EXCLUSIVE: Legion Music Fest Founder Says ‘If We Can Make This Happen, We’ll Keep Bringing It Back’

Thanks to the swift and intuitive action of John Sankey, the drummer of LA-based heavy metal band Devil You Know, the project has hit the ground running. In just over three days, the fans so bitterly disappointed with the demise of Soundwave have raised more than $170,000 through crowdfunding website Pozible. But they’re not there yet.

If the goal of $3.7 million is reached in the next 17 days (before Monday January 25), the festival will take place over the Easter long weekend in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, with smaller ‘mini’ festivals to be held in Adelaide and Perth on the following weekend.

Legionhas already announced several international heavyweights to participate, including Sankey’s own band Devil You Know, Frontline Assembly and DevilDriver. It’s also made sure to include Australian players likeDream On Dreamer, Caligula’s Horse and Darkc3ll, to name a few,while aiming to give opportunities to local artists to showcase their music.

Sankey and his team at Legion havealready attracted the support of a number of industry identities who believe that this model of organisation could change the way touring music festivals are approached worldwide. They’ve secured an official ticketing partner in OzTix, joined with Global Event Management and Unbreakable International, and Love Police will handle the merchandise side of the event.

If it’s successful, Legion Music Festlooks to be the first major rock festival in the world to be run without a traditional promoter, and the first music festival to be completely crowd-funded.

The BRAG’s Anna Wilson spoke to John Sankey about his vision for Legion Fest’s debut.

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AW: Fans on Facebook and Twitter are largely referring to Legion as Soundwave’s “replacement”. Is replacing Soundwave what you set out to do, or are you looking to create something that stands independently of what Soundwave was about?

JS: When we initially decided we were going to try and do something once Soundwave was cancelled, it was more a question of what can we do now, how can we make something happen as soon as possible? So in that regard it wasn’t a case of “Let’s replace Soundwave” – it takes years to build something so big. We’re not tryingto replace anything. We want to put something on this year so the people don’t miss out.

Social media pages see the posts [but] they don’t realise how many moving parts there are and all the things happening behind the scenes. You don’t hear about the parts that are essential to making things happen. All the people on board are so supportive, no-one was hesitant. “Count us in,” they said.

If we can make this happen this year, it’s something we’d make bigger and keep bringing it back!

The lineup so far features mainly heavy metal groups, both international and Australian acts, with still more acts to be announced. Part of the big draw of Soundwave was the diversity in alternative music they offered. Is a mix of punk, rock and metal genres something that fans can expect from Legion on the next announcement?

We’d really like to make the lineup as diverse as possible, but it’s difficult to pull a lineup together. There’s a lot of talking to agents and management and time is against us. Soundwave certainly built into a successful festival where all the bands wanted to do it, so accessibility to all bands across all genres was there. We’re reaching out to bands we know and have had dealings with, that kind of thing. I don’t think we have the scope for multiple genres but we do want to branch out and make that possible.

We’re looking to add diversity and variety but time is so limited, we don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing. We’re trying to get the bands that are ready to come on now. We are trying but it’s not as easy as asking a band directly.

With social media we are watching closely and we want to know what people want, and we’ve approached a lot of the bands that people are asking for, but scheduling is a big thing for us and the them. I know from playing with my band, when you’re touring you maybe book a couple of months ahead where you’re locked into tours and festivals, and for a lot of these bands, the window they’re available is already locked and we have to move on from them.

You’re managing Legion Music Fest without a traditional promoter, with financing coming from the fans, the people who love the music. How has that process affected the relationship with and response from the punters?

Obviously the whole concept of a crowd-funded festival was the only shot we could have at doing this, and a lot of management agencies are blown away that we are, because it’s a completely different concept, it’s never been done before and it’s a different business model for live music. It’s a game-changer if we can pull it off – live music could become a lot more interactive with fans for music shows and festivals everywhere. It’s extremely daunting.

It’s all or nothing, testing the waters wasn’t a luxury – we decided it’s worth a shot.

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