S1,E38: Blaqvoid - Gebo, Randy, and Drue

What happens when a group of friends from diverse backgrounds in BMX, skateboarding, and alternative lifestyles turn their camaraderie into a thriving underground party scene in Salt Lake City? Join us as we sit down with Brandon, Randy, and Drue from Blaqvoid to uncover the evolution of their friendship into a successful business that brings unique entertainment experiences and showcases local artists. From legendary parties in unconventional locations to the importance of attending festivals for inspiration, this episode is packed with stories of thrills, challenges, and triumphs in event planning.

Remember the high school days when throwing parties was more about bonding than business? We revisit those formative years in Park City, exploring how a group of friends from different social circles came together through a shared love of counterculture activities. Their journey from high school misfits to University of Utah students paved the way for Blaqvoid's inception in a party-filled yellow apartment and its later revival fueled by trips to Spain. Discover how these experiences shaped their vision and led to the collaborative rebirth of Blaqvoid with a focused and passionate team.

Curious about the secret sauce behind Blaqvoid's success? We discuss the unique approach of creating memorable, mysterious events where attendees have no prior knowledge of the artists, emphasizing trust and delivering on promises. Learn about the importance of building a network of independent promoters and the evolution of rave culture from a 90s stereotype to a celebrated part of today's nightlife. Plus, get an inside look at upcoming events, the significance of robust security, and shout-outs to local talents making waves in Salt Lake City's underground scene. Don't miss this deep dive into a vibrant community dedicated to keeping the spirit of underground raves alive.

Please be sure to like, review, follow, subscribe and share the podcast with your friends and family! See you next time 

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Chapters

• 0:11 Black Void
• 11:38 Formation of Park City Misfit Group
• 17:06 High School Friend Group and Parties
• 19:57 Black Void
• 33:46 Creating a Unique Entertainment Experience
• 38:21 Growing Success in Event Planning
• 45:26 Building a Network of Independent Promoters
• 50:38 Underground Rave Scene and Music Culture
• 1:03:12 Event Planning and Safety Concerns

Transcript

Erik Nilsson: 0:12

What is up everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Small Lake City podcast. I'm your host, eric Nilsson, and for this episode we're going to dip into the underground of Salt Lake, especially the underground party scene, edm scene. But there's a group slash organization called Black Void that loves throwing these late night weekend parties where people come together, have a great time and it's fun to see how much that's grown, how many people have found a great sense of community for it, highlighting a lot of great artists, creating a platform to highlight them and especially, expanding into other places. So we have Brandon, randy and Drew that we're going to sit down and talk about how this friendship turned into a business and it's turning into something really special that a lot of people in solid are enjoying. So make sure you enjoy it. Um, great conversation between us.

Erik Nilsson: 1:01

I always love to give the warning that there is a good amount of cussing. Yeah, there's a good amount of cussing. So if that's something that bothers you, uh, there's your trigger warning. But if not, enjoy, enjoy, I like jump into it. But I'm so excited for this one because I say I'm excited for everyone and it's always true because I know you both were there, but I don't remember meeting you, randy, or you, drew, exactly that night. But I met Jibo through I mean my Vinay via my friend Lisa. It was at the Black Void at the parking garage.

Randy: 1:37

Yeah, okay.

Erik Nilsson: 1:38

Which was one of the most terrifyingly fun times I've ever had in my life. I've never been to a concert nor rave, where the floor feels like a trampoline but it's made out of concrete.

Gebo: 1:50

Yeah, I don't think, I don't think a lot of people have that was a first.

Erik Nilsson: 1:55

That was a first for us, but I was like that one was funny, because I remember you posted after being like listen, we got a structural engineer in here. They said it was fine, everything was good. I mean, it was. It was just a little unnerving, but yeah, because it was funny. I was like oh, I wonder who does this. And someone's like oh, this is Jibo.

Gebo: 2:10

Oh, what up, jibo, you do this just kind of like, yeah, sitting there in the crowd like next to you with like with the homies exactly yeah, which I would assume is like the best way to enjoy it.

