It’s a chilly April, but believe it or not, festival season is right around the corner. In anticipation of the warmer weather and outdoor music that will soon be here, The Current’s Morning Show welcomed J Lenz and Justin Bruhn of Pert Near Sandstone to talk about one of those upcoming music festivals.

Pert Near Sandstone have had a hand in Blue Ox Festival for 11 years, and Lenz and Bruhn were happy to come by to talk about the festival lineup as well as the broader experience. Listen to the interview using the audio player above, and find a full transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Jill Riley: You're listening to The Current, I'm Jill Riley. Well, festival season is right around the corner, and before you know it, you'll be enjoying outdoor music, outdoor concerts, and you might even make an entire weekend out of it. One of the events we look forward to each year is the Blue Ox Music Festival in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. It runs June 26 to 28, and a band from our region, Twin Cities band Pert Near Sandstone, helped found Blue Ox in 2015, and today I've got two members of the band in the studio, Justin Bruhn and J Lenz. Welcome to The Current's Morning Show.

Justin Bruhn, J Lenz: Thank you, Jill. Thanks for having us. Good morning.

Jill Riley: All right, so the lineup has been announced for this year's festival, and I wonder if we could talk about that lineup and just kind of highlight what you guys are looking forward to at the festival.

Justin Bruhn: Yeah, each year we were lucky to bring in a bunch of great artists and acts from around the country and the region, and we have a lot of mainstays. Of course, one person I would just give a shout-out right away to is Sam Bush. He's been there every year, except for the year that he had surgery. He's always been super kind to us, and it's always a riot when he gets up on stage. And he usually sits in with us too. So, for all you grass heads and people who've been part of the genre forever, don't miss Sam.

J Lenz: That's bluegrass heads, he means.

Jill Riley: Yes, I was gonna say for the non-grass heads... Sam Bush, but pretty significant in the world of bluegrass.

Justin Bruhn: Absolutely, yeah, and somebody you can't miss. But we have this year, a group called Big Richard. They're based out of Colorado, an all-female bluegrass group who are so fun to watch, highly energetic and really cheeky and fun and just really a great festival band who I love to watch.

J Lenz: Yeah, Greensky Bluegrass, we've had them once or twice before. They're a great kind of jam-grass band. And very excited to have Margo Price too. I think we've had Margo before, yeah, right? a few years ago.

Justin Bruhn: Yeah, we'll have to get some flowers for her to give out.

J Lenz: And I mean, there's, we've got three days of music. Some of the bands that I've never seen live or and haven't heard a lot are usually my most exciting ones that I go check out, like Amigo the Devil. I'm excited to see Rising Appalachia. I teach guitar lessons, and I've actually learned about them through a student of mine that wanted to learn some of their songs. I've learned their music, but I've never seen them or listened to too much more than just a few tunes that I've figured out the guitar parts for.

Jill Riley: Just be ready to sit in.

J Lenz: I very much am. In case they're listening. Yes.

Jill Riley: I'm talking with Justin and J of Pert Near Sandstone, talking about the upcoming Blue Ox Music Festival. And you know, we highlight some of the big names. I mean, Sam Bush is a big name in the world of bluegrass. You mentioned Margo Price. You mentioned Greensky Bluegrass. I noticed St. Paul and the Broken Bones are part of the lineup as well, which they're kind of a mainstay on The Current. Another modern name in bluegrass music, Molly Tuttle. That's gonna be a lot of fun, too.

Justin Bruhn: Oh yeah, she's incredible. If you've never seen her perform before, it's amazing. She shreds and is a great performer on top of it.

Jill Riley: Especially music festivals, you know, we'll highlight those, what we call the "bigger font names," but don't sleep on the acts that are earlier in the day, because I think there's a lot of discovery and magic to be happen there.

Justin Bruhn: Absolutely. One of my favorite things about the festival is bringing people to the stage that our audience may not have seen before. And speaking locally, Clare Doyle, she'll be there this year, and she's amazing and a really good songwriter. I wouldn't miss her.

J Lenz: Yeah, we get a lot of local groups, so we have this backwood stage where there's more local bands, more up-and-coming bands. We even do a contest, a song contest. They send in a video and the there's a few dozen of us in the that pick through and vote and have it down to, I think, what 12 groups?

Justin Bruhn: Twelve groups right now are vying for a Backwoods Stage slot on Saturday. So you can go to blueoxmusicfest.com and vote and check all those videos.

J Lenz : You can see the video and vote for your favorite.

Jill Riley: Very cool. Well, there's a lot of music at this event, but it's more than that. I mean, there are other things going on throughout the weekend as the festival runs through three days. I want to mention, this is a family-friendly event. It's all at the Pines Park. But I understand at the Pines Park, everything is contained, you guys are in one location, which I kind of love. It's like you settle into a whole community for the weekend. Can you tell us about the weekend as a whole, in addition to the music? 

J Lenz: I mean, it is family friendly, but it is also, you know, party-friendly, too. We've got a very good friend’s potluck string band that kind of hosts this little few campfire jam area. So a lot of people bring their instruments and just do some picking with different circles, and that goes quite late.

Justin Bruhn: Twenty-four hours. And then you walk by, and they'll be just exhausted, but still going, you know, it's really great.

J Lenz: And there's activities for kids too. I mean, I don't have kids, but Justin's kids are always busy all day doing stuff.

Justin Bruhn: It's a little Lord of the Flies. The kids just have their own festival, really.

Jill Riley: But that's the part of the community part that I really like.

Justin Bruhn: And you know, we hear stories of parents. Parents tell us, “Yeah, we got in the car to leave Blue Ox and my kids were asking from the back seat, ‘When do we get to come back?’” That warms my heart and is really a great aspect of the festival, is it is very family friendly. And there's a family stage and again, like the bubble guy, and there's a bunch of activities in the bowl for the kids, too.

Jill Riley: OK, very good. Justin and J of Pert Near Sandstone on The Current's Morning Show, talking about the upcoming Blue Ox Music Festival this summer. Do you have any tips for anyone who's never camped at a festival before? I mean, you've played plenty of festivals. You'll be playing at the Blue Ox Festival. You've played it in the past, but how many times have you been on the attendee campsite?

J Lenz: I always camp there. We have an artist camping section in the back. And I set up there and just rough camp.

Jill Riley: But there's the tent camping and then car camping.

Justin Bruhn: I mean, for the most part. So the Bischel family, who own the festival grounds in the festival, are very good at taking care of their campers.

J Lenz: Yes, the bathrooms are always very good. We work on that we make sure. That's a very important to everyone.

Jill Riley: Seriously, that is important.

Justin Bruhn: Yeah, people tell us all the time how appreciative they are of the clean Porta Pottys.

J Lenz: There's showers available. It's kind of like a campground shower thing, where you go and there's multiple ones, and there's usually a lineup in the morning, but it goes pretty quick, I think.

Justin Bruhn: Another thing they've introduced is… or just don't shower.

Jill Riley: At least rinse the hot spots. That was one of our camping rules with our groups, you know, we just kind of rinse the hot spots a little bit, and we'll all get along.

J Lenz: For most tent camping, there's a parking lot where you camp, and then you can walk your stuff in, and it's not very far to do that. Some people drive in and drop off.

Justin Bruhn: And you can also buy a car-camping pass.

J Lenz: You can buy a car-camping pass. That's the one thing.

Justin Bruhn: You have the security of your car right next to your camp. But they also set up camps for people who fly in, who want to come in, and not bring all the gear.

Jill Riley: The glamping experience, yes.

Justin Bruhn: I mean, really, I wouldn't worry about it. If you're hesitant about it, we'll take care of you. It gets figured out. There's plenty of great food trucks, too. I mean, if you run low on food.

J Lenz: And it's always everybody's having a good time. And I know everybody will say that about their festivals, but literally, we've rarely had any issues at all, any trouble.

Justin Bruhn: Except for weather. We always had one weather event.

J Lenz: One weekend that was really, really beautiful was the virtual Blue Ox year, where there was only like us and Charlie Parr and Kind Country there and horse shows.

Jill Riley: And that's when it's gonna be perfect. Talking with J and Justin, Pert Near Sandstone, about the upcoming Blue Ox Music Festival. Now you have had a hand in curating this festival in, being founders, co-founders, I'm not quite sure how that works, but it's been, what, a decade plus now? I mean, that's a really big deal, putting on an event and not only that, but also playing.

J Lenz: Well, the Bischels have been running music festivals there. Like you said that's a campground, they've been doing that country jam.

Justin Bruhn: They did it for three, three to four decades.

J Lenz: So, it ended a huge, huge, huge thing. So we were out on the road with The Travelin' McCourys, playing in Colorado. And Jim Bischel actually came up. I was selling merch at the time, and came up and said, “I'm from Wisconsin. I think I want to do a bluegrass thing,” or whatever. And I'm like, “Cool. Sure, guy. Put your name on the email.” And then he reaches out to us and like, “Whoa, OK, this guy. He's real. He is really for real.” So, yeah, we just started working.

Justin Bruhn: Initially wanted to do a bluegrass stage at Country Jam. Then we toured the site, and we're like, we could have a festival right here at the site you were talking about.

Jill Riley: Within the campground.

Justin Bruhn: In the campground. We decided it was a good idea, we went ahead with it. And now, 11 years later, they have sold their stake in Country Jam and focus now entirely on Blue Ox, which is great because, I mean, the festival has become a special thing.

Jill Riley: It has a great reputation.

Justin Bruhn: Yeah. It's just so hard to fathom that it's been 11 years and that we've had all these amazing artists come through. We are eternally grateful and really lucky to have it.

Jill Riley: You are listening to The Current's Morning Show. We're talking about the Blue Ox Music Festival, and that is coming this summer. Oh, festival season. It's right around the corner. Blue Ox, June 26 to 28. And where can people find the whole lineup? Where can people find more information?

Justin Bruhn: Yeah, blueoxmusicfestival.com has got lineup, and I think schedules have been announced. I'm not positive about that. It will give you all the camping information.  Information on what to bring, what not to bring. That's that's another thing, the website's really thorough in that regard as well. But yeah, you can go there and get all excited about coming now.

J Lenz: You can also call Justin, or stop by his house, and he'll tell you all about it.

Justin Bruhn: Twenty-four seven. I'm an open book.

Jill Riley: That's the hotline that you can call. You guys reminded me of a pro tip: So if you're not going to car camp and you're going to walk your stuff in, a collapsible wagon, I learned that pro tip at the Hinterland Festival in Iowa. I saw people with all these collapsible wagons, and I went, “Oh, that's a great idea. We're going to add that to our list.”

J Lenz: Yes, because, I mean, the paths are smooth and good for the most part, and so they get those rugged wagons.

Jill Riley: And if you forget it, somebody is going to help you out, believe me: “Use my wagon.” That's the thing too, when you get into something like the Blue Ox Festival, if you forget it, somebody else is going to remember it. If you need help, and you ask for help, somebody is going to help you out. I'm telling you, that's the kind of vibe that you guys have had a big hand in putting on. So that is so great. Congratulations, a pre-congratulations on another year and it's coming, the Blue Ox Music Festival. Justin and J of Pert Near Sandstone. Thank you so much for coming in and creating this great community just right over the border in Wisconsin.

Justin Bruhn: Yeah they're our brothers and sisters over there, our neighbors.

Jill Riley: Excellent. Let's find the ways we are alike, as opposed to the ways we are different. You are listening to The Current.

External Links

Blue Ox Music Festival – official site

Pert Near Sandstone – official site