Being Bob Dylan's Stand-In

Conor Lumsden, who stood in for Bob Dylan at the secret 2017 Nobel taping, shares his surreal story

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When I interviewed director John Hillcoat a couple months ago about his work with Bob Dylan, he sent me a bunch of photos from his various shoots with Bob. One you can see above, from the secret 2017 Nobel performance-video taping outside Dublin. When I looked at this photo, though, something seemed off. That guy standing by the piano sort of looks like Dylan, but not quite, right? Then I noticed Hillcoat had typed a caption: “Stand-ins.”

A stand-in is someone who, as the term says, stands in for someone else. It’s common in the film world. You don’t want to make a famous actor just stand there for hours while the crew adjusts the lighting, so you find someone roughly the same height and build to do it. In Hillcoat’s photo, you see a bunch of other people standing in for Dylan and the band—people who are roughly the same size, wearing roughly the same clothes. In addition to fake Bob Dylan, you’ve got, from left, fake Donnie Herron, fake Charlie Sexton, fake Tony Garnier, and fake George Receli. (And, looking more closely now, I think that “piano” is a stand-in too.)

When I posted my Hillcoat interview on Instagram, one comment caught my eye. @music.city.conor posted: “Being Bob’s stand in was the best job I ever had!”

You know I had to find out more. So today, we hear from the guy standing in for Dylan in that photo.

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Note: Read the John Hillcoat interview for more context on what this shoot actually was for

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When he’s not standing behind a fake piano, Conor Lumsden records under the name Music City (his new power-pop album Welcome To Music City just got a rave in Mojo). But, for a few days in 2017, he played a different role: Bob Dylan.

How does one become Bob Dylan’s stand-in? I see you’ve got the hair.

Me and my friends were all broke musicians. We would often get scouted, just from hanging out in town, to do extra work for films. We were in the Beatles entourage in the Jimi Hendrix biopic with André 3000 in it. That was my first. They didn’t really have much of an extras budget, so I’m reused in a few scenes. We’re in the Albert Hall performance where the Beatles went to see him. You gotta work your way up in these things. Start with Jimi Hendrix, and then work your way up to Bob Dylan.

One of our friends was working in production and she was asking how tall we all were. I was like, “I’m five foot seven.” and she’s like, “Would you be up for doing this thing? I can’t really tell you what it is.”

I always knew that he was the same height as me. And I had the hair. Usually as a Beatles fan, power-popper guy, I had Cuban heels and drain pipe trousers, turtleneck and wayfarers. That was, and is still, my uniform as such. So when we showed up on set, people were like, “Whoa, whoa…” I think they thought I was a Bob Dylan impersonator, rather than just wearing my own clothes.

Just wearing your regular outfit.

That was the thing on the Jimi Hendrix one as well. We were just wearing our normal clothes, and one of the other extras came up to us and was like, “Lads, I bet you can’t wait to get out of these stupid fucking clothes.”

The whole thing was pretty strange. How do I describe it? I mean, it’s insane that Bob Dylan was in Bray, of all places.

Yeah, what is Bray? I don’t know the geography.

I’m from Shank Hill, which is the most southern point of Dublin, and Bray is just the next town over. I guess the land is a little bit cheaper there, so in the ‘60s and ‘70s they bought up these large lots to have film studios. It’s cheaper to film in Ireland than it is in London.

Even still, to this day, I can’t believe Bob Dylan—like, what was he doing hanging out in Bray? There’s only room for one of us in this town!

Take me through the day.

It was a few days. It wasn’t just one.

We showed up and then got told that it was a Bob Dylan concert video recording thing. I assumed it was for RT or something. That’s the national TV station. Even that was surprising. I was like, “What the hell is this for? It makes no sense.” And then it was like, “Oh yeah, the guy who directed The Road is doing it.” I’m like, is this gonna be some kind of sci-fi dystopian Bob Dylan concert video? I remember John Hillcoat driving up in a blacked-out Mercedes. The window rolled down. He took out his phone and took a picture of me, then drove off.