Erik Nilsson: 2:19

I mean, last thing you want to? Yeah, I'm sure it's fun to be on stage and like behind dj and everything, but it's also nice to be like yeah. Yeah, this is kind of fun. You're right, I'm not just doing this for nothing yeah, it's kind of.

Gebo: 2:28

It's cool like being behind the stage and like taking videos and being there. I really like when we get a lot of people back there and it's just a fucking party behind the decks, boiler room, vibes that's that's fun, but it is.

Gebo: 2:39

It's also just really nice to go in the front in the crowd and look at the production and like really see what, like what kind of show we're putting on. Yeah, and we love to just go in there and like kind of experience it ourselves, or just dancing with someone and I'm like, hey, how'd you hear about us, you know, and they're like, oh my god my friend told me about this thing and they posted and that's what we're doing tonight and next thing we know we're here, come all the time fucking love it, you know.

Gebo: 3:04

Or they're like this is my first time. What the fuck the fuck is this, you know? Yeah, um, it's cool to like talk to people in the crowd and like, yeah, that's kind of dance with them and be just enjoying the show with them, because we're all consumers of shows too. Man, yeah, you know we're going to electric forest soon. Try to try to slowly go to a bunch more uh festivals and campouts and stuff like market research.

Erik Nilsson: 3:27

Figure out what's up next, get ready for the black void festival.

Drue: 3:30

That's exactly what we're talking show that you go to just ends up being market research, like festival. That's exactly what. Every fucking show that you go to just ends up being market research, like it's. It's rare to go to a show and you're like, and it's sometimes like you'll see another person from the industry and then you'll be like oh yeah, like what do you think about this? Or like we'll lean into each other. Like you know, this lighting is like super sick. We should totally take a picture, make notes market research or dude drew.

Gebo: 3:51

What were you saying? Uh, that we really should just go to more festivals, like large scale festivals, Cause for the industry and shit and being a part of it. That's basically like the convention like conventions of the like, rave and music industry, their conventions are just the fucking festivals Really.

Erik Nilsson: 4:12

Yeah, go bump into people. Oh, are you here?

Drue: 4:13

Oh, you're in between the main stage and left stage cool, yeah, yeah, let's go chat about. Uh. Yeah, a couple months from now we got, yeah, yeah, I would almost prefer that almost than like somebody at our show, because then you're like talking for a couple minutes and you're like oh fuck that person's passed out or like yeah there's like something else I have to do.

Erik Nilsson: 4:30

Yeah, yeah, right, compared to being like I am a consumer of this.

Erik Nilsson: 4:35

I have no responsibility besides like my own personal self, besides having a good time, dude, there's nothing like being a patron, like, yeah, it is really nice to like go to different shows and not actually have to worry about running them yeah, that's, that's the dream, um, but yeah, I mean like obviously I mean it's been fun to like see how much it's grown, see how much I've seen people talk about it more, because I remember, after the first one I went to, I just kind of like, because I mean I'll always just like poke around at people, be like how, like if I because I have this character flaw where if I know something I assume everybody knows it. So I'll always ask people like oh, have you heard of black? For like yeah, fuck, yeah, I've heard of black void, like that. I mean we went to my first show a couple years ago.

Erik Nilsson: 5:12

Yeah, we know Jibo, and it's just so interesting to see how there's like this thing that's almost perceived as like quote underground, but then, like, the more you kind of pull at the thread, you're like, oh, but we're all tied to this, like even that one night I saw probably like 10, 15 people that I mean in hindsight it makes sense that they were there, but it was so. It was interesting having someone pull me into a new experience and see so many familiar faces, and I mean just kind of even brought it more home.

Randy: 5:37

Yeah, I mean it's. It's kind of crazy how big but small that community is and you'll run into them everywhere. You'll run into them at shows, but you really like, when you start to get into the underground scene it's all like you've. You see them everywhere. You see everyone trying to explore new things and that's kind of one of the things that makes it so great to be throwing down shows here is that everyone's trying to kind of find new cool things to do.

