In the eleventh year of the annual festival, Wakarusa taking place June 5-8, 2014 in Ozark, Arkansas has continually earned its claim as one of the “can’t miss” music festivals of the year and for good reason – it’s also annually one of the first of the summer season. Tucked into the tree filled Arkansas hills, patrons continue to travel from far and wide for the festival which was once located just outside Lawrence, KS.
Wakarusa is famous for their home-grown organic feeling during the day and their night parties from sundown until sunrise. Music starts at about noon everyday and doesn’t cease until after 6am, four of the six stages are at-least partially shaded so that the heat can be escaped. But all ‘Swamparusa’ 2013 attendees know that heat is the least of your worries; last year’s festival had some torrential downpours and storms that made it a little chaotic at times.
For the first time in eight Wakarusa years, The String Cheese Incident is headlining with two sets –12-2am on friday in the Revival Tent and 830pm-12 on Saturday on The Main Stage (followed by Bassnectar on the same stage). They released their first studio album since 2005 (coincidentally the last year they played Waka) on April 29th titled A Song In My Head which we should all anticipate hearing pieces of. Other headliners include Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Umphrey’s McGee, The Flaming Lips and STS9, some of whom will play multiple sets. With Wakarusa just weeks away we had a chance to have an in depth conversation with founder Brett Mosiman about this year’s festival and the ever growing festival industry.
How have you been able to maintain Wakarusa so successfully for 11 years? How have you been able to keep it going?
Well, I think it’s definitely been a grassroots effort, and a very strong, supportive community. It seems like right out of the gate we struck a nerve with the people and we’ve been able to maintain that community. And so with them, we’ve kept coming back every year and we enjoy it, it’s our passion and hopefully, we think it shows at the event.
Yeah, and from what I’ve seen it’s also been easy to set you apart based on your lineups.
Year in and year out other major festivals book bands that don’t fit but are “hip” at the time. You guys don’t hide the fact that you book bands that people can really dance to. What’s been your drive to keep the jam/tromica combination going?
First thing we always think of is what our community that supports us wants. And more than that I think Wakarusa has grown up with a very diverse lineup actually. We’re not just a jam festival, we’ve obviously expanded a lot into EDM but, the overriding effort in the booking is that it’s supposed to be a party and Idon’t think it’s appropriate to have shoe-gazing music.
And that’s not putting down any rock or anything but we want to make it four days of a dance party and you get a lot of bands like Ozomatli and Trombone Shorty who might not be on the radio, but you’re shakin your butt, and when you see these guys called the Floozies play:that’s a dance party! So that’s the kind of the underlying motive; not whether it’s rock, or reggae or whatever, we want it to be a party not a theatre for a thousand, meaning we’re not going to have a lot of solo pianists. And it’s funny you may see a lot of people out there booking Lorde this summer, and Gotye, and i think they have their place but I just can’t imagine them “rocking out” to 20 or 50 thousand people!
And it’s always interesting with a band like The Flaming Lips, who aren’t necessarily a dancing band, but they’re definitely a party band, and they embody that festival atmosphere and the interaction with the crowd, making everybody feel as one. It’s just too bad there aren’t more bands like that. How do the Flaming Lips rank up against past headliners as far as personal favorites go?
They are an epic party/stadium band and they bring an unbelievable show every time. This is now the third time in 11 years we’ve had them and that’s as many as our headliners ever. But they’ve never played in our six years in Arkansas, and so it was time to bring ‘em back! And they always continue to make it an epic event and to them, it’s a big event as well and we think that’s awesome!
Yeah have you ever talked to Wayne Coyne about Wakarusa and how he feels about playing it, and the setup versus other festivals?
Yeah in all the interviews and conferences in the last 11 years he’s always been very supportive of us and also our festival’s culture in general. And there’s been some others like that; Primus and Claypool both came to embrace it and it’s kinda like the radio shows of the 90s they’re the new paradigm in music, and you need to embrace it. Number one their fans are really supportive and our festival’s bubble feeds into that perfectly. They do so much for music and the fans and it’s a different environment and it’s based around “Hey, we can go and see over 50 bands in this one weekend that we want to see all at an incredible value.”
You were talking a minute ago that we’re in the midst of a lull because of all the festivals. What’s your take as a founder when yet another lineup gets announced in Michigan, then Missouri? Does it ever start getting frustrating to some point because there’s only so many weekends in the summer for all these fests to fit into.
I just think to all these failures where tens of millions of dollars in losses with some of these festivals, and I do think it’s unfortunate that a lot of them will end up putting themselves out of business while taking some big brands and sponsors down as well. You can’t go to all of them and there’s just no way all of them can survive. And there’s also a big difference in your city festivals and your destination-camping events.
Yeah and it just seems like from what I’m seeing a lot of these first year city festivals are trying to mimic Bonnaroo- like setup and they’re not thinking about long term logistics.
Yeah and it really does bother me that so many wealthy people think they can just pop up and start a music festival. They have no idea about the music industry and they don’t know what it’s like to build an entire city from scratch to host 50k people in just seven days, ya know?
And then they embarrassingly pay way too much for all their artists and they mess up the market for the rest of the music industry. And now I’m not talking about your Denvers or your San Francisco’s that have a strong music cultured market; those cities need festivals.
Yeah and it just seems like a lot of them are doing it really wrong for reasons I just don’t understand. Like Outkast playing almost every festival this year but then again that’s done every year by some band or another. If a standard city festival isn’t the answer is something like Jam Cruise more fitting for these investors?
Yeah I mean some of those vacation-style destination festivals are great for bands that have 250k-500k facebook likes why wouldn;t 2k of them want to hang out on a boat or an island with their favorite band?
