From humble beginnings Bedlam Breakout has risen in stature to become the UK’s premier psychobilly festival…and it’s held in the heart of the country at Northampton’s Roadmender venue. Running from the evening of Friday 14th March to late on Sunday 16th, Bedlam serves up a diverse range of music from classic rockabilly to full-on psychobilly and all points in between. We spoke to Tobe Wright one of several friends who combine their efforts to make the festival happen. Here’s what he had to say:
To those who’ve never heard the word “psychobilly” before, how would you describe the scene?
A non-political, dark humoured mixture of punk and rockabilly.
Bedlam Breakout festival has a long history from small pub gigs to its current home at the Roadmenders venue. Can you give us a history of Bedlam
We first started, as you say, putting on small evening gig’s in the back room of the Racehorse pub in Northampton and that grew into our first two all day gigs in the Irish centre opposite the pub. We lost a lot of money on the second festival and stopped for nearly ten years, as family commitments got in the way, including having our wonderful daughter…but the fire was still burning and we resurrected it again as an all day festival at the Soundhouse venue in the town…which went fairly well, so we continued from there. This progressed to having a few bands on the Friday night in the Labour Club which quickly turned into returning to the Racehorse due to the numbers turning up. We then had to move the Saturday to the Roadmender and this eventually made sense to have the Friday pre-party at the main venue to. It kind of grew with many people from abroad coming and we felt the best thing to do for safety reasons was to have aftershow gig’s to keep everyone in the same pubs, using the King Billy first but quickly moving to The Bear around the corner from the Roadmender. This became popular and numbers were increasing so we decided to extend the festival to an all dayer on the Sunday too. Now bearing in mind we were doing this twice a year in March and September for a few years…which was mad looking back at it all. it had almost become an unpaid full time job on top of our real jobs. We also run our online merchandise shop alongside the festival which helps to fund the whole thing, but eventually we decided it was best to cut back to the one weekender a year to take some of the pressure off, and that’s where we are with it today.
The festival used to be held twice a year, but recently it has just been once annually. Do you think it’ll ever return twice a year
Following on from the above, I’d say probably not now as it’s a lot easier to handle the one each March and keep running the shop side all year round….but never say never 😅
Friday evening is a good way for people unfamiliar with Bedlam to come and check things out. Can you give us a flavour of the Friday night bands?
Sure, Friday evening is a great mixture of the styles that kinda makes up the psychobilly sound, but we lean towards the rockin’ styles more so this year we have the original 1980’s line up of the Stargazers along with the Deltas and The Caravans.. not forgetting the psychobilly styles of the Sin Kings and a great band from Finland The Hellblazers.
Both Saturday and Sunday are full day events. Pretty much all the bands are essential viewing, but can you give us a few highlights?
Saturday is a good mixture of band’s showcasing such a variety of styles on the psychobilly scene, with bands from all over the globe. Batmobile from Holland headline with their heavily rockabilly influenced neo-psychobilly sound, the UK stalwarts The Long Tall Texans play a no nonsense rockin’ psychobilly sound with a little bit of a ska feel to some of their numbers. There’s a heavy punk influenced band from France called The Kryptonix making their Bedlam debut as well as another newcomer from Finland called De la Rocka who really have a cool modern psychobilly sound…Midlands based garage trash band The Kings Of Hong Kong return to with lots of others old and new
Sunday is headlined by the incredible live mayhem of Demented Are Go who are just legendary on the scene. We’ve got the Brains from Canada with their own modern twist, and just confirmed at the last minute we’ve got the Welsh rockin’ legend the John Lewis Trio playing his wild rockabilly…the line up is a solid list of great bands again displaying how diverse the scene is.
Psychobilly is a truly global movements with bands on most continents. The whole Covid pandemic made it hard to book overseas acts. Are you now able to attract overseas bands as before? Can you tell us about the international acts at this year’s Bedlam?
Oh yeah…we have so many bands from abroad approaching us wanting to play here and we chase up lots ourselves: a band from Spain called the Graveyard Mutants play their Bedlam debut on Sunday with a neo-rockabilly style psychobilly. Clockwork Psycho return from Slovenia playing a real punked up style with female slap bassist and front woman Lillith. French band Drekhund make their debut with a blues trash style of psychobilly, Neo-rockabilly Dutch legend’s Crackle Rattle Bash make their debut at Bedlam after reforming after a long hiatus...they were part of the original psychobilly scene in Holland with Batmobile.
I must mention that on Sunday we’re saying a sad farewell to UK psychobilly band Stage Frite who have chosen Bedlam for their final swansong..lovely guys who we class as friends here and as part of their final year have released a final album on the now legendary record label Western Star run by the ex-Shark’s founding member and again a friend Alan Wilson
In a similar fashion, Bedlam finds fans flying in from all over the globe. What kind of lengths have people gone to come to Bedlam?
In the past we had someone come from Australia to visit family but planned it completely around the festival. We have a lot from mainland Europe drive over with car loads of friends, in fact, two of the Bedlam crew drive over from Germany with a nice group of friends in convoy. Dutch, French Spanish, Belgians and more recently getting more from the States flying over, as well as the fanatical Japanese, Scandinavian countries are always well represented with fans from Finland, Sweden, Norway They certainly all add colour to the town over the weekend let alone bolster the local economy.
Bedlam is about more than just music. Can you tell us about some of the stalls and vendors who’ll be there this year?
On top of the band’s merchandise, we run our own stall selling festival merchandise and vinyl, CD’s etc., and we have a variety of stalls selling everything from boots, handbags, jewellery, jeans and dresses along with homeware and all sorts of paraphernalia.
After curfew at The Roadmenders things carry on until the early hours at The Bear pub? What’s the atmosphere like at The Bear and what bands will be at The Bear this year.
It’s a great atmosphere all weekend in there. During the day our festival goers are made welcome and mix really well with the regulars but after the festival closes the pub only lets our punters in to carry on drinking into the early hours of the morning. This year we only have UK band’s playing there. Friday we have rockabilly band The Roadrunners and a new wild rockin’ psycho band called The Dead Shout. Saturday they have a garage trash band from Newcastle area called The Coyote Men and closing the whole weekend off on Sunday into Monday there’s a garage punk band from Norwich called The Haunted Men and an old school psychobilly band from Brighton called Boneyard Breakout…it’ll be a wild weekend in there too 😀
Finally, people might see all the horror imagery and not realise that it is such a friendly event, so how would you entice the wary along?
Like you said it is such a friendly atmosphere, so nothing to be afraid of…if you like the rockabilly, rock ‘n’ roll end of the spectrum then I’d recommend you dabble your feet on the Friday night, but really, I’d say if you like punk, garage trash, old school psychobilly or the new styles then you’ll be surprised with the band’s on display.. So many people have come on their own in the past and now return to meet up with people they first met here and have great friendships, even relationships have been made at Bedlam (but we don’t offer marriage guidance here 😅)...but we’ve actually had proposals on stage and even had a marriage one year…seriously 😘
Limited tickets for Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be available on the door, so arrive early to avoid disappointment.