Drue: 5:57

Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a hidden gem, like for music. Even if you're like a musician, like, um, even like a couple of people that we book on the regular will just like show up and like, hey, like I just moved here or like I just started a new project, like do you need help with something? And then we're like, oh yeah, for sure, what's your name? And then it's like they're playing a show in like two weeks. Yeah, you know what I mean?

Gebo: 6:20

it's pretty, it's pretty cool yeah, and uh, salt lake actually has a pretty thriving underground scene. Uh, and all the different groups you know for the most part tend to be pretty cool and kind of buddy buddy and cordial with each other and like not cut throat and like playing games and trying to screw each other over. Like we've heard from other uh, promoters and show throwers and other DJs and like industry people in other, um, in other like cities and bigger cities, like the scenes are not the same as here and it makes us actually pretty stoked to are not the same as here. Yeah, and it makes us actually pretty stoked to be a part of it here. Like it can. It can be a lot shittier of a scene and even in bigger cities that you think it would be more thriving. Yeah, we've heard that it's actually like worse than our scene is like better, and that's kind of interesting. You wouldn't think that it's all like totally and like that's kind of interesting.

Erik Nilsson: 7:16

You wouldn't think that it's all like totally and like that's one of the people that has been a common theme that I've seen through, like a ton of industries, like even I mean, tech, and like the art and fine art scene and others. It's like people look after each other, people want to help each other. We all grow together, like we all, everyone looks out for each other and so it's fun, like whether you're, I mean, at a rave at two in the morning, or if you're trying to go raise money for your next investment, like, whatever that might be, there's still this community being like, hey, how can I help you? What can we do together?

Erik Nilsson: 7:38

I want to be a part of this and like that's one thing that I truly do love about Salt Lake is like it's very community focused and like obviously that's comes from the Mormon church and having that community of like I mean, here's your neighborhood, here's your ward, here's your stake. But as people continue down that or a lot of people don't they still have that same kind of community and those values that bring people together and want to lift everybody up where you are and so like, no matter what that is cause. Like to your point, jibo, I mean there's like so much underground in Utah and like not even just in. Like I mean electronic music or even.

Erik Nilsson: 8:10

I mean there is something for everyone. Like someone could walk into Salt Lake and be like I am into this very specific niche thing. Like cool, here's a Facebook group. They meet every Thursday. Have a good one next. Well, yeah.

Gebo: 8:20

Small Lake City, right, your podcast and it's a big phrase and saying here, and people kind of live it for real. It's kind of interesting. But also there's a really big underground scene scene, I think because of the counterculture yes to the mormon church, yes, and so that creates its own really inclusive and awesome and we all have to work together kind of vibe between industries, I think, um, that are kind of counterculture, yeah, and they work together. I think because of that yeah, like that's one thing.

Erik Nilsson: 8:55

So, growing up in the avenues, one of my best friends of all time his name was joey kirk and his dad's name was kevin kirk and he's the founder of heavy metal shop nice and and so it's funny because, like I would walk into it.

Erik Nilsson: 9:07

So I was like raised as mormon, as mormon could be, and I walked into the heavy metal shop and I'd be like, oh, like iron maiden and alice cooper and like things that I had never even experienced. You go into their house and it's like platinum records, like it's just their entire walls. They're like his dad is the biggest um alice cooper fan in the world. There's figurines everywhere. They have a, um, a, uh, oh, the jukebox, what was it? I can't remember what band it was, but anyway, like it was everywhere and it was so fun because that was really the first time.

Erik Nilsson: 9:37

I was like, hey, like this is counterculture, this is like the opposite side of utah that you see, and like they were the nicest people, everything I was like taught about them, like I should have like run for the hills. It's an iron maiden jukebox, that's what it was. Okay, um and. But then, like now, as'm like I would say, more part of the counterculture than the culture, it's interesting to see. I mean, a, it's a lot more fun, but B, it's like it's, it's it's everywhere and it's like I always go back to the heavy metal shop Cause I feel like that is almost like the uniform of the counterculture and salt.

