Until now, AJ Maddah has been best known as the outspoken,
Twitter-mad promoter behind punk/metal festival Soundwave, but this weekend he unveils a project even closer to his heart. At a time when many festivals have disappeared or downsized in an overcrowded market, he’s stepping out with Harvest, which promises a more boutique experience, with a 18+ age policy, smaller capacity (10,000-15,000 tickets only, depending on venue), deep arts program and one of the most dynamic line-ups seen for a long time with Portishead, Flaming Lips, TV On The Radio, The National, the Family Stone and Bright Eyes on board.
According to Maddah, Harvest has been seven years in the making. “The reason that we haven’t done it up until now is that because I wanted to make sure I had enough experience and know-how and a good enough team around me to actually be able to pull this vision off.”
The other reason is Portishead, who Maddah’s been pursuing to headline for four years and who finally agreed this year. “I think they just got sick of me begging them and I begged, I kid you not,” he says.
The promoter spoke to TheVine about the current festival climate, his inspiration for Harvest, his big claims that it’s “not a festival, it’s a feeling” and how he finally nabbed Portishead, who haven’t toured Australia in 13 years.
AJ, not long now ‘til Harvest kicks off. How’s it going?
Yeah, phenomenal. I’m really happy and nervous at the same time. I think I’ve invested so much into this emotionally. I’m a little more nervous about this than anything I’ve ever done before.
Even more so than organising Soundwave?
Yeah. Look I’ll be honest with you – I’ve been wanting to do this festival for seven years now and the reason we haven’t done it up until now is that because I wanted to make sure I had enough experience and know-how and a good enough team around me to actually be able to pull this vision off, I guess. It’s a lot more complicated show than Soundwave.
Why’s that? Because the indie music space is different to the punk/metal scene?
No no, Harvest is so much more than a music festival. There’s so many facets involved in this and obviously, there would definitely have been easier years to undertake a new venture like Harvest than this year, where things are a bit difficult for festivals. But yeah look, this is a show that requires perfection.
Where did you first get the idea for Harvest seven years ago?
I’ve been loitering around overseas festivals for 15 years now, and every festival you go to you have two or three Eureka moments where you go, ‘Fuck, that’s a great idea!’ or you might say to yourself, ‘Oh my God, that’s not how you do things’. So you take those lessons on board, let them percolate and you have a bunch of original ideas that you add to it and the resulting concoction is Harvest.
Was there one specific Eureka moment though?
I think it was the first time I went to Electric Picnic in Ireland. Just the fact that everyone was so happy. The crowd was so happy, the bands, the security… I think it was the first festival experience when I went through where there were no issues. It was the upbeat nature of it and it was wouldn’t it be good to create that atmosphere in Australia. And I think the beautiful setting out on a Lord Manor’s heritage lawn in the middle of nowhere, and the ambience of it, had a lot to do with it. It was very scenic.
You’ve teamed up with Electric Picnic founder and booker Declan Forde for Harvest. How does that arrangement work?
Basically, what happened is Declan and I have been friends for a very long time with him and we’d always throw around new ideas about collaborating after several pints of Guinness. It just so coincided this year that we started Harvest that he felt like he was ready for a new challenge so we shared the booking duties for the festival. So for example, I booked Portishead, Bright Eyes and some others and he booked Flaming Lips, The Family Stone and some of the others. But Harvest’s been around for three years as a concept before Declan came round.
Harvest is touted as a ‘not a festival, it’s a feeling’ and ‘a new dimension in music & arts events’ - what does that mean and what can we expect?
We hope to engage the senses of everyone that attends. We have a massive arts program at the festival, with different textures and feels in different areas of the festival. There’s Le Boudoir which is a cabaret tent and we’ve booked artists from all over the globe to mix it up with local bands. It’s got trapeze, drag, burlesque and a human circus.
Then there’s the Snuffbox which is showing 1920s porn or something. I don’t actually know what the fuck goes on there, but I’ve heard it’s pretty nasty. There’s the Secret Garden which has spoken word campfire stage, a DJ Garden stage, amazing chill out areas that they’ve concocted. They’ve built birdnest couches for people to sit in and there’s amazing food stalls and we’ve snuck in some amazing DJs last minute…
There’s also roaming performers and installation art. We’ve got an amazing piece coming from Canada that’s part installation, part digital, and worth a couple of hundreds of thousands of dollars. My favourite piece is this 40 foot metal sculpture of a Southern Cross windmill which Tortuga Studios in Sydney have built. It lights up and has fire breathing flowers.
