You might not be familiar with the name Paul Peck, but if you were to list your most memorable music festival experiences, chances are Peck had a hand in several of them. For years, Peck worked closely with the Bonnaroo SuperJam, curating many notable moments and unlikely collaborations.
These days, Peck has his sights set on a new endeavor, the inaugural Okeechobee Festival which is slated to kick off festival season on March 4. Peck took with him the Superjam idea, teaming with Miguel and Arcade Fire’s Win Butler for the PoWoW! along with curating a lineup that, as he says, features a fair mix of legends along with artists currently dominating the conversation today.
Read on as Peck shares his vision for Okeechobee, talks about the artists involved and the entire experience coming to Florida, hopefully, for many years to come.
One of the things I’m most curious about is the site and how you picked it. What attracted you to the site? What did you like about it?
I wasn’t really looking to make a career change. The first thing I said when I took on this project was that I’m not interested in being involved unless the site is absolutely exceptional. It’s the one thing that you can’t manufacture. It’s either there, or it’s not there. You can always bring in artists and great tunes and great vendors and tons of art, you can do that anywhere. But if the site is next level, then you have that opportunity to do something super, super special and meaningful.
The first thing I was told when I made that statement was that this was the best site they’ve ever seen. I was still a little skeptical. But I went down and saw the property myself and my mind was just exploding over the possibilities. And I hadn’t even seen the beach or that jungle area, or this amazing wooded area. It is just the most beautiful festival site I have ever seen.
To me, it’s not just about the music. Great music and a beautiful location are what festivals are about-they’re almost hand in hand, like a glass of wine with a great meal. That is what I felt had the opportunity to do. We could establish a venue in Florida that was of the caliber of The Gorge, or Red Rock, or places like that where you’re like “Holy shit! I can’t believe this is real!”
The more I saw the site, the more I connected with the property, and the more I realized what could happen there. Aside from being beautiful, this site is very, very functional. For instance, you can splash around in the water and hang out at the beach while watching the band play, and that to me is kind of like a wow experience. And this is during March, so it’s not going to be incredibly hot like it is in July or August, even May. March is optimum weather.
We want to create a destination for a very wide variety of fans. In my mind, it’s not just the ultimate spring break destination; it’s the ultimate vacation destination. This is going to be the most fantastic vacation ever. It’s one of those situations where you step outside of reality into a natural wonderland and there’s going to be art everywhere and tons of great music.
One of the things about the property that is so special and so unbelievable is these areas that have different looks and different feels and different vibes to them. The property has tons of these areas, and pathways, and camping is unbelievably comfortable. We have this one area that really looks like a tropical rainforest, and that’s going to be Jungle 51. Jungle 51 is going to run counter to Okeechobee beach, which goes from 9am-9pm or until sundown. And Jungle 51 fires up at sundown, so you can have all night dance parties in the jungle. Another thing about the property is that you can see a million stars because it’s so clear out there at night, you can just feel the depth of the constellations on top of you. So again, it’s just sort of a major paradise – like you could do nothing in the way of art out there, and it would still be the most stunning place ever. There will be electronic dance parties every night, and those’ll go until dawn. And then at dawn we’ll go back over to the beach to the water and another band will be playing there in the morning and it will be great.
You mentioned the functionality of the site—was it used previously for another event or purpose?
At one point it was used an equestrian ranch, and then in the mid 2000’s it was actually developed for housing. The road is one of the things that’s going to allow us to operate the event in an incredibly effective way. Everything is located toward the central venue, and there’s camping everywhere. It’s unbelievably convenient for fans and also for us to run a really efficient operation there. It’s not going to be the festival where you have to do tons and tons of walking every day. You’re going to be fairly close to your campground at all times.
The three main stages placed on that property, we’re going to call them “The Grove.” The property as a whole is called “Sunshine Grove,” because the center of it is the grove. The beach and the jungle are in an area that we’re calling “Moonlight Oasis,” because it will be open around the clock.
The Grove is the area where the three main stages are going to be. Everyone will come from the campground and see these beautiful pathways through the forest. They’ll light up and you’ll come through it and it’s going to feel like a transformative experience. You walk through these pathways and appear on the other side. It’s just this amazing open stage with tons of grass, trees, and it’s all wide and it’s open and it’s flat. There’s a beautiful natural tree line around it, which is just mind-blowing.
You’ve talked a lot about the overall experience for the festivalgoer. How important is that in today’s music festival culture?
It’s so important. An amazing concert can be inspiring in and of itself. But then you bring this other piece into it, the surrounding environment. A whole curated experience that is meant to take you out of reality and put you in a different space. That’s the type of experience where the music and the fans and the artists can take everyone collectively to another level.