Gebo: 10:18

Like, like, everybody has a fucking heavy metal shirt, like heavy metal sweats, metal shop t-shirts, well, well, I guess, uh, in that way looking at like our brand, yeah, right, so a lot of the imagery we put on our walls and our tapestries is very kind of um, dark, culty, yeah, mysterious, um even somewhat demonic, yeah. But people come there and they go. You know, from an outside perspective you might think holy shit, is this a satan worshiping rave?

Erik Nilsson: 10:37

fault, sacrifice me only on like it's not that binary, it's a spectrum, but it's actually like your experience with um the heavy metal shop.

Gebo: 10:47

You're like, holy shit, these are actually the nicest people ever and I feel nothing but love in this room totally. So that's kind of we like that dichotomy. So it gets like quote, unquote the right people there like we want.

Gebo: 11:02

We want people that are open are open-minded to that and like don't get immediately scared away. Yeah, because if you go there and you just see that from an outside perspective, what we're putting out there, and don't actually like, because like get into it and part of it, you're like oh my God, devil, worship, and you leave, we're like great, leave, like this isn't, this isn't for you, this is not for you and um, but people that stay and really understand what we're doing are become like various, like you know, cult members so now we've talked a little bit about it, I kind of want to go back to the beginnings, cause I mean, are all three of you from Utah?

Erik Nilsson: 11:38

If not, where are you from? How'd you get here? And then, how did you guys come to find each other and get this off the ground?

Randy: 11:43

Yeah, I've been in Utah most of my life. My family moved here when I was five so I bounced around between Park City, heber, park City. We all met up in Park City in high school. So we've actually been friends since high school.

Randy: 11:55

But you know, I kind of grew up with the counterculture because I grew up in the BMX and skate scene. So that was kind of my introduction to kind of the opposite, because growing up in Hebrew, hebrew was also super LDS. My family was never LDS, I was never LDS, but it was just around you and you could feel it and, you know, hung out with people that were in it all throughout school, played sports and everything with them. But once I started to get into BMX, skate culture started kind of just experiencing that and just seeing that there was a totally different way of looking at life, looking at the environment around you, and it just became kind of a part of who I am and a part of, like I, who we all are, because we all kind of grew up in that, that counterculture yeah, and I think that you see that throughout.

Drue: 12:40

Yeah, dude like um, and I think that's like a huge reason why we all became friends too, because we, if you take a look at our friend group, we're all kind of, like you know, a little bit like the misfit toys. You know what I mean. If you like, look at a picture of us all together. We look like the fucking breakfast club. Like I I played sports and shit and like I, like you know, was never really super into like the, the jock lifestyle. You know what I mean. I listen to like metal and shit like that growing up and like I skated as well. You know what I mean. I'll listen to like metal and shit like that growing up and like I skated as well. You know what I mean.

Erik Nilsson: 13:18

And like I think just being alternative you know what I mean kind of drew us all together and we've all been friends for like almost 20 years yeah, especially the place like park city, where it's like not only do you have like the mormon and like non-mormon dynamic, we also have this like extreme, like it was wild Because I had a lot of friends in high school that were Park City and so I'd spend a lot of time up there and it was wild to be like, oh, like, because one of my best friends from down there, I mean he like I mean he was well off but he wasn't like that like the Park City level rich, but friends.

Erik Nilsson: 13:51

I remember one of my friends. He's like oh, this is my winter car, this is my summer car. I'm 17. I was like this makes sense, you know, and like hey, and like to have you all of that mixed with. Like I mean again, like there's like a big part of that skate culture going with skiing and snowboarding in it, but like it's kind of I don't want to say like pseudo culture, because it's just like more of the skiing, that it is like the skateboarding and stuff, and then that's I mean, and then skiing is kind of its own, like illustrative, like I know it's not as great.

Erik Nilsson: 14:17

It'll never be as grimy, because like, yeah, oh, you want to go spend a thousand dollars on this, thousand dollars on, it's just way more thousand dollars on this crossover, but you're definitely yeah, they definitely like kind of like put that out there wearing baggy shit, like yeah, you all clicked up, you know what I'm saying yeah, it's like.