It was kind of an empty set at the time. We’re told to hang out on this bus for a while. I think the first day we didn’t even get to see the set. Then the second day, we went in. It was all the instruments: Bob’s piano and the pedal steel and the drums and stuff. I got to play on the piano a little bit until somebody was like, “Don’t do that.”

I don’t know if you know the Irish show Father Ted. It was kind of like an episode of that mixed with The Larry Sanders Show. It was just this ridiculous series of events. Everything was surreal, because Bob Dylan’s there, and because we’re being Bob Dylan’s band stand-ins for this thing that we don’t know what it is. And then just how different people act around him. It was very strict. Like if anyone talks to you, don’t talk to them. If Bob Dylan walks by you, don’t look in his eyes.

I’m actually surprised you were even there at the same time. I envisioned you were maybe there the day before to get the lights set up, and then they could swap in the real guy.

We were, but then management showed up early in the second day, and they’re like, “Bob’s coming on set.”

It was then that they saw me at the piano, and I think they got really upset with the crew. They were like, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing hiring this guy? Bob is not going to like this.” Because I was dressed like ’65 Bob Dylan. Completely unintentionally.

They thought you were a Bob Dylan impersonator.

Yeah. They’re very protective over how he might react to things.

It was at that point I got my own bus. I really got the star treatment of all the extras.

Just to keep you away from Bob Dylan?

Yes. They got me an entire separate bus. Any time Bob was on the set, I had to go on this bus that was parked behind the studio. So I wasn’t able to talk to my friends in the band.

You mean your friends were doing the bandmember stand-ins too?

Yeah. My friend Dylan was doing Charlie Sexton, and Ruan, he was a drummer, but I think he got pushed to pedal steel because of the height. So I didn’t get to talk to them for days.

Sequestered.

You know, just to create some tension within the band. I got the star treatment. Some of the guys in the band didn’t talk to me for a while because they were jealous that I got to be Bob.

The management—which were these shadowy figures in a doorway—looked kind of scary, like FBI agents or something. They were just pointing at me. I don’t think they had time to find anyone else. I know Albert Grossman’s been dead for years, but when I remember it, in my head, it’s him there. I guess he was haunting the set.

A few hours later, Bob showed up on set. I was sent to my tour bus, and the other guys were sent to the catering tour bus.

It was interesting to me because all of the people were at such a high level. Like [cinematographer] Lol [Crawley], who won an Academy Award recently, and John Hillcoat and stuff. But even how they were with him was really strange. Like, nobody is comfortable on this set. Everybody seemed terrified of Bob. But I was having the time of my life, seeing all these strange interactions and seeing everybody freaking out.

What were some strange interactions you saw?

It was just really strange how I was this liability. Because I was dressed in these clothes, they thought that I was some obsessive. Once I got my own tour bus, they made me swap clothes with a rigger. I had to wear more baggy jeans and a hoodie. I was like, “Surely this is like how Bob looks now. Maybe this is going to freak him out too.”

He loves the hoodies.

Yeah, his 2000s-era multiple hoodies. The Unabomber thing.

When you’re not on the bus, what are you doing? Like what actually is stand-in work?

You basically are just a 3D model for them to make sure that the lighting is correct. They have all their blocking and lighting and camera angles sorted out, so that they can position people wherever they want and make sure that it’s all well-lit. There were two or three different sets that I remember, and they had to keep rearranging them. They were all very anxious about getting it right. So you’d come back in for like five minutes.

Different sets like literally different stages?

No stages. It was a very bare-bones thing, but I can kind of remember there being picture frames hanging. Then there were those old studio lights.

Oh, so it’s the same stage, and the musicians are in the same place, but things around them are moving.

Yeah. Set decorations. By the end, it got very bare bones, I guess how he plays live. A couple of lights, very subtle.