This isn’t like a festival for one type of music, this is a festival for people who just want to come out and experience stuff. If you want to come out and have an experience and see everything. It isn’t for one type of music fan, it’s something we’re creating for everybody. That’s what it’s all about.
To me, that’s when I have the most meaningful experiences is when I stumble upon something or connect with a type of music that I didn’t know that I connected with before. That’s when you grow as a person, when you feel a different kind of inspiration that you didn’t expect, or you meet somebody new that you connected with, and you never met someone like that before. Or you see a piece of art in a certain way because of the frame of mind you’re in or because of the time of the day or because of the experience you just had. What we’re really trying to do here is create a special experience for people and provide inspiration that people can take back out of it to their regular, everyday lives. It’s a really big opportunity because this place is so special and because it’s in Florida, and because the weather that time of year is so special. I want to create something different, something meaningful, and something a community that we form around. I think the first year that we do it is going to be really, really special.
Florida has had several festivals come and go over the last decade or so with very little success. What will be Okeechobee’s staying power?
It’s the site. The site is just next-level. I don’t think there’s another site like this in the country and certainly not where the weather is as beautiful as it is this time of year. What we’re creating is a bit of an old-school experience. A lot of us live in cities and we don’t get the opportunity that often to go out and see nature. This is an opportunity to not only go out to nature but to have world-class, A-level entertainment to enjoy in a place that just has unbelievable natural beauty. I think that’s what sets this festival apart from every other festival in the world. It’s just different like that.
Let’s shift to the lineup itself. What did you set out to accomplish with this group of artists and how do you think you did in constructing the lineup?
I really wanted to create a diverse lineup. I spent a long time in New Orleans, and it’s sort of my spiritual home. I went to New Orleans thinking that I liked one type of music, and I left New Orleans thinking – knowing – that I like every kind of music. And I want people to have a similar experience with this festival. I want this festival to be an eye-opener. I want people to discover things about themselves and their taste and their capacity to be inspired by different things that they didn’t know they were going to connect with. I tried to have a really diverse lineup that was curated with a great deal of care from top to bottom.
Really, in my opinion, there’s a lot of depth to this lineup, and I’m a music fan first. I go to a lot of festivals, and, again, my most meaningful experiences are when I stumble across something new that I didn’t know about. We really wanted to put together a lineup that was really well-crafted from the bottom just as well as the top. I really feel like we’re going to be experiencing some of tomorrow’s biggest bands, the artists that, in a few years, are going to be playing on the main stage, in a smaller, more intimate way. That was how we tried to craft the lineup.
I don’t think it’s super all over the place, there’s some consistency there, but the consistency is generated by artists that are inspired and inspiring, and really have some weight to them, and some value. That’s what we wanted to put together, and it was a very coordinated effort to curate a variety of genres and make it a very diverse offering.
At the same time, at the top level, the headliner level, we have legends at the festival, of course. We have Robert Plant and Hall & Oates, and who doesn’t want to see Robert Plant play Led Zeppelin songs live, in the beautiful situation, and I don’t think he’s played in Florida in years. That was a no-brainer, if we could get him. We were really fortunate that he was going to start his tour on our date.
And Hall & Oates, I just think the festival at the end of the day is all about fun, so nothing to me says fun more than Hall & Oates. They’re underappreciated in a weird way, because of the depths of the hits they have, and the depths of amazing songs and how fun the show is. They’re just such an amazing band, performing at such a high level, and they’re so fun.
On the headline level, I want to showcase things that are happening now. I want to have some legends on there – we have those guys and couple of other legends, too – but I really wanted to showcase amazing artists that are happening now. That’s why we’re having Kendrick Lamar out there. He’s one of the most inspired, inspiring, talented, skillful, vibrant artists in the world right now. He’s in his prime; the guy’s on an absolute hot streak. I also think putting him to next to Mumford & Sons, that shows a range of diversity right there. Both bands are amazing songwriters and can evoke a range of emotions with their music and their craft, and they’re both incredible performers, too.
Also Skrillex and Bassnectar and Odesza: when you look at dance music nowadays, there’s such diversity in dance music. I think sometimes people see EDM as all electronic music, or all dance music, and that’s not it at all. There is so much texture and contour within that genre, and I think those three people show the diversity within the genre of dance music.
We have two of the biggest rap stars in the world right now, Future and Fetty Wap and Miguel, who’s just an amazing singer, I mean, he’s almost like our modern-day version of Prince or Michael Jackson. We have him out there, and then of course Ween, which is such an amazing one for us, and Grace Potter and Jason Isbell and Big Gigantic and Lettuce and Portugal. The Man, one of my favorite rock bands.
