Jesse Flemming and his twin brother had a party about ten years ago - a rave - that after some inspiration from the almighty Coachella began to evolve. Starting with a little over a hundred people, an event design company called The Do LaB and an overabundance of creativity, that little birthday party exploded into a three-day festival that now features over 60 musical artists, dozens of speakers and not enough time to experience it all. Lightning in a Bottle - that party's given name - will come alive from the lush campgrounds of Silverado, California, starting on Memorial Day Weekend; but before it does, its co-founder Jesse took some time to shine a little light on its evolution, present attractions and future.
Danielle Fowler: I guess let’s start off with: where are you from originally and how did you get started doing what you do?
Jesse Flemming: I’m from a small town called Morgantown, Pennsylvania … Yeah, it’s just cows and corn, pretty much. But I moved out here to Los Angeles about twelve years ago and I kinda grew up throwing parties with my brothers at our house when our parents left town and all that stuff. And when we moved out here, we kinda got into the rave scene a little bit, and we started throwing little rave parties in the mountains north of Los Angeles, and that’s kinda where Lightning in a Bottle started. It was a birthday party in the mountains ten, eleven years ago, and over the years we kept doing it and it kept growing and evolving, and it turned into a three-day musical festival. So that’s kinda how we ended up where we’re at today.
DF: I bet that person feels special!
JF: Yeah, it was actually for my brother and I, my twin brother and I, it was our birthday party.
DF: Oh, wow! That’s pretty cool! So what’s the goal of the festival now?
JF: You know, everybody that works on the festival has a different goal, but for me, the goal is to reach people that are looking for a different way of life and kind of inspire them to be creative and follow their dreams. I don’t want to say 'follow their dreams' in a cheesy sort of way, but we’re people that have kind of followed our own dreams and plowed our way through life to do whatever we want. We just make things happen. We want to show young people in the next generation that really anything is possible. You can do whatever you want to do as long as you go after it.
DF: So it started ten to eleven years ago?
JF: It did, yeah. I mean, there were 150 people the first year. It was a one-night event, and then over the years it evolved.
DF: So what did you hope it would be or become from then?
JF: Back then we didn’t have any idea that it would be anything like it is now. It was just a party. Over the years we started going to more festivals like Coachella and we were really inspired by what they were doing and we decided that we wanted to focus our energy on doing festivals like that. We took the one event that we had and kinda converted it to a multi-day event and really started to add new elements, like performances, and workshops, and speakers and yoga.
DF: Has it stayed in Silverado or did it start somewhere else?
JF: You know, when it became an official three-day festival, it was actually in Santa Barbara for three years on a beautiful campground up there, but we kind of grew out of that location I think in 2008; so in 2009 we took a year off and last year in 2010 we found this location down in Silverado that’s working out amazingly for us. So we’re pretty happy about that.
DF: That’s great! What’s your greatest inspiration when it comes to this festival?
JF: When it comes to this festival, wow, well my inspiration is like...I’m really just inspired by creating wonderful experiences for people, you know? I like people to come and be completely surrounded by things that they’ve never seen before and create this energy where it’s like every time you turn around it’s just like, “Oh my god, look at that!” and “Oh my god, look at that! It’s just crazy!” It’s just a lot of fun to just create that.
DF: Is there an aesthetic that you usually adhere to?
JF: You know we definitely pay attention to aesthetics a lot. It’s very important to us. I don’t think there is any one aesthetic that we stick with, but it’s definitely something that we spend a lot of time on. We definitely design the details - everything down to the signs and every stage and every booth. It’s all kind of dialed-in. You won’t really see a bunch of things just thrown up like an easy-up stage or something like that. It’s all pretty designed and dialed-in.
DF: What’s the overall plan for the event structure? I noticed on the website that you guys had all kinds of crazy-looking flowers and things like that. Is there anything going on in the festival in that way?
JF: Definitely! There definitely is. We have a lot of great artists on board this year that are coming out and building all kinds of different styles of art installations. Some of them are really big, some are really small, but for all the festival stages we usually design ourselves with our in-house team. We’ve got one stage that’s gonna be built all out of bamboo, which we call the Bamboo Stage. It’s pretty beautiful stuff. It’s a great material to work with, and the other stages are going to be new designs that are just different woods and fabrics and materials. You won’t just see any stage at this festival that looks like a stage anywhere else. It’s not going to be like a big truss stage with a bunch of lights. Each stage just looks like an art piece standing in a field by itself.
DF: That’s amazing. I’ve heard a lot of good things about bamboo and how not only does it grow like a weed but you can do almost anything with it.
JF: You really can! It’s extremely versatile and it's really strong. It’s actually stronger than metal in a lot of cases. It’s a pretty great material to work with.
DF: What other sustainable or natural materials do you guys usually use?
JF: You know, leaves, bamboo, another material called rattan a lot, which is kind of like bamboo except it’s flexible. Other than that, not all of the materials are sustainable, but a lot of what we do is reuse materials. We like to repurpose materials and find materials that have been used for one purpose and actually take them and build something completely different out of them, like palates. For years we’ve been taking shipping palates and breaking them down and reconstructing them into stages and art pieces. Everything we do we try and recycle things. We really like to reuse and recycle things.
DF: Sounds neat. What’s been the hardest part about getting the festival together?
JF: One of the hardest parts is, there’s a lot of logistics involved. This year we’re expecting between eight and ten thousand people, and managing that many people is pretty difficult. Trying to find a location where you can do something like this is definitely difficult. That’s why we found a new home here in Silverado and we’re really excited because it’s not an easy thing to do to find a place where you can throw an event where you have this much creative expression and just freedom for people to explore and have fun. So I'd say that’s the hardest part.
DF: Yeah, I’ve seen the line-up; you guys have tons of artists coming in, and lots of speakers, too. Are there any musical artists that you’re looking forward to?
JF: Yeah, I’m looking forward to the headliners; Pretty Lights and Thievery Corporation, but I’ve got a lot of other favorites on the line-up. Beats Antique is going to be great. I’m really excited for Emancipator, who’s an up-and-coming electronic artist that’s just really making beautiful, feel-good music. There’s some other things like Y La Bamba from Portland, Oregon. It’s kinda like gypsy folk music. It’s going to be really nice. Honestly, I like it all. I think everything we’ve got going on this year is going to be good. That’s my biased opinion, but I book the line-up so it’s kind of, I kinda don’t book things if I don’t like them.
DF: Makes sense. Is there anyone who didn’t make it that you would want to have on the line-up?
JF: There’s a lot of people that we tried to get, but it didn’t work out this year. Hopefully in future years. Everything from Michael Franti to Bassnectar. Really there’s tons of things that just don't work out with tour schedules this year but hopefully in the future we can get those things going.
DF: Is there any kind of specific genre that you enjoy best, for just the overall ambiance of the festival?
JF: I enjoy all genres in music, but for me personally, I really like just melodic, ambient music. Nothing too hard, nothing too soft, just kinda right in the middle. That’s works for me and just kinda makes me happy. That’s kind of what I like and I feel like that’s overall the DoLab sound that we attract. Those kinds of artists and fans of those artists as well.
DF: What would be the ideal experience, and how would you make that experience continue all-year-round if you could?
JF: The ideal festival experience?
DF:Yeah!
JF: Wow, you know I think that doing a music festival on an island would be pretty ideal.
DF: Wow, on an island!
JF: Having people come in and out all-year-round would potentially work out pretty well but I don’t know if it’s ideal to have a festival year-round.
DF: It’d be like a commune!
JF: Yeah, it would be like a commune! Kind of like a resort even. Who knows, maybe someday we’ll get an island to do that on.
DF: Maybe an island will pop up just for that.
JF: I hope so.
DF: Are there any changes that you can already see happening in the future for future Lightning in a Bottle festivals?
JF: There’s definitely changes specific to this particular location. We’re expanding into a little more property, expanding our camping areas and moving things around. Just trying to make better flow of traffic and just so much nicer festival grounds for people so everybody has a better time. In the future, I don’t know how long we’ll be able to stay at this location. Eventually we might need to find a larger property. Ideally, the middle of nowhere with a lot of trees.
DF: That sounds good! What would you recommend most to people attending for the first time?
JF: I would recommend to not stay in any one place for too long and really explore and visit all the different areas and catch a little bit of everything. A lot of people come just because they’re really just into the music and they might stay focused on the music the whole time, but there’s really so much more going on. There’s art installations kind of hidden in every corner. There’s amazing workshops where you can learn everything about food and energy and meditation, or hula-hooping and things like that. Just great yoga classes. The speakers, there’s a lot of wisdom at this festival. There’s a lot of people talking on topics that are at the forefront of consciousness. So there’s a lot of great stuff. And then there’s tons of performances. There’s just so much stuff happening that you really can’t stay in one place at any time. I would just recommend trying to not have a schedule, trying to just explore and just go with the flow and see what happens.
DF: Man, you’re making me envious of everyone living in California right now.
JF: You might need to catch a flight out here!
DF: Well thank you so much for taking talking with me, Jesse.
JF: Absolutely.
The Do LaB: website | facebook
Lightning in a Bottle Festival: website | facebook