Pilgrimage Music Festival Co-Founder Kevin Griffin Reflects on 10th Anniversary: 'Every Year We're Grateful' (Exclusive)

Dave Matthews Band is one of the headliners at the 2024 Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival.

By Stephen Andrew

The Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month, and co-founder Kevin Griffin says "every year we're grateful" to be back. During an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, Griffin — who is also the founding vocalist and guitarist of alt-rock band Better Than Ezra — told us that, during the festival's early years, he never imaged that they would still be here a decade later.

"We were just so consumed with making year one happen and being able to pull it off," Griffin shared, then recalling asking himself, "Do we have the right team, did we hire the right people? Just how is it gonna work and how are we gonna survive? We were just thinking initially, 'How do we get to year one? How do we make it awesome?' And it was really that way every year. 'Will we make it to year two? Will we make it to year three?' Then we got rained out in year four... 'will there be a year five?' And then the pandemic [hit]."

Griffin went on to say, "I think we were just grateful to make it another year. Honestly, now we're, we're in a lot different positions but we're always, we never take it for granted." He continued, "You can pick the wrong lineup that doesn't resonate for whatever reason. Then you get rained out. A lot can happen. That can take a very successful festival cut it off at the knees because, suddenly, you could be in the hole millions of dollars if things don't go quite right. So, every year we're grateful... It's not lost on us that we've been able to be here 10 years in an endeavor that does not very often see festivals stick around that long."

Headlining the festival on night one this year is Dave Matthews Band, making them, the only band or artist to return as headliner for a second time. "We wanted Dave to come back because this year we wanted to have some of our favorite artists from festivals past to come back," Griffin told us, "and Dave is just a tried and true festival headliner. We love him and he's part of the family."

In addition to returning artists like DMB, Pilgrimage also picked up some rising stars like Myles Smith and Steven Sanchez, which Griffin says is accomplished through science and luck. "As a festival promoter... it's part educated music industry insider and part fortune teller," Griffin said. "You want to take both of those disciplines if you can call fortune telling discipline, but you want to be able to look into the future and say, 'Based on what I'm seeing now, who am I gonna put my money on that's gonna be a breakout artist?'"

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"We've been able to do it with Zach Brian, John Batiste... and now Myles Smith," Griffin continued. "He's been huge in England, now it's happening over here with ['Stargazing'], that's so huge and he's just amazing. I think we're getting him right at the beginning of this big explosion." As for Sanchez, Griffin says, "I've known Steven for five years. He's opened solo shows for me back when I was playing City Winery. I've been a fan of his and known him for a long time and then his song blew up. So, we've got some just magic performances happening.

The Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival takes place in Franklin, Tennessee on Sept. 28 and 29. Keep it locked to PopCulture.com for more great music news, reviews, and exclusives!

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