The biggest week-long music event in Minnesota launches Sunday in Duluth. Kicking off the 27th Annual Homegrown Music Festival, founder Scott “Starfire” Lunt will give a toast during an opening reception and free kickoff concert at Hoops Brewing in Canal Park.

This year’s Homegrown will feature 177 local acts performing at 38 venues throughout the Twin Ports from Sunday, April 27, until Sunday, May 4. Originally a five-band beach house birthday party for Lunt in 1998, the event has become a raucous Northland music scene celebration showcasing the area's diverse and always evolving talent.

At Homegrown, Duluth music fans can find foundational standouts like Lunt’s alt-country band Father Hennepin, eerie folk project Superior Siren, or waterfront troubadour Teague Alexy. It’s also a place for discoveries. Charlie Parr protégé Jon Edwards, Freak of the Week party starter DJ Nola, hip-hop princess Kayla K, and happy metal rockers Interstellar Overdrive are all ready for a bigger audience.

For the price of a $40 weeklong wristband, music lovers are sent into a different neighborhood each night that offers a cluster of venues and a diverse array of music. An open-minded music lover won’t need any help to find their groove, and roughly a third of the venues are admission-free.

Former Duluth Homegrown board member and past festival director Walt Dizzo says the Homegrown scheduling formula is a secret to its success. “I would recommend to anyone going to the festival to check out a handful of bands that are new to them,” he says. “There might be a singer-songwriter who has played 20 years of Homegrown and you’ve never checked them out. Now is your opportunity.”

Established headliners can draw big crowds at Homegrown, says Dizzo. But a smaller venue nearby may have an unheralded artist. This is where the magic happens. “The whole idea is to check out things you’ve never seen before,” he says. “You might find your favorite band that you didn’t even know you liked.”

To that end, here are three up-and-coming bands beginning to make a name for themselves on the North Shore. Track them down this week at Homegrown.

Willem Dafoe Fan Club

Serious, introspective songwriting and the kitchy-but-well-loved Omnichord synthesizer sparked a relationship and musical collaboration between guitarist Noah Ruona and drummer Hollis Sparhawk back in the fall of 2023.

The couple put together a Christmas show that year under the moniker Willem Dafoe Fan Club and started writing original songs together. Ruona drew inspiration from a punk background but also experimented with softer soundscapes. Sparhawk created work on the Omnichord. They developed a hypnotic, dreamy, slowcore sound that feels sad, uplifting, and always very personal.

“When I was in middle school I had panic attacks nearly every night because I was afraid to talk to people and experience the world,” says Ruona. He says music from bands like Slowdive, Joy Division, Margo Guryan, The Beatles, Gorillaz, and the Velvet Underground helped him carry on. “These bands wrote music that I felt spoke to me and helped calm my nerves and so, borrowing from these influences, I try to capture some of that same calming energy.”

Sparhawk grew up in a musical family with her parents Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk of Low. “So my music has always tended toward the slow and simple,” she says. Beach House and a Boston-based group called Mini Dresses inspire her songwriting. Vocalists like Karen Carpenter, Kate Bush, and her mother have helped define her singing. “I want to gradually push my voice to be a more refined instrument,” Sparhawk says.

Willem Dafoe Fan Club made their Homegrown debut in 2024 and recently added Jon Marshall on bass. The trio has performed at the White Squirrel Bar in St. Paul and regularly performs around Duluth, including the dark and mysterious Jade Fountain in West Duluth.

Sparhawk says the band’s music is designed to comfort the listener and help calm their confusion. “Music has brought a lot of peace to us,” she says. “We want to share our art so that maybe others can feel that peace.”

Willem Dafoe Fan Club perform at 9 p.m. on Friday, May 2, at Sacred Heart Music Center in downtown Duluth.

The Langertsons

The Langertsons are a North Country family band who have been singing and writing songs together since before any of the members could drive.

Featuring two pairs of siblings - Josie and Audrey Langhorst and Amri and Eli Gilbertson - the group formed through a small country church in Mahtowa where their families performed in a collective called the Holy Hootenanners. Now, barely out of high school, the band has three records and is pushing its sound into new and more serious places.

The Langertsons blend indie-pop and folk rock with a youthful energy and introspective lyrics designed to resonate with a wider audience, says songwriter and vocalist Josie Langhorst.

“I pull words from real conversations and conflicts, and also take things that are happening to us and around us, and compile them together to create art,” she says. “The only time I really lack inspiration is when I forget to look around.”

The group released the Peppery Cat EP last summer, recorded with Rich Mattson at his Sparta Sound studio on the Iron Range. The record delivers soul-stirring blood harmonies, piano-driven heartbreakers, and a tight sound.

Pianist Amri Gilbertson says the group has always been involved in music. As children, they traveled with the Holy Hootenanners and grew up listening to talented Mahtowa artists like Boss Mama & the Jebberhooch, the Gilbertson Brothers, Kilometers Davis, and Saltydog.

“Their music is personal and lively, rooted in deep connection,” says Gilbertson. “Each band pours love into what they create, and that love flows through those present. What matters most isn’t just the music, but the time they spend creating it together. People, connection, and stories are centered, fueling the soul and enhancing art.”

Now the Langertsons are forging their own path. “I hope our songs encourage listeners to notice, feel, and reflect. There is so much to take in, nothing should be taken for granted,” she says. “In connecting with ourselves and each other, space for joy, healing, and understanding is created.”

The Langertsons perform at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 2 at Spirit of the Lake Community Arts in Duluth’s Lakeside neighborhood.

Peat Boggs

There’s jazz fusion, groove psychedelia, folk, even a little doom metal and punk floating around in the soundscape created by Peat Boggs. The slowly assembled Duluth four-piece released their debut EP, Good Enough, last summer.

Guitar player Cole Webster and bassist Ben Wagener met at the University of Minnesota Duluth in 2013 to form the band’s core. Drummer Chris Shea joined in 2015, and Charlie French brought his vocals and lyric work in 2019.

“The formation of Peat Boggs was an organic process that stemmed from enjoying each other’s musical styles and company,” says Webster. “(Our) origin story is the product of a long-term culmination of friends who, much like the band’s name suggests, seek to create a rich musical landscape.”

In the natural world, a peat bog is a type of wetland where vegetation gathers but never quite takes root. It’s a loose, spacious place constantly on the move. The band forms a similar musical landscape centered around French’s sing-talk vocals and mostly gentle guitar and bass waves.

Peat Boggs namecheck experimental bands King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Ween; mainstream rockers like Led Zeppelin and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers; and Japanese jazz artists Jiro Inagaki and Hiroshi Susiki for inspiration. Duluth music fans can’t help but hearing the late vocalist Ben Larson and his groundbreaking band Southwire in their work, too.

It's stream-of-consciousness music, says Webster.

“We try not to judge or overthink what’s coming out. It’s more about playing with noise and words, letting it flow freely, and seeing what is revealed. We create for the sake of expression, trying to learn something for ourselves as much as anything.”

“There’s honesty in that process, and we hope people feel that. Whether it’s a “wrong” note that bends up to an unexpected resolution or just a feeling that sticks, we want the music to be something people can connect with in their own way, however it lands. Additionally, we strive to give the people something to groove to.”

Peat Boggs perform at 9:45 p.m. on Friday, May 2, at Carmody Irish Pub in downtown Duluth.