Erik Nilsson: 14:32

It's definitely not like I, they're not like doing turns and they're like perfect corduroy pants, but it's just different, right. So it's like I like that you guys kind of found yourselves in that and like cause you guys all felt like kind of like these, like I mean misfits, outcast mood, kind of whatever you want to do.

Gebo: 14:49

But you're like here. I grew up in Kaysville. My parents, my mom's British and my dad's from Seattle. Why they met here and raised me in freaking Kaysville I'll never know. But yeah, I also I kind of felt like the odd kid out because I was like the one out of like two or three other kids that were not Mormonormon yeah, everyone else super lds. And then when I moved up to park city in eighth grade and met these boys is like when my, my life changed. Um, park city is like a lot more diverse, I would say, uh, culturally, uh, for utah definitely like from ideas to. And then all of us, like drew, was saying just ragtag gang, all over the place, you know, uh, you couldn't say specifically what click we were from. Like we weren't all lacrosse kids or all you know jocks and stuff.

Erik Nilsson: 15:46

We, we just kind of were all over the place musicians because I was I was pretty similar because I was a jack of all trades, like I could sit by anybody at lunch and none of it would be weird, because like I played I mean lacrosse all in high school. So I'd like, like, quote, like my lacrosse friends. And then I had like the people who I grew up in my neighborhood with, who were kind I mean for lack of a better term like the popular kids, and then I always go hang out with like the I mean generalizing overly like the goth kids and wake we'd go smoke weed in the back and like I would just like. And then I was in like two music, like actually three musicals in high school. So I was like friends with all of them.

Erik Nilsson: 16:17

So I was literally just like yeah there's no one I could like, and it's, I mean, it's same thing. Today I can sit down and talk to anyone about anything and like and so it was. I love that perspective because, like I didn't just get so pigeonholed into just like one type of person, one type of exposure, but like you were talking about, like that diversity is one thing. I always I didn't know how much I liked it and needed it.

Drue: 16:36

But yeah, zooming out now in my life like I didn't realize that's what I was looking at until it later became defined and I put the two together yeah, and I think like park city's so small too that it's like almost hard to like remain clicky because you're around the same fucking people like all the time.

Gebo: 16:54

You know what I mean got its own kind of cool community in a way yeah, it's got its own like.

Drue: 16:58

I mean, it was kind of like it's like like any, but I feel like we particularly weren't that way.

Gebo: 17:05

I don't think what I mean. I want I. I'd be curious what other people in the high school like how they looked at our friend group and what kind of like click we? What was our like like? What would they?

Erik Nilsson: 17:15

what'd you think of us? I don't know what names did you give us?

Drue: 17:19

I've always wondered that too, like just in general, probably just douchebags. Who are we?

Erik Nilsson: 17:27

Big douchers. Now, like only comes to find it, like actually everybody wanted to be your friends. We thought you were the best people but to be your friends.

Gebo: 17:39

We thought you're the best people but didn't know how to go about it. You're like maybe, dude, I, I, we definitely weren't like the quote-unquote popular kids and we, we, you know, we weren't like the a bunch of rich kids. Um, when you like come down into salt lake, uh, back in high school and then maybe early college and stuff, people would be like where are you from? And we're like park city and you there. A lot of times we used to get like, oh, park city, oh, you're park city guys and I'd be like but now I'm like fuck, no, like.

Gebo: 18:01

We're not like your idea of like park city. We're not like balling out of control.

Drue: 18:06

We had all three of us like moved there at some point, like later. I don't like we weren't like balling by any means. I mean mean I certainly wasn't. I was like the poor kid growing up at like everywhere you know what I mean. Like I kind of grew up around the Valley and I moved to Park City in like sixth grade, then came back down because we couldn't afford it, then moved back up because I didn't like Draper. You know what I'm talking about yeah.

Drue: 18:33

And people are like oh yeah, there's like no black people up there.

Erik Nilsson: 18:35

I'm like there's no black people anywhere in utah like we're not a map and show me where you're alone.

