“If someone would have told me years ago that this is what I would be doing, I would have told them they were crazy,” chuckles Jamie Morral, owner of JGM Coach, a private bus-leasing company located in Wellsboro, where he grew up. “It’s just progressed over the years to what it is now.”

What ‘it’ is is a thriving entertainment transportation business, designed to be a house on wheels for bands and sporting teams who are on the road for weeks at a time. “This isn’t something I had thought of doing until a guy from Nashville put the idea in my head,” Jamie says.

But first, let’s put the brakes on and go back to the late 1980s and early ’90s, where Jamie’s story starts.

“I’ve always loved music,” Jamie says. “I played bass in a band in high school with my brother Jeff and some friends. After high school, we sort of went our separate ways for a while. We got back together around 1992 and formed Backstreet Law.”

Throughout the ’90s, they toured up and down the East Coast and the Midwest, performing in festivals, outdoor concerts, and opening for big-name artists in New York City. Their mode of transportation at the time was a Winnebago.

“We got tired of old RVs and vans, so I started looking at some touring buses,” Jamie continues. He purchased a 1978 Silver Eagle bus—it had once belonged to Tanya Tucker—for his band to use while touring. “I loved that Silver Eagle,” he adds.

Sometime around 2002, Jamie shifted gears and bought a seated bus, modifying it for touring. What’s a seated bus?

“It’s exactly what it sounds like—a bus with seats. For instance, school buses, public transportation, and charter buses are all seated buses. Then there are the touring buses, which is what my company is all about,” Jamie explains. He soon purchased four other Silver Eagle buses. “I renovated them, and then sold them. I was flipping buses,” he says with a smile.

Backstreet Law was still touring and performing when a man from a Nashville bus company noticed Jamie’s business of bus flipping. He approached Jamie about leasing the buses instead of purchasing them. “I hadn’t thought of leasing out my buses up to that point. I was just fixing up old buses and selling them for a profit,” he says. Jamie bought a 1997 Prevost XL and a 1998 Prevost XL for the sole purpose of leasing them to that company. “Prevost’s main focus is on entertainer buses, though they also do custom builds for motor homes. They’re top of the line for this industry.”

Within a few months of subleasing to the Nashville bus company, JGM Coach hit a pothole when the business deal went south. Jamie brought the two buses back to Wellsboro for a fresh start.

“I had two hefty bus payments with no money coming in,” he recalls. A conversation with a friend sparked an idea: if Jamie could book the band at various venues, why couldn’t he do the same for buses? “I called management companies and bands to see if I could lease them out, at least bring in a little money to help pay for them,” Jamie says. Both buses leased quickly, and JGM Coach (jgmcoach.com) was officially launched in 2003.

“My niche is rock bands that lease for forty, sixty, ninety days or more at a clip,” Jamie states, adding that he doesn’t do short term leases like bachelorette parties. Over time, the company purchased a few more buses, renovating them as needed. “I’ve had bands like Styx, Nickelback, and Foreigner, even Snoop Dog, lease my buses.”

A couple of years ago, a Prevost representative, frustrated with the lack of people who knew how to build buses, reached out to JGM Coach hoping they would accept their proposal: build the bus from the ground up so they could be sold on the retail market.

“The rep talked me into it,” Jamie says laughing, then adds, “It’s an expensive venture for sure. When I purchase a new bus, it’s literally a shell. The only thing in it is the driver’s seat.” This new avenue created Nix Coach Interiors, a division of JGM Coach, to design the luxury buses. Jamie’s wife, Jenn, is involved with the designing aspect of Nix Coach Interiors, which is named after their daughter, Nixon.

“You don’t realize all that goes into this,” says Jamie. “We need electrical, plumbing, lumber and other materials, AC and heating units, everything as if you’re building a house. That bus is a mini house on wheels, only this ‘house’ usually has twelve bunks, which is the industry standard.” Jamie reached out to Bill Chambers, a contractor who has done multiple projects with him over the years, to be the lead guy for the interior work. Together with two others, they turn the shell into a livable habitat. It takes on average three months from start to finish with another week or so to tweak the little things.

Jenn’s love of design shines through as she selects the perfect combination of colors, finishes, and other touches, creating a beautiful space for those who are on the road. “We want them to feel as if they’re sitting in their living room and not on a bus,” Jenn says.

Once those completed buses roll out of the shop, there’s still work to be done. While there’s a separate crew who maintain the fleet, including Jamie’s brother Jeff, it’s the drivers who are tasked with the day to day responsibilities out on the road. “Besides driving [there are federally regulated hours they are permitted to be behind the wheel], their duties include cleaning the coach, washing the bus, getting water for the toilets and showers, changing the linens, and making sure all systems are properly working. They’re paid well for all they do,” Jamie says.

Today, JGM Coach has grown to a fleet of fifteen buses (they all have names!), with nine employees in the office and shop, twenty-five drivers from all over the United States, plus Nix Coach Interiors division. Jamie reflects on the curves in the road that led him here. “To think this journey started thirty-something years ago when I was a musician in a band traversing the land in an old RV, to owning a fleet of luxury entertainment buses. What a long, strange trip it’s been.”