For sure moedown. has always been successful and Wilco holds one that people rave about. My Morning Jacket also did something of that sort.
I do agree that something of that style works a little better.
A lot of festivals are now doing a simulcast these days, what’s your thoughts on that or do you believe that it should only be seen by the people who make the effort to get there verse it being a “couch festival”?
I’m fine with a simulcast. I mean we’re just in such a remote location it’s never worked out for us. Not every festival can be like Bonnaroo, Coachella or ACL but there is revenue to be made with the simulcast and if people can then find a way to watch from a far, I’m okay with that. Now, hopefully it doesn’t start to ruin live music or shows by attendance or what not, but I even enjoy watching some of the European fests when they’re broadcasting live so I think it’s cool.
So do you think Wakarusa might have one in the next few years or is it technically impossible?
You know we have a particular technology issue and the delivery of it so yeah as we continue to look into it and to see if there is a market for it and maybe one year it’ll come together,
Speaking of markets do you have any intentions on expanding the Wakarusa brand beyond Arkansas?
No, I mean we have looked at other markets, opportunities and etc but I think as far as Wakarusa goes I don’t think we would ever clone it anywhere but you’re certainly always looking for opportunities to do new events in great settings and i think you see a lot of these fests pop up in cornfields and such and I think what helps keep Wakarusa separate is the dream mountain setting with streams, fishing ponds, waterfalls and mountains and you know I think it should be that way, the settings for these festivals should be special.
Have you looked into a state like Idaho or Montana as a market which is still untapped as far as festivals go?
Yeah, I mean we’re already stretching it with our population base already because we are so remote. One of the things I’m often jealous about is if you draw a four hour circle around Coachella or Governors Ball you’ve got 30-40 million of people and if you draw a 4 hour circle around us it’s maybe 2 million. So i mean you really have to want to see what we have going on and while we think it’s always well worth it we just don’t have the population base to pool from. And if you look at the Wyoming’s and the Montanas and the Idaho’s, while they’re gorgeous they’re a million miles to nowhere.
And with your timing of the festival do you try to set it up before or around Bonnaroo so that you can pull from that traffic whether it be vendors or fans?
Well when it all started 11 years ago Bonnaroo was only a year old and while it had great success we really just wanted early June so we get it before it gets really hot in July and August. We have typically been within a week or two of Bonnaroo but sometimes after. Sometimes before and last year we were two weeks in front of them but other than trying to just not be on Bonnaroo weekend, that’s all we really worry tee off of. I do like being the first events of the summer, if you will, obviously you have your Memorial Day events but we like to think that we kick off summer right the first week of June.
I wanted to ask you that this is now your eleventh year, and I know in some aspects they have to feel like your 11 sons or daughters but are there any years that really stand out in your mind, aside from the first one of course?
Well the first one really caught my attention, and while it wasn’t a financial success, we knew that we had “lightning in a bottle” to a degree and I was at the event, hardly slept a wink in five days and it really kinda grabbed me because of how different the vibe was there and how liberating and awesome it was while just five minutes ago in town people are honking and flipping each other off then the next thing you know they’re helping each other set up their tents And they’re just really happy and mellow and taking care of each other, looking out for each other and they really left the stresses society and the technology behind and that’s what really struck me as this something like beaches and mountains that going forward society is really going to need.
Of course back then there wasn’t facebook, the internet was a part of life but just not the way it is today by any means. More so today than ever you need to unplug, you need to get-away and just have personal interactions instead of technology interactions. I think that’s a big big part of the festival, it is a time for yourself and your friends and it can be magic
So do you have time to step away from technology with your friends and let loose or is it all work and no play?
I do try to yeah, and I mean at that point most of my work is done and I like to interact with the fans and on most days I’m out there on my bike catching some of the music. I’ve been quoted a hundred times that we’re a music festival by music fans for music fans and you know I really mean that. I don’t like missing fests, I sleep very little and your adrenaline gets going when you get close to the gates and it’s the best weekend of the year.
And how much are you thinking to yourself “Wow, I put this all on and all of these people are having fun because of me”?
Yeah the bright smiles are the payoff for me. I think that some of the letters we get and some of the facebook posts about how “that weekend changed my life” or “that was miraculous” those are things that our crew definitely takes pride in, yeah ya know we’re not curing cancer!
I also say you were quoted as always looking for tomorrow’s superstars or bands that might be big in a few years. Is there anybody in the past that you’ve booked that maybe made their dent as a band because of Wakarusa?
I wouldn’t want to take credit for “making” a band, but we certainly have a track record for catching superstars before they were superstars, The Black Keys, Bassnectar, Pretty Lights, Mumford and Sons or The Lumineers. I mean we’ve just booked a lot of them and you know some of that’s probably luck but we’re constantly scrolling for incredible talent that is affordable that we can showcase to a large audience and certainlyI do think we’ve had a small hand in springing forward the popularity of some of these artist for sure.
Do you get to attend any other festivals just as a fan after Wakarusa?
We usually produce three or four on our own and I try to attend at least a couple of them. I’ve been to SXSW probably 24 of its 27 or 28 years and so yeah I usually try to make a Lolla or ACL at least once a year as well.
And what are your personal favorite bands, what are you most excited about?
I would say that musically, over my history, I like a lot of things that are Americana. I love Wilco and Edward Sharpe now, but I like everything as a music fan. I’ve owned a club (Bottleneck) for 30 years now and I’ve always said it was too big for a rock show but did not matter if it was punk, blues, or reggae we just tried to book good music and the genres were not nearly as important. There are days I want to listen to 70’s arena rock and days I want to listen to Gotye, I’m a music fan, I’m an addict.
Tickets are still available for the 2014 Wakarusa, please visit the festival’s website for more info.