Drue: 18:40

You know what I?

Erik Nilsson: 18:41

mean, this ain't hockey like uh, so I love that you guys like found each other in all of this. Yeah, call it breakfast club, call whoever you want to. But I mean, was music like a very quick thing for all of you to like bond over and connect over? Or at what point did you kind of become this overlap and become more of an idea that I mean you decided to chase more well?

Gebo: 18:59

uh, I'll start though, first off, not quite with music, but uh, raging and partying yeah, yeah, that's where we got our start uh, you know we're in the music industry but we also, primarily, are in the party throw fucking parties exactly, and we were raging pretty hard since, like we were 15, 16, up in park city, I think, we started to kind of throw a bunch of like parties whenever our parents would go out of town, or you know what I mean, or and then that continued into college and into now.

Erik Nilsson: 19:33

So you guys, where did you guys go to? You guys go to the college together.

Randy: 19:36

We'd been practicing for a long time. Me and Jibo went up to the? U. Okay yeah, so we were up at the? U and during our time at the?

Gebo: 19:44

U we started to throw some pretty big parties in like junior year yeah, did we make like a facebook invite, like to our shitty little apartment, uh oh u street, right below the stadium right below the stadium like. It's like a yellow apartment that I know you're talking about a lot of people in. It has lore, it's got legend. It kind of had party legend status before we even moved in and we felt like we were walking in the footsteps of like older party like, and then we did, we threw.

Gebo: 20:14

We threw some crazy ass like uh, halloween party block parties where we got everyone in the building on board with us so every floor was raging oh my god. And other houses on our street, yeah. So we had like no joke, dude and fuck man. I feel like it was like a thousand or more people like thinking about it and some of the parties we've thrown now they're like pretty stacked like there was heads easily a sea of massive and just fucking crazy.

Gebo: 20:44

And then like swat team came in, oh shit, or riot, riot control, or something, and like that's a good costume, yeah, no. Like where they like set up in a line with their shields and just start marching down and like throwing tear gas to disperse the crowd. That happened, that's why.

Drue: 21:03

You know you're throwing good parties, some real like santa barbara we did it two years in a row yeah, um around on that scale around like the same time that these guys were like doing.

Drue: 21:12

That is when, like I, I wasn't going to school personally, so like I was diving heavily into the music scene, particularly you know what I mean? Um, just with through hip-hop and stuff. Like I make hip-hop music but I love edm and metal and big band jazz and all that type of shit and and I had been working as a cashier I was actually telling G-Wild this story the other day but like initially, like it came out as an idea I didn't know what the name for something, I knew we wanted to do something and I wanted to do it with these guys, particularly because Jeebo was very obviously a business-oriented guy like will talk and talk and talk, but that's what his strong suit is, is he's a big people person. And Randy is obviously like a marketing wizard. He does like all of our photography and like designs and stuff like that and like flyers and shit.

Drue: 22:16

So they they had like they had almost been like to the point of graduating college, yep, but I had initially started Black Void like on a solo mission almost, but I like was going through a bunch of shit and I was like there's no way I can do this by myself, took a hiatus. I had my first son, like I'm my only son. I only have one, but he's seven now yeah.

Drue: 22:47

It's the second one, bro, god. But yeah, I actually went on a trip to Spain. These guys had went and came back like totally with like a new sense of, like you know, closeness and our friendship and stuff, Cause like I had gone through, like you know, a pretty like detrimental uh time in my life just through my like dating. You know, you know how that stuff goes baby mama. So, like trademark, we had like really rekindled like after I had like kind of been on my own and then we were like yo, like we should do this, like, but like high-powered, you know what I mean and we've been going, yeah.

Gebo: 23:35

So so Drew started black void first off with our other buddy. Sam barsket is shout out. He kind of actually designed our logo. Okay, he meant to actually make it, um, uh like, exactly like the odeza symbol. It was supposed to be that shape, yeah, but he elongated it and put it on a different angle and just fucked it up and thank god he did yeah, because a lot of people randomly be like is that odeza?

