Keagan Cross and Harrison Ketchum of The Lovelorn share how the band is organizing a one-day festival to highlight central Illinois musicians after several festivals didn't take place this past year.
Transcripted with AI and human review:
Randy Eccles: This is Community Voices on 91.9 UIS. I'm co-host Randy Eccles. We are again able to feature some of the great Central Illinois music scene bands that are around. We're talking with The Lovelorn, Keegan Cross and Harrison Ketchum. Welcome, gentlemen. How's it going?
Keagan Cross: Hey. It's going well.
Randy Eccles: How's it going for the band?
Keagan Cross: Really well. We had a little bit of a hiatus at the beginning of the year to do some lineup adjustments, but now we're full steam ahead, picking up shows as often as we can and trying to play out of town if we can. We've got some new music, too, that we've been working on in that lull period. It's nice to come out with some fresh stuff for everybody.
Randy Eccles: The last song released I saw on the music services was Foster Me.
Keagan Cross: That was a little one-off single that we dropped. It was actually going to be on our last album, Witch House. We were planning on it being there, but we actually took it off. But we really liked the song, so we dropped it as like a Witch House B-side.
Randy Eccles: You said you've got new music you're cooking up.
Keagan Cross: A lot of new stuff, working with the new guitarist in the band and collaborating with him a lot and really, really excited to show everything that we've been working on.
Randy Eccles: Any immediate opportunity folks have to go see you?
Keagan Cross: The most upcoming thing that we have on the docket is in Chicago at the Underground Lounge in December.
Harrison Ketchum: December 5th.
Randy Eccles: You've got something else cooking...
Keagan Cross: In The Lovelorn camp, we were just kind of talking and shooting ideas back and forth and we thought it would be really fun to bring a music festival to Springfield. We know that there's a lot of them and there's been a lot of them. We want to try something different. For the past couple months now, we've been collaborating and working with other local artists, vendors, and businesses to bring a festival together called New Soil Music Fest on Saturday, November 1, 2-11 p.m., at Boondocks. Yep. Got bands lined up.
Randy Eccles: It's a festival, so it's not just you, right?
Harrison Ketchum: We're going to have multiple stages. We'll have two areas. We'll have an acoustic setup in their smaller front bar, some larger bands on the big stage. That way we can go back and forth and just have constant music throughout the day. We'll stagger them. You just have music starting while everybody's tearing down, bringing up the next act, keep things moving.
Keagan Cross: We'll be alternating throughout the day. The first act will be an acoustic set starting at 2 p.m., and they'll go from 2- 2:30 p.m., Then at 2:30 p.m. on the dot, the full band on the main stage will start their set, and it'll just keep rotating from there.
Randy Eccles: How late does it go?
Keagan Cross: This is going to go from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. 11 p.m. will be when the final band finishes up. They'll go on at 10, and then 11 p.m. will be the end of it.
Randy Eccles: This is all local bands?
Keagan Cross: That's the idea with New Soil, we're trying to give the people of Springfield an opportunity to discover something new, whether it be right under their nose, local, or something from out of town. Since this is the first time that we've ever attempted it, we do have a bunch of local acts on here, but we actually have a couple acts from Chicago that we've played with personally or have made connections with and have talked about, "Oh, it'd be awesome to play a gig." We're giving everyone a chance to see maybe an act you haven't heard of who is homegrown here, but then also a chance to see an act that you've never heard of who is a neighbor right in Chicago. We have two bands from Chicago who are coming here. One band is called Lavisher. The other band is called Chocolate in Your Pocket. Their both from Chicago, but I'm pretty sure Chocolate in Your Pocket has roots in Springfield.
Harrison Ketchum: Their drummer is from Chatham. Currently, they're based out of Chicago and doing a lot of great shows there. They've got a lot of cool music, a lot of original music.
Randy Eccles: Always good to get people back home again. Those are the couple of Chicago bands, any others, is the lineup set?
Keagan Cross: We've got everyone lined up. We have local legends like Wolf Crick Boys and Nil8. Sunshine Daydream, Devin C Williams. They're all slotted on the bill. We're trying to hit you hard with a left-right hook with everyone. Tom Irwin will be there. It is 12 acts from 2 p.m. all the way 'til 11 p.m. It's a pretty stacked lineup throughout the whole day.
Randy Eccles: How much will it cost someone to take it in?
Keagan Cross: We are only charging $10. You can go to TheBoondocksPub.com
Harrison Ketchum: Scroll down, they've got all their events on the main page. You can buy tickets to see other events, too. If you scroll down, you'll see the New Soil Music Festival and you can buy tickets right there.
Keagan Cross: You'll be able to buy tickets onling through their website or if you show up the of the festival, you can buy a pass.
Randy Eccles: Is it the usual Boondocks' fare — bar drinks? Do they have food?
Harrison Ketchum: The bar will be fully open, outdoors, weather permitting. We're going to have some vendors set up. Johnny O's is going to have their truck out there. We also got Potbelly's signed up to sell sandwiches. We are still gathering all the vendors that we can to have different bakeries, drinks. That way you've got the stuff inside, but you can also get some food, some handcrafted stuff, and make it a festival and a bit of a local market. Bring more of those local vendors to everybody's attention.
Randy Eccles: It's a long day, so you want to make sure you can get some grub.
Harrison Ketchum: Absolutely, and be able to walk outside and enjoy some other things while the festival is going on.
Randy Eccles: November 1 should be good weather still — we're in the fall.
Keagan Cross: Yes, we feel like it's a bit of a flip of a coin, but then positive percentage weighs a little heavier. We do have the plan if there is any weather that might get a little questionable — we have the capability of movining the vendors and stuff inside. There's no risk performing inside.
Harrison Ketchum: Yes, it's going on rain or shine. We'll make it work.
Randy Eccles: Anytime we can feature all of the great artists that we have here in town is really helpful. On The X, our HD3 station we also stream, all the local bands are in the music mix. They hold up righ next to any traditional stuff, classic rock, alternative, the newest released. The local, central Illinois music scene is really strong.
Harrison Ketchum: The same with bands — give them some confidence. If they don't feel like they can go out of town, they absolutely can. We're bringing in other bands from out of town, too, to show you can hang with these people and get on a big stage like Boondocks. It's an experience and it's fun. We want to come out there and have fund and make sure everybody sounds great.
Randy Eccles: Keagan and Harrivson are both members of The Lovelorn. They are cooking up the New Soil Music Fest, Nov. 1, at Boondocks. It is going to have a ton of great bands, some food trucks, and obviously the bar is there. The 'New Soil' title, is that the idea of seeding bands? Where did that come from?
Keagan Cross: The mentality with it is more of a discovery. New soil — you're broadening your horizons and trying to discover something new. New soil is fresh. You never know what's going to grow out of it or how it's going to grow. We're presenting the ideas of, "Come here and let's discover toghether."
Randy Eccles: It's really needed. We've had some great festivals in the past, but this year thing got strange. Blues fest went away. The LOG Fest didn't happen. The Downhome Fest scaled back to a bar crawl — How did that work out?
Harrison Ketchum: We played the first night, which was their preview party, which was great. That was at the Gin Mill. A lot of people came out to that and there were a lot of good bands. We were out of town for the next day. We heard from people and saw videos; they drew a lot of people for the pub crawl. They had multiple bars sign-up having bands playing everywhere throughout Springfield. They salvaged it pretty well because with the construction and everything going on downtown, it just wasn't feasible as a festival.
Keagan Cross: All things considered, they absolutely killed it with what they had in the short amount of time they had to throw it together. I've never organized a music fest until this moment. The amount of moving parts that go into it. It's one thing to sit down and go, "Let's do a music fest. We can do it." Then you start to lay out every sort of detail. You're, "oh my gosh!" The way that they salvaged, what they did to still make something happen for the Springfield scene, I can do nothing but applaud that because they did a really killer job.
Randy Eccles: When you're setting up something like that, you don't have to get permits because you're using these existing bars?
Harrison Ketchum: Correct.
Randy Eccles: That helps the existing bars get more business.
Keagan Cross: Yes.
Harrison Ketchum: Carol over at Boondocks, they do a lot of out-of-town bands. They don't do really a ton of local stuff like this. When we came with the idea, she was all about it right away, partnered with us immediately. She is all about the whole mentality of the new soil music. Let's bring something different to a venue that's been here for years, but nobody really thinks of the capacity of local music. We're really thankful that she is helping us out with this because it's going to turn into an annual thing if we can.
Keagan Cross: I would love to see it continue going forward.
Harrison Ketchum: That's her mentality of it, too. It's great to find like minds, especially on venue ownership. All the bands want to do this kind of stuff. But when you get a venue owner that's really behind the vision, that's really helpful.
Randy Eccles: Your costs are basically for the bands?
Keagan Cross: Essentially, our cost is the venue itself, getting the people to actually run and operate it. All the bands, including The Lovelorn, are playing for free. There's no guarantee with it. However, I've vocalized to every band we want to pay everyone. All the money that is being fronted to get this off the ground is coming from The Lovelorn. We're paying everything up front to make it happen. Our goal is we wouldn't mind getting it back, but even if that doesn't happen, it's the same mentality I told all the bands, we just want to put on a killer show, try something new. If it works, amazing. I hope I can pay you all what you all deserve. If it doesn't blow up how we want it to, we all just say, hey, you know what, we tried something different and at least we got to play a show.
Harrison Ketchum: What that means is if you don't show up, the bands don't get paid. The more people who show up, you're supporting your local bands, you're supporting your local venue, and you're making The Lovelorn look good.
Randy Eccles: If you know anybody in a band, you see all the work they go through, the rehearsals, the slogging stuff around and getting set up, late nights. When they go out and perform, you enjoy it, but they hope to develop a fan base. Get out there and be one of those fans.
Keagan Cross: Yes, any sort of participation, whether it be you buy a ticket and you're actually there in person, or you just take the event and you share it and pass it along to people who might be there, any sort of participation is greatly appreciated and it really does benefit the possibility of this continuing forward.
Randy Eccles: Are any t-shirts or anything like that? I'm guessing that increases the risk ratio.
Keagan Cross: That's more of the finer detail, I would say.
Randy Eccles: Bands bring their own swag, right?
Keagan Cross: Yes, every band there, everyone will be able to set up merch and you can support them that way. I would love to have shirts that actually promote the New Soil Music Fest, but ultimately, it's such a small caveat in the grand scheme of everything else that if we don't have it, it's not too big of a deal. When you come to these types of events, the bands will have their merch and you can support them that way, however they decide to bring it.
Randy Eccles: Maybe a collectible poster to help promote it?
Keagan Cross: We're designing the logo and the flyers. That is something that will be more feasible for us to do. Maybe a commemorative poster that you can buy at a stand really cheap. Anything to help support the festival and the artists. Anything that anyone does to promote the New Soil Music Fest in any way is super appreciated.
Randy Eccles: The concept seems sleek in the sense that you could take a one-day showcase on the road to Urbana if you had the right bar partner or to Bloomington or down to Carbondale and show off the Springfield music scene.
Keagan Cross: Yes.
Randy Eccles: I hope this goes really well locally because then maybe you and the other bands can make bank somewhere else.
Keagan Cross: It would be in the spirit of the name, New Soil. Giving everyone the opportunity to discover a new act, whether it be right under their nose or a neighboring city right by.
Randy Eccles: The Lovelorn is working on new music. When do we expect that?
Keagan Cross: I'm always much more hopeful than...
Harrison Ketchum: You can't rush creativity.
Keagan Cross: I let my hopefulness blind my realism sometimes.
Harrison Ketchum: If you want to hear the new music, all you do is come out and see us play because we've been playing, introducing new songs every show. We don't have anything on the books until we play the New Soil Music Fest. You'll be able to see us November 1. If anything pops up before then, we play our new songs at every show because we love them. We like to go on to the new stuff for sure.
Keagan Cross: Very proud of them.
Randy Eccles: Good luck with the New Soil Festival at Boondocks, November 1. It's going to be an all-day thing, 2 to11 p.m. with food trucks and all kinds of fun. Lots of great bands from the area and a couple from Chicago. Keegan Cross and Harrison Ketchum of The Lovelorn, thanks for taking this leadership position in the community to make stuff like this happen.
Keagan Cross: Oh, we appreciate it. T
Harrison Ketchum: Thank you so much.