It was a lot of fun like hanging out. They made me wear a hat though. I remember I didn’t want to.

You got a hat on in that photo. So that wasn’t part of your typical outfit?

I don’t typically wear my trilby around, no. If it ever comes up I’m like, “I was Bob Dylan’s stand-in,” I don’t think people believe me. But now I’ve got proof.

I remember on the day that they were about to film, Lol grabbed me aside once they were kicking everybody off set. There was curtains pulled and everything. Everybody had to get off.

John said he wanted very few people in Bob’s eye line.

Lol was like, “I’m going to keep you in here for this. You can be my assistant. Just don’t say anything to anyone.” So I got to see this whole eight-hour jam session, which was absolutely mind-blowing. I got to hunker down over a monitor while Lol was filming.

Why did Lol ask you to be his assistant?

There was no reason. He was probably like, “This guy’s been shoved around everywhere for the past few days. I can give him a story he’ll remember forever.”

You didn’t actually have any work to do as Lol’s assistant?

No. I mean, I went to art college, so I know about framing and things, but he didn’t ask me for any advice. He had it. He’s like, “Here’s some clothes. Just sit beside me the whole time.”

Wait, you had to change your outfit again?

Yeah. I had to go into crew clothes so I wouldn’t be noticed.

The band had to keep up with Bob in terms of what he wanted to play. My jaw [dropped] when they started playing “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry.” Bob Dylan, as you know, the songs don’t always sound like the songs. So it took awhile for me to catch on.

Just getting to see a band at that level rehearse, I suppose, or work on things. Even the band seemed [nervous noise].

John said Bob was giving Sexton a lot of shit.

It seemed like he was the musical director. I can almost remember Bob asking him what the chords were, and it was this “Oh, I better figure this out quick” kind of thing. It was just incredible to see that that level of musicianship being tested, and just to see how they adapted so quickly.

After that day, we were also working on taking down the set. We were crew after the thing had been filmed. Bob was in one of the buildings with John editing. It was like, “Don’t go near those windows.” You’d kind of be like, “Is he in there?”

It was funny because they really make such a huge deal out of, don’t be in his presence at all. But then Bob was walking around when we were packing up, and he’s like [to me], “Hey, excuse me?” I was like, “Aw for fuck’s sake.” I don’t know what to do.

I was like [awkwardly], “Hi…?” It’s this guy in a hoodie, and it’s fucking Bob Dylan. It was like I’m listening to Theme Time Radio or something. He’s like, “Do you know where Sonny is?”

I kind of just stared at him. I was like, “If I say something, I’m gonna get”—I didn’t care about me getting in trouble, that’s worth it for me, but I was like, “he’ll end up like cancelling the whole film.”

I really don’t think he’s like that, though. I think this is just his protectors and minders that make it seem like this. Because I think he’s like a very funny, cool guy. From my three or four sentence interaction with him.

So what happened?

I was like, “Uhh… Uhh… You know what? I’ve seen him, and he’s just over here.”

So I walked with him over and I was like, “I think that’s the guy that you’re looking for.” And he’s like, “Thanks.”

What were you wearing at this time, and was he freaked out by it?

I was in my costume that they provided me of a hoodie. I don’t think I was in my Beatle boots. I don’t think that would have been great footwear for rigging anyway.

So did he ever catch sight of you in the initial outfit that they were so worried about?

I don’t think so. I mean, a great, great effort was put into hiding me away.

So this whole time you never knew about this Nobel thing?

No. I had no idea what it was for. Every year we’d be like, “Maybe something…?” I kinda thought maybe he wanted to work with John Hillcoat on something else and he was testing this out because he was hanging out in Ireland. But what do I know? I’m just the preeminent Irish Bob Dylan stand-in.

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Thanks Conor! Check out his new album ‘Welcome to Music City’ at Bandcamp or wherever you get albums.