Beck: Master of Puppets at Bonnaroo 2006

They're not roadies, musicians or tour managers: They're puppeteers. Throughout his summer tour, Beck's show is recreated onstage on a nightly basis by four L.A.-based puppeteers who until now worked primarily on films like Team America: World Police. We caught up with three of them backstage during Elvis Costello's set at Bonnaroo — just before they were set to play with puppets in front of 80,000 people — to see how life on the road was treating them. Unsurprisingly, they were a bit ecstatic.

Have you done anything like this before?

Rob Saunders: I think this is a first. There are touring shows for puppeteers, but nothing near this big as far as audience. We're onstage for 80 minutes straight, and performing the whole time. That's incredibly different than what a normal puppet show would be. And it's rock & roll. The fact that Elvis Costello is right there…

Carla Rudy: We're playing the same venue as Elvis Costello!

B.J. Guyer: I really doubt that there's been a puppet show with 80,000 potential audience members…ever. That's a first.

How long did it take you to build the puppets?

Guyer: A show like this usually has development time — R&D — for a few months to figure things out. We had, literally, 12 days. Twelve days to build the puppets, build the stage, the instruments, everything.

How long would you ask them for normally?

Guyer: Eight to 12 weeks, normally. And if they said, "We don't know what we want," even more time. But for this, we were lucky: They trusted us to do the designs and everything.

Have there been any puppet disasters so far?

Guyer: Last night I dropped a puppet off the stage. We had feet come off the first week.

Saunders: We were grabbing them and taping the feet on until we figured out what to do with them.

Have any of the puppets thrown fake TVs out of your hotel windows, just to live the rock life?

Guyer: That's a good idea, actually!

Saunders: We've screwed miniature furniture to the hotel ceiling.

Guyer: We've made miniature beer bottles to throw at miniature people as they go by. We have the Barbie dream van that they drive around in when they're not busy.

You're wearing wedding rings, so someone's got to have the rock-star life, right?

Saunders: And, really, why not them?

Guyer: The puppets are developing their own personality. We're taking key things from each of the guys, but the puppets are becoming who they are. They're not accurate to the real guys. The drummer, he's a ladies' man. Whenever he's out, he's like, "Hey, girls!"

Saunders: The Justin [Meldal-Johnson, bass] puppet's become the alcoholic of the group, but the real Justin doesn't drink at all. Any time there's a beer tap, or a beer bottle, he's slugging from it.

Rudy: My puppet's always getting trapped inside things. But he doesn't really do that. He was trapped inside a pocket of a billiard table, and the other puppets were rolling balls at him…

So is this as cool as it seems?

Guyer: We think it's the coolest job in the world. We're onstage and there's 20,000 people cheering!

Rudy: The cool thing is even when we're in plain sight, we're anonymous. Sometimes we get recognized, but only if the puppet's with us.

Saunders: We come off the stage totally high from doing that show, but the band, they have to go and meet the press and meet the people. We pack up and go and drink beer. We get to go and relax and do the shows. It's great.

Guyer: And… Elvis Costello is right there!