It’s really all about the depth of the lineup, and even things like Lil’ Dicky. The guy is a really big talent. The list goes on and on. White Denim, one of the best bands out there right now. Or Dr. Dog, or Deer Tick, or GIVERS from New Orleans. We have Booker T. Jones out there, Kamasi Washington. I’m really, really proud of the lineup and I think people are going to have a ton of fun just stumbling upon stuff and exploring things.
I want to have the kind of lineup where you can skip your favorite band and see something that’s almost equally or more inspiring. That’s what we wanted to have out there. Then, of course, the whole collaboration thing. That’s one of the things as a music fan that I’ve always been passionate about, these experiences when you see something that you feel is never going to happen again, and the artists are feeding off each other.
When I was at Bonnaroo I would work very closely with artists to produce the SuperJams and create these really special, once-in-a-lifetime concert moments. In a way, I produced the kinds of moments that I want to see. I really work with artists to figure out what they are going to be inspired to do, and give a little bit of ideas and direction for how we can execute that, then bring in the right artist to help do it, to help make it a reality. And I’m doing it because I just want to watch that show and I want to watch it with a great audience.
For example, that’s one of the reasons that we wanted to have Big Boi and Phantogram out there, because that’s such a cool collaboration. One of the best rappers of all time with so much lyrical dexterity and then you put him with a group like Phantogram. It might be the only time they ever play Florida, so we kind of had to have that one.
In terms of SuperJam stuff, we’re going to be engineering a bunch of really special, collaborative performances at the festival this year. It’s always in my signature at Bonnaroo to create those moments. At Okeechobee, it’s going to be a major focus. We’re going to take that concept of the SuperJam, the special show with superstar artists doing stuff that’s collaborative and stepping outside of their comfort zones, and take that concept to the next level.
A lot of it is going to be a surprise because one of the things that I always love is surprises. So in my shows I like to create these surprise moments that people aren’t expecting, whether it’s R. Kelly coming out with Jim James, John Oates and Brittany Howard, or The Meters at 3:30 in the morning.
I’m working with Miguel, who’s an artist that I wanted to have on those SuperJams for a very long time. The idea to work with him is one of the key pieces of the show, where we can re-explore the classic music that we’ve listen to our entire lives, and do it in a live setting. He’s going to be an amazing artist to work with, and we’re going to put together what we’re calling the PoWoW! at Okeechobee, that’s our version of the SuperJam.
We’re going to put together a crazy lineup of other superstar artists, and another virtuoso behind them, and just do a show like none of us have ever seen before. We’re going to show an artist like that who’s a pop star, but we’re gonna show him in a totally different way, kind of like what we did with Skrillex at Bonnaroo. We’re going to take this visionary artist guy that’s legendary for musing all of these diverse influences into this one cohesive set, and let’s put a backing band behind him and do a live band representation of an amazing DJ mixtape, and put that out there in a way that nobody expected. That’s what we’re going to do with Miguel.
We’re also going to engineer some other really special collaborative moments that fit into the festival that are going to blow people’s minds.
What can you tell me about the decision to expand to a fourth day? That isn’t something you necessarily see from a first-year festival.
I think with the fourth day, it was, “We’re going to have the site ready and we’re going to have all the art out there. I think people want to come out, so why don’t we just open the gates?” I was so excited to show people the property, so let’s do it a little bit earlier. We’re going to have everything out there, why don’t we just throw a party in our beach and have a late-night dance rage in the jungle? That was the idea. The site’s already going to be set up, the art’s already going to be out there, let’s open the doors and get things started.
I’ll leave you with this: What’s the long-term vision for Okeechobee?
I do want to stay in the moment, but I want to have an eye on how we’re going to grow this thing. Right now, we have a really big site, but we’re going out of our way to keep things pretty intimate in our first year. We want to run a next-level event. This opportunity is going to be a really meaningful experience in people’s lives, like a rite of passage, almost like a ritualistic tradition. The idea of a great community of humans gathering in nature, that’s to me a very old-school experience.
The current world is always, by definition, new school, and we all spend a lot time staring at our screens and our phones and our computers. I want to get outside of that world and go into nature and create a ritualistic tradition based upon experiencing the energy and being in close proximity to other great people and great artists and great art. I want this to be a rite of passage that people know.
The long-term goal is to put out continually great energy into the world. The way you do that is you connect humans together and you inspire them, and they take that energy back to the real world. I want to grow that, and I want create that energy in a bigger way every year. So we’re going to start a little bit smaller and, hopefully, we’re going to get a little bit bigger. It’s really all about creating amazing experiences and creating a place that’s going to be a step outside of reality. It’s going to provide a great context on your life and your real world, just in this tradition that every year you come back and get refreshed and reinvigorated by the inspiration that comes from connecting with other people and with music and art. I think it’s going to be perfect.
