that grew fast, they came down pretty hard. For me it was kind of more of a ‘the turtle wins the race’ type of thing.”
One element of Rickards’ controlled growth was leveraging his previous contacts in the music business to start hauling for bands and performers. He said the niche offered a surprising amount of consistency, even in a down market.
“We’ve done a lot of shows, right, like all these one-off shows,” he said. “There’s a lot of production companies that I work with that do a lot of corporate gigs, as well as the longer tours that can go for months.”
In the beginning, a hungry and unattached Rickards practically lived on the highway to make a name for himself, but now that he’s paid his dues, he is more selective about the tours he signs onto himself. Being gone for months at a time is a serious strain on his family, so he’s learned the fine art of balancing his work life with his personal life.
“When I used to tour nonstop, I didn’t have a wife and kid,” he said. “What I like about the position we’re in is that we are support for these tours. We’re almost like hired mercenaries in a sense, so we can pick and choose our own schedule as opposed to someone who works for a touring company full time. Those guys are out on one tour or another all the time.”
Rickards chuckles at people’s reaction when he tells them what he does, saying that most people envision him hanging out with the performers and partying like a rock star.
It’s not that glamorous, he says. Between being gone for extended periods and the demands of the work itself, it takes a lot of hard work to help bring the music from town to town.
“I’m the one in the back of the truck, strapping the load in,” he said. “When you’re on a tour, the first week you’re trying to learn your pack so that it’s loaded the same way every night, after every show. After that, I’ll know every road case, I’ll know what’s in it, I’ll know the packing order.”
The gig is perfect for night owls.
“Another thing people don’t realize is, when you’re doing music tours, 99% of the time you’re going to be driving at night. You can have your daytime schedule when you’re on the off days during setup — but load out is always after the headliner is over.”
Even though the road offers less conventional glamour than people think, to a dyed-in-the-wool driver like Rickards, there are perks that can only be found in this small corner of the trucking world.
“When I rode with my uncle as a kid, I saw the comradery that existed out there. I fell in love with that, the whole thing,” he said.
“When I’m out there, I’m not partying with the band, you know, there’s none of that — but I AM sitting around a campfire with a bunch of drivers on tour, telling stories,” he shared. “These guys have each other’s backs. For someone who loves trucking, that is actually as cool as anything. There’s a lot of passion in that.”
Dwain Hebda is a freelance journalist, author, editor and storyteller in Little Rock, Arkansas. In addition to The Trucker, his work appears in more than 35 publications across multiple states each year. Hebda’s writing has been awarded by the Society of Professional Journalists and a Finalist in Best Of Arkansas rankings by AY Magazine. He is president of Ya!Mule Wordsmiths, which provides editorial services to publications and companies.
