Freakout Festival is an annual four-day

underground music Underground music is music with practices perceived as outside, or somehow opposed to, Popular music, mainstream popular music culture. Underground styles lack the commercial success of popular music movements, and may involve the use of avant-g ...

festival held at various venues around the Ballard neighborhood of

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

each November. Since 2013, this festival has featured a mix of independent and mainstream performers, and has garnered press from around the globe. The programming primarily focuses on

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

, and

psychedelic rock Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...

music, but has also been known to include

hip-hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hi ...

electronic Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductors * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic c ...

and more

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...

forms of music. Headliners have included icons of

garage A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include: *Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicl ...

, punk and psychedelic music such as

The Seeds The Seeds are an American psychedelic garage rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965, best known for their highest-charting single " Pushin' Too Hard". The band's classic lineup featured frontman Sky Saxon, guitarist Jan Sava ...

Kid Congo Powers Brian Tristan (born March 27, 1959), better known by his stage name Kid Congo Powers,Strong, Martin C. (2003) ''The Great Indie Discography'', Canongate, , p. 25, 41, 359 is an American rock guitarist, singer, and actor best known as a member of ...

Os Mutantes Os Mutantes (, ''The Mutants'') are an influential Brazilian rock band that were linked with the Tropicália movement, a dissident musical movement during the Brazilian dictatorship of the late 1960s. The band is considered to be one of the m ...

and Los Dug Dug's, alongside more contemporary artists such as the Night Beats, All Them Witches,

Viagra Boys Viagra Boys is a Swedish punk band formed in Stockholm in 2015. The line-up currently consists of lead singer Sebastian Murphy alongside musicians Linus Hillborg (guitar), Elias Jungqvist (keyboards), Henrik Höckert (bass), Tor Sjödén (drums), ...

and Alex Maas of The Black Angels. In 2021, '' The Stranger'' named Freakout Festival "Seattle's Best Festival". The organizers behind Freakout Festival also run the associated record label, Freakout Records, which has operated since 2015, releasing an eclectic mix of rock and roll records from the Pacific Northwest. Freakout Festival has also produced stages at

SXSW South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

and

Treefort Music Fest Treefort Music Fest is a five-day indie rock festival held at several venues throughout downtown Boise, Idaho in late March. The inaugural festival took place from March 20–23, 2012, featuring Built to Spill, The Joy Formidable, Poliça, a ...

, and collaborated with Mexico City's Festival NRMAL and The Lodge Room in Los Angeles. In 2022, Freakout established the "Freakout Weekender", a 2-day mini festival held in spring in collaboration with

The Crocodile The Crocodile (formerly the Crocodile Cafe, and sometimes called The Croc) is a music club at 2505 1st Avenue at Wall Street in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. Opened by Stephanie Dorgan as the "Crocodile C ...

History

Freakout Festival was founded in 2013 by Seattle musician Guy Keltner (of

Acid Tongue ''Acid Tongue'' is the debut solo album, second overall by American singer-songwriter Jenny Lewis, released in September 2008 through Warner Bros. and Rough Trade Records. Inspired by jam sessions, the album was recorded December 2007-March 200 ...

), and was originally referred to as The Psychedelic Holiday Freakout. The first edition was held in the

Capitol Hill Capitol Hill is a neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., neighborhood in Washington, D.C., located in both the Northeast, Washington, D.C., Northeast and Southeast, Washington, D.C., Southeast quadrants. It is bounded by 14th Street SE & NE, F S ...

neighborhood of Seattle, featuring 39 rock and hip hop artists from around the United States, including

Jared James Nichols Jared James Nichols (born March 14, 1989) is an American blues-rock guitarist and singer from East Troy, Wisconsin, best known for his high-energy " pick-less" electric guitar playing technique. He is rarely seen playing without his signature si ...

. In its second year, the festival moved to the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. In 2015, the festival hosted acts such as

No Age No Age is an American noise rock duo consisting of guitarist Randy Randall and drummer/vocalist Dean Allen Spunt. The band is based in Los Angeles, California, and was signed to Sub Pop records from 2008 to 2013. No Age's fourth studio album, '' ...

. The same year, Keltner founded

independent record label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small and medium-sized enterprise, small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels ...

Freakout Records with his

bandmate Ian Cunningham and colleague Skyler Locatelli from

KEXP-FM KEXP-FM (90.3 FM) is a non-commercial radio station in Seattle, Washington, United States, specializing in indie music programmed by its disc jockeys. KEXP's studios are located at the Seattle Center, and the transmitter is in the city's Capi ...

. The event was moved from December in 2016 due to heavy snowfall during a set of one of the performers. Festival founder Guy Keltner is a

second generation Second generation or variants may refer to: * Second generation immigrant ** Nisei, one of the second generation of people of Japanese descent in the Americas * Second generation of Chinese leaders, see Generations of Chinese leadership * Second-ge ...

Mexican American Mexican Americans are Americans of full or partial Mexico, Mexican descent. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the Unite ...

on his mother's side, and his regular visits to family in Mexico City resulted in a strong connection to the punk community in Mexico and South America. In 2021, Freakout organized an online concert series called ''Freakout Live!'', which was profiled in ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' and featured performers from Paris, Toulouse, Madrid, Mexico and Seattle. In 2022, Freakout partnered with Seattle independent club

to produce the 2-day mini festival the Freakout Weekender.

References

{{reflist

External links

Official Website

Freakout Records Official Website
Music festivals in Washington (state) Culture of Seattle Music festivals established in 2013