Soundwave boss and self-confessed Twitter addict, AJ Maddah, made a rare appearance on stage at Melbourne’s Face The Music conference on Friday, offering his thoughts on his festivals, his love-hate relationship with social media and how he’s driven by a need to create the perfect festival.
Face The Music 2012
Amidst a core full-time staff of only five, AJ Maddah contacts and signs off on every act that’s booked for Soundwave. He’s an extremely hands-on chief of two major Australian festivals and says that he won’t be satisfied until they get it right.
When asked what he means by a ‘perfect festival’, he says that he doesn’t want festival-goers spending even 5% of their time in line, be it for food and drink, toilets or first aid. He wants it to be a happy festival, where people can behave and be civil to each other.
Anyone that was at Harvest in Melbourne last year might find that to be an interesting comment, given the dramas that unfolded with queues for everything, leading to a very negative perception by many of the inaugural event in this city. But AJ takes responsibility for what happened, admitting that it was the worst day of his life.
“I don’t use the word ‘catastrofuck’ lightly, but it was a catastrofuck.”
Maddah later said that he’d had Harvest in his head, with that 2011 line-up (which included Portishead and The Flaming Lips), for seven years, but they hadn’t been ready. He thought that last year they were, but Melbourne’s event revealed major issues that still needed to be resolved.
And resolved they were, judging by the extremely positive response following this year’s festival, which last week saw Beck, Sigur Ros and Mike Patton’s Mondo Cane perform, along with many others.
Facilitator Marcus Teague quizzed AJ on why there are so few local bands at his festivals, pointing out that there are only five Aussie bands on the bill for Soundwave next year.
“Soundwave is not ‘Australia’s Got Talent’,” AJ quipped.
He spoke of issues they had early on at Soundwave where the unprofessionalism of local bands lead him to be very wary of taking them on.
“We only have international bands at Soundwave. They might be Australian, but they have to be international.”
Everything seems to come down to control in AJ’s world. He controls who’s on every line-up and signs them off, ensures that everyone on the festival will behave appropriately, who plays what sidewaves (Soundwave’s sideshows) and all sorts of other aspects of the festival. Michael Chugg used to be involved in Soundwave, but eventually got out of it.
“[Chugg] sold his share of Soundwave for a dollar,” said Maddah. He looked briefly around the room, almost comically looking for the promoter before adding, “It was the best dollar I ever spent.”
One thing he has very little control over though is Twitter.
“I just like good banter,” he responded, when it was suggested that he takes things very seriously on the social media site, where his frequent tweets are often harsh, reactionary and controversial.
“I regret most things I put on Twitter, usually within 40 seconds.”
“So why do you keep doing it?” asked Teague.
“I can’t stop.”
Maddah went on to say that ultimately, he’s a fan of music and he conceded that if he wasn’t doing what he’s doing, he’d be on Twitter bitching about ticket pricing and so forth too.
He gave no specific hints about any new ventures in the future, but did reveal that for every Soundwave, there are 20 ideas that don’t work, for one reason or another.
“You’d be amazed how many things get to a level and then fall over.”
The Face The Music Conference continues on Saturday at The Arts Centre in Melbourne, when Kimbra will take the stage in what will no doubt be an equally popular session.