Gebo: 24:03

and we're like, fuck, no, it's the void, but like it actually is different. Yeah, we promise it is different, but we almost sam, almost fucked that and honestly it was like the greatest fuck up of all time, um, but yeah, so what the shape is called? Oh uh. Gyro elongated square, bi-pyramid is our shape. It's the 13th johnson solid. We spent like so long researching that so many we were like what is this shape actually?

Erik Nilsson: 24:32

what is this shape?

Gebo: 24:33

spit that out it was supposed to be an icosahedron, but because it's gyro elongated, it's a gyro elongated square bipyramid we don't make the random so we just call it a voazoid. Yeah, the voidazoid is.

Erik Nilsson: 24:47

I can remember that one, the other one not so much yeah.

Gebo: 24:49

So, uh, he started it in 2015, okay, when he's like 20, um, as kind of like a record label doing all sorts of genres you had like indie jam bands, um, local rap legends and hip-hop, and then, uh, some edm, uh, but you know, just kind of he didn't have like the right team and it kind of failed.

Gebo: 25:08

So then, yeah, when me and randy studied rod and uh, spain, like he was saying it kind of inspired us. And when drew was going in 2018 to spain, we were like dude, like it's gonna inspire you, something's gonna inspire you. And when drew came back, he pulled me into my room and sat me down and he's like jebo, I want to bring black void back and like this is how and we all got our, our squad together and started talking about it and so that's. You know, black void has a longer history than when we actually this like new era. You run that, we're on him, but this is round two and we went fucking hard as shit, like in 2018, and that's the black void you know today yeah, that's kind of why.

Erik Nilsson: 25:49

Well, because I love the. It started off his idea about, I mean again, bringing people together different ways, create music, and then because it's hard to do something on your own, especially if you try to build something like that.

Erik Nilsson: 26:02

Yeah, you can only have how many strengths, but then it's like, oh hey, like do you can sell water to a fisherman? And then you like you can crush all of the creative everything and marketing, like let's do this. And so I think it's, it's, it's like nice to see like the humility and you being like I'm inspired to do this. These are my people I want to do this with and we're gonna do this bigger than your head.

Drue: 26:21

Yeah, there was, there was no other way, bro. Like honestly, it's like it was. These guys are like it was just like alright, let me just focus on my music and like that's it. But like because of them, I get to like kind of do both. You know what I mean. Like it's it's very. I've been living in gratitude for like the last little while with like twinkles in my eyes for these two, and you know Just the way things came out.

Drue: 26:47

Yeah there, because there was. There was a time we're like oh bitch, but there was a time where, like I thought you tell me that's a scary terry reference yeah, okay, thank you, yeah, yeah, 100.

Drue: 26:58

Yeah, there was a time I thought like none of this shit was like gonna go down. You know what I mean. People were leaving like group messages on my first go around and I was, like you know, crying and just a total mess. But like your, your friends, dude, like they just I mean they had that fire in them, man and they it kind of weirdly goes back even further to when we were in high school. Yeah.

Randy: 27:27

When we were hanging out. We would, because we grew up with, like our friends are artists, musicians. A few of our friends are graphic design, so we grew up with creative people all around us and I can remember in high school we would be in our friend Sam's basement and we'd have conversations and it'd be like we're gonna do something cool together at some point. Like we're still. We were like 16, 17, so we didn't know what we were gonna do then, but we were talking. There was something we knew, there was something that we could come together and something together crazy and we will.

Randy: 28:01

And we'd kept talking about it and then like, yeah, when drew brought it back up, it's like the idea that we'd been talking about since high school finally was we were finally ready to actually do it.

Gebo: 28:11

Yeah, it's kind of cool kind of between the three of us was like oh. We were like, oh fuck, oh fuck, yeah, yeah, this is it. This is the fucking thing we were talking about.

Erik Nilsson: 28:24

We're fucking doing it and hair's on its end. Goosebumps are forming. Oh thing we were talking about. We're fucking doing it and hair's on its end.

Gebo: 28:27

Goosebumps are forming. