Pouzza Fest

Pouzza Fest 2013 is set to take over downtown Montreal on May 17th to 19th, 2013. For the third year in a row, founder Hugo Mudie has gathered some of the biggest punk bands from around Canada and the world and got them to come into the city for one weekend of punk rock madness. With 12 venues and almost 300 bands, the festival is becoming the Canadian counter part to The Fest where punk fans can see their all time favourites (American Steel, New Found Glory, The Ataris, Big D & The Kids Table, Planet Smashers, etc.) and be introduced to great local bands from around the country (Ma Jolie, Audio/Rocketry, Fire Next Time Miracles, etc.) all in the course of one weekend.

Dustin Blumhagen caught up with Hugo Mudie to discuss this year’s festival, the motivation behind doing it, plans for the future and the agony of deciding which bands to see and who they’ll have to miss.

 

---

 Dustin: For those who haven’t heard of Pouzza before, let’s start there. What are the roots of the festival?

Hugo: It’s mostly from touring with my old band The Sainte Catherines. We played places like The Fest in Gainesville. We played festivals like that in the States and in Europe and we always wondered why there wasn’t more like that in Canada, especially in Montreal. Especially since the city is well known for its live music. At that point I wasn’t really working that much, I was just doing the band, so when we started the company we had the intentions of doing a festival like that. It took us a couple of years to figure it out. Three years ago we decided it was time and we started small with 4 or 5 venues and a 100 something bands. Now we are up to 12 venues and almost 300 bands. It’s been going great.

Dustin: Over the multiple venues, how did that come about? Was it challenging working out a number of venues in a relatively small area of the large city?

Hugo: Not really, it’s all venues that we work with all year long. It’s all people that we know. It was pretty easy in the beginning to choose the venues. Now we are expanding a bit more and adding bigger venues like Metropolis and also venues that are a bit further from the main ones. That is going to be… I’m curious to see how that is going to go. But again, after going to Gainesville this year and walking from the venue that was closest to HQ then walking all the way down to the one that is the furthest was a pretty long walk so I was confident about our choice to add venues that were a bit further.

Dustin: That is something to acknowledge. The way it is set up is very much like a Canadian version of The Fest. Was that something you were specifically going for?

Hugo: Ya, we never… it was always the plan to do this. The first year we did this I asked Tony from The Fest for advice. Florida is so far from here that is was actually not a competition at all. We were like let’s base something on The Fest and do it here. Even now, we collaborate, me and Tony on stuff. We exchange publicity and stuff. It was never hidden that we based our festival on The Fest.

Dustin: You have a pretty wide variety of groups coming, from well-known names to local names that a lot of people may not recognize. How do you go about deciding who you will have for the upcoming year?

Hugo: We have a wish list that we always check every year to see if we can get those bands. Mostly bands that we really like. Or bands that we haven’t seen play here in a long time. Or bands that we tried to get back together just to play this. But then, it’s also from emails that we get and agents that contact us. We are two people working on booking so we just listen to everything and we look for originality and passion. We don’t want to listen to demos, we want real songs and albums from bands that are working hard and touring. Style is very not important for us. It wasn’t the way that we approached the festival or the way that we approach music in general or the way that we approach punk rock. I like some crust bands and I like some pop punk bands, I don’t care about stuff like that.

Dustin: I think that is definitely one of the greatest things that I see about the lineup, the variety.

Hugo: That is what we try to do too. There are a lot of bands out there that sound the same. We try to cover as much as we can on the punk rock spectrum. There are old school bands and super new bands. There’s dancey hardcore bands. I look for something other than the style.

Dustin: Once you have the bands lined up, how do you decide who is going to be playing where?

Hugo: The touring bands, we have to go with their touring schedule. We try to have big headliners every day. We try to have all kinds of bands every day. We try not to have all the ska bands playing the same day or all the hardcore bands playing the same day. We try to mix it up. There’s a lot of work into it, but it’s also a lot of fun to do. We try to do some weird pairings sometimes and there are some weird lineups. We think it is important, even for the bands to play with different kinds of bands and the fans to stick around and see a band that they might never see playing with that kind of band. That’s another thing we try to do.

Dustin: What first caught my eye was the number of people that I know from the Edmonton scene. There’s a large representation of what may be lesser known bands outside of this province. I really appreciate seeing that.

Hugo: I just think that there are some really good bands from that scene. All of the bands that are playing this year from Edmonton and Calgary (and last year too), they probably just emailed me and I really liked what they were doing. Right now there are a lot of good bands coming from that area.

Dustin: Dealing with the variety of venues and bands, something that someone who has never been to Pouzza before may be curious about the ticketing, specifically how they need to get a separate ticket for a Club Soda show. Can you explain why for those who may not be familiar with that process?

Hugo: It worked really well the first year. The second year it was kind of fucked up and some of the venues fucked it up. There were maybe too many people for that kind of system to work. Also, too many people who were not used to that kind of setup, who were maybe not aware of The Fest or not aware of SXSW or other festivals that work like that. Mainly, being from Quebec, it’s a different scene, and there are a lot of bands like Lagwagon or Me First & the Gimme Gimmes that are huge in their scene but are not necessarily outside of the punk scene. The ten smallest venues have 3 day passes, which gives you access to those venues. You can buy a single day pass that gives you access to all of the venues for 1 day. The VIP get access to everything, but we sold out of those. Then there are the shows at Metropolis and Club Soda, where you can only buy single tickets for those. We will see how that goes this year. If it’s better, its better, if it’s not we will find some other way to satisfy more people.

Dustin: We don’t really have many festivals out here on the prairies, especially revolving around the punk scene. We have the Dropkick Murphys stuck on a festival lineup with Limp Bizkit and Hollywood Undead. Out east, there seems to be a bigger scene, from Osheaga to Pouzza to RockFest. Is there competition between you?

Hugo: No, we all work together. I’ve been working for RockFest for many years and he helps me with some stuff. There is never too much competition when it comes to art. The more there is the better they are going to be and the better the bands are going to be. I see nothing negative about it really, there should be more and more. Even if it affects my festival, I think it is better that there are more than not enough.

Dustin: Yourself, as the organizer, do you get any time to slow down and enjoy the festival at all or are you running around the whole time?

Hugo: So far, not so much. The first three years, I didn’t enjoy it that much. I enjoy organizing it, but the actual festival was kind of hard. Sometimes. Last year, the kids show Bambino was very fun for me. My kids were there and all of my friends’ kids and it was super positive and fun. That was great. Once in a while hanging out backstage with a band I grew up listening to and thinking wow, we organized this. Moments like that are great, but the rest of it is running around and trying to fix problems. This year we tried to do more of enjoying and meeting with bands and agents and sponsors, which we didn’t have the time to do the first couple of years. We might get to do that again this year, we will see.

Dustin: Before the festival even happens, are you already planning for next year?

Hugo: A bit. We have plans for the next few years. Not so much booking, just the way to do things and ideas we have for other crazy stuff. That’s mostly what we do all year now because it got big fast. We always think of that. Like you were saying, there is no festival like that out west and that is one of the ideas that we have is to do one out west. Sutff like that that we always have in mind.

Dustin: I would definitely support that! The plane ticket is a killer. So are you always looking for volunteers to help pull an event like this off.

Hugo: Ya that is what I am working on right now. There are always people who are like “ya, I’ll do it” then they choke. You’re like fuck, but you can’t say anything really because they are volunteers, but we are pretty happy with the way it went the first few years. I’ve been meeting with the group for this year and they are great. Without the volunteers and event like this is impossible because just in salaries alone it would kill the festival. It’s good that people understand that and take part to help the festival.

Dustin: Do you find that with the festival being in such a small section of the city and going on for a few days, there is an impact on the local community? Has anyone outside of the festival ever said anything?

Hugo: Ya, but nothing negative so far. We had a lot of people talking about it and saying how it’s cool to see all those people. So far nothing bad has happened.

Dustin: That’s good to hear. Personally, I don’t think it should be a negative thing, but I think that people outside of the scene sometimes don’t understand.

Hugo: It could definitely be an issue. That is something that we have talked about right from the start, to make sure to respect everyone outside of the festival. There are couple thousand punks in a small area. We don’t want to piss people off. We want them to think it’s cool.

Dustin: Are there any bands on the lineup that you are excited about as a fan this year?

Hugo: Definitely. My main one is American Steel. I’ve been a fan for like 12 or 13 years and they’ve never came here. I saw them once at Punk Rock Bowling in Vegas, but never here. I am super happy to have them here and all of my friends are excited to see them. I’m the only one that saw them in Vegas. That’s the main one, but there are a lot of them that we are excited to see.

Dustin: How about the up & coming bands?

Hugo: One of the bands that I discovered when booking the festival are Cerce. I don’t know how you pronounce it. They have a girl front woman, very screamy and intense. I am very stoked to hear them play. I like Owls by Nature a lot. I’m pretty excited to see them too. From Montreal, Laureate and others that are making a name for themselves here. It is cool to see them at this kind of festival where you people will get to see them. Bands from out of town will get to see them play, so Im stoked for that too.

Dustin: I think that getting local music exposure is always a great thing.

Hugo: Definitely. We always book a lot of local bands and always make sure that the bigger shows are supported by local bands too. That doesn’t happen a lot during the year, so we try to make it happen for Pouzza.

Dustin: Do you have a set group of sponsors year to year?

Hugo: We have some new ones. We don’t want to be an over sponsored festival, so we are very careful about who we get. We are really happy with who we have got, with Pabst Blue Ribbon and Sailor Jerry Rum and this year we are starting to work with Vans. Everyone at the festival wears Vans, so it kind of makes sense. There’s not a main sponsor for the whole event, we are trying to build it slowly.

Dustin: For someone coming the first time, is there any advice that you would give them about the schedule?

Hugo: I think that the main advice that I would give them would be to definitely catch the main bands I want to see then the 10-12 bands I really want to see, but then I’d walk between the venues and check them all out and see bands that I’ve never seen. Stick in venues for a couple of bands even if you don’t know them. Go to the movie presentations and the BBQs. I think what’s cool about it is being able to walk around downtown Montreal and every place is related to punk rock, especially when you love punk rock as much as we do. When you see people and they are like I want to go, but I only want to see 2 bands, well then wait until those 2 bands come back and play a normal show because that’s not what this festival is about. It’s about discovering new bands and meeting new people. It’s not the same old thing that you do all year long.

Dustin: It’s a whole experience in itself. Myself, I’ve printed out the schedule and agonized over it for hours and hours and cried over overlaps.

Hugo: Even I do it, I put myself in a fans position and I do it like who would I like to see. It’s fun to do. It’s impossible to catch everything you want, but that’s the beauty of it. You miss something, but at the same time you see something cooler that you wouldn’t have seen.

Dustin: For sure, some of my favorite bands I discovered through catching them on a bill with someone I actually went to see.

Hugo: That’s always the case.

Dustin: Thank you for taking some time to talk to us.