Chris Maio is a member of the band and a sound engineer at Golden Era Productions. A professional guitarist for more than thirty years, Chris worked alongside Ron Miscavige every day.

 

I worked with Ron Miscavige every day for years as a musician at Golden Era Productions.

The story of Ron Miscavige is this: Ron was a musician, a trumpet player, in a church band. I am the guitar player in that same band. End of story.

In terms of Ron’s abilities as a member of the band, Ron was a second-rate musician. His musical incompetence came from his total refusal to really learn his craft. The rest of the men and women in the band all practiced, all studied, all continually strived to become better even though the band was made up of professional players. The only one in the band who didn’t do this and wasn’t a true pro was Ron. Everyone else tried to get him to do so but he wouldn’t.

Ron’s parts had to be rewritten for him to play on the gigs—to dumb them down because he couldn’t play them. In the studio, another trumpet player had to do all of the trumpet performances because Ron couldn’t produce a quality recording. Any of the few performances he did do took forever and the guy recording was always frustrated at having to record him because Ron was so arrogant and belittling of him. As I am also the music mixer, I personally had to fix Ron’s performances digitally with special software in the computer to make them okay, kind of like Milli Vanilli. And anything that he did do over the last several years, we replaced.

I personally had to fix Ron’s performances digitally with special software in the computer to make them okay, kind of like Milli Vanilli. And anything that he did do over the last several years, we replaced.

SEE THE VIDEO: BERT DRAKE AND CHRIS MAIO GIVE THEIR FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT OF THE REAL RON MISCAVIGE.

Ron was really unpleasant to work with. Just to give you an idea of how crass he was, here are some examples of my experiences with him:

• He would say to someone who needed to use the bathroom, “just shit in your pants like a real man!” He would yell this loudly for everybody present to hear so as to embarrass them and try to get a laugh (it wasn’t funny).
  
• Or one time when I was walking with him backstage and we were in a rented hall and Ron was unwrapping a package, and he then took the wrapping and threw it on the floor and said to me, “It gives somebody a job.” I don’t know who it was he was referring to.
  
• Or another time we had a French director who would be directing the shooting and scoring of a video and Ron would make fun of the director’s French nationality by calling him “soup of the day,” which was a play on the French term, “soup du jour.” This was done to belittle the French director.
  

But even despite this, the crew here at Golden Era Productions treated Ron with the utmost regard and kindness because he was the father of the Church leader. The amount of times the staff attended to him to make sure he was physically cared for was far in excess of any other staff member. Despite this, Ron physically shoved one of the staff (a little French woman) and screamed at her at the top of his lungs while she was trying to help him. No other member in the band got anywhere near that level of attention. Ron took it for granted because he was self-centered and arrogant.

…Ron acted the part of a prima donna. I’ve played guitar for some big artists. None of them who were actually important ever acted even nearly the way he did.

Then there were our shows. When we would perform, Ron acted the part of a prima donna. I’ve played guitar for some big artists. None of them who were actually important ever acted even nearly the way he did. For example, we would be getting into our costumes before a concert and Ron would typically flare up at the costume girls who were getting all the band members to look their best. You could just see that they really hated having to deal with him. None of the other band members or even the VIP performers treated the costumes staff like this. In fact at a show in England I actually saw Ron yelling at the costume girls because the brand-new shirt he was given had not been washed after unwrapping it. He was outraged. And I’ve seen this happen time and again where he would yell at the costume personnel and get them totally bent out of shape. He acted like (and I guess believed) that he was being “done in” by them somehow. And it wasn’t just a few times that I saw this. It was prevalent with him and would happen at nearly every show. It was so embarrassing. He had no manners about displaying this attitude in front of other staff and VIPs. If the costume people didn’t drop what they were doing and handle Ron’s demands immediately then he would yell at them like they were some kind of degraded servants.

When we performed at the Ruth Eckerd Hall, in Clearwater, Florida, Ron again had his own schedule. He slept in, went home early and the staff cared for him. It was strictly because the staff at Golden Era Productions and in Clearwater all love and respect his son so much that they wanted to take care of his father and make sure Ron had every comfort taken care of. They were never ordered to do this.  It was their pride and honor alone.

Does he still walk up to people and say, “Do you know who I am?” and get people bringing him food, preparing clothing…

I wonder if he is getting the same treatment today. Does he still walk up to people and say, “Do you know who I am?” and get people bringing him food, preparing clothing for him, looking after his schedule and quarters, laundry service, etc.? I seriously doubt it.

Now imagine my surprise about hearing that Ron is complaining about how he was treated! Let’s see, was it about the nice days off we had together in London after a successful performance, having a good time and eating well? Or was it the days off in the Bahamas? Or maybe it was Aruba? Or maybe it was the lavish Christmas dinners? Or the times we went out to the movies? There were really many nice times we had together.

 

Then after having just spent the day with us and saying goodnight, he abruptly goes home and the next day takes off and never shows up again. Not a call, not a letter, nothing. Ron is treasonous to our band. And, frankly, without his son he was nothing more to us than a second-rate trumpet player who we would have promptly fired—but instead we put up with for years and he stabs us in the back with lies. That’s the real story.

Chris Maio
Guitarist