In terms of vibe, are you aiming for a more chilled, less agro atmosphere?
I think the line up is eclectic and esoteric enough to exclude that element. I think you come to Harvest because you want to be there and you want to experience the bands. I want it to be more Alice In Wonderland than
Australia’s Wonderland… I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember Australia’s Wonderland, but let’s face it, it was a yob-fest and I was one of those yobs.
Why did you make the events 18+?
The reality of the situation is as a music fan myself, I don’t really want to hear a baby crying in the quiet moments when Portishead about to play ‘Roads or ‘Mysterons’. The whole thing is about walking through that archway and entering a new world and there’s nothing like a screaming baby or toddler to transport you out of that fantasyland.
Portishead 'Roads' (live at Roseland Ballroom, NYC, 1998)
So it’s more about toddlers than 15-year-olds wasted on booze etc.?
It’s also the vomiting 15-year-olds element. And it’s also about Australian licensing laws, which means for the outside possibility that one person over 18 might be stupid enough to give a beer to an underage kid, they then cage up thousands and thousands of mature adults if they want to have a drink. We didn’t want that situation, we wanted people to be able to walk with a Martini to a stage and watch a band.
Harvest is promising a smaller, more intimate space - what’s the capacity?
Sydney is 10,000, Melbourne 15,000 and Brisbane 12,000. The whole point is to keep it intimate and make sure people have enough room to move around. We didn’t want any crowding, we want people to be comfortable.
It’s obvious that the festival boom has plateaued with some events cancelling or downsizing but this year, you’ve gone ahead and launched Harvest. Why?
It was two things: a) it was the time that I’ve gained enough experience to pull off an event that requires this amount of perfection; and b) I’ve actually amassed the right team to do it. Also, the other factor was from day one, my dream act to headline this was Portishead in the opening year. It was just kismet that, after four years of chasing them, they finally turned around and said we can do it this year. They were always, always my ideal headliner…
In terms of the festival market at the moment, what’s your read on it?
The situation is multi-faceted. There’s obviously there’s quite a bit of concern about the economy so people are checking their expenditure. The other thing there is a rise of ticket prices, which is down to two major factors. One, there is now so many festivals competing for the same pool of acts.
It also means that as there’s more festivals bidding on artists and the price of artists are going up, the festival can actually afford lesser line ups, because the money they were spending to get 20 amazing artists, now they’re only getting ten amazing artists, which is the second reason. So not only has the price of artists gone up, the pool of quality artists at each festival has gone down. And the ticket price is going up.
Portishead haven’t toured here since 1998. How did you get them over the line?
I think they just got sick of me begging them and I begged, I kid you not. Emails, tweets, phone calls. We had to bring them to a point where they’d start to let us know why they wouldn’t do it… and then go out and address those concerns and then just kept doing it until they literally couldn’t say no.
Who else are you looking forward to?
Everybody. I mean, the Family Stone, can you imagine? It’s just wall-to-wall hits. They are the single most sampled band in the history of music and that says a lot.
Sly and the Family Stone 'Thankyou (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Again)'
The venues you’ve chosen for Harvest in Sydney and Melbourne are further out of the CBD and not usually used for festivals. Why did you choose them?
The trees. What we wanted to do is for people to suspect that fairies will pop out of the trees at any second. We wanted it to have a green vibe. We also wanted to have a venue where we can light up the trees and present the natural beauty of the venue.
Parramatta Park [for the Sydney event] has presented its own challenges in the fact that it’s an archaeologically protected site and we can’t peg tents in and we have to bring a lot of weights instead. And while we’ve spent a lot of money putting up structures, it’s been worth it because it’s just going to look magnificent.
Will Harvest be an annual event?
Definitely. We’ve made a massive investment this year and we’re not taking any shortcuts. We’re certainly not thinking of it as a one-off event.
Finally, why should people come to Harvest?
The people that know the music and wanna experience something different are already coming. The ones that aren’t will hear about it from the ones that did, and at the end of the day, my biggest hope with this festival is that in ten years times, there’ll be five times as many people that attended that will claim that they were there. We hope to make liars of that many people.
Jason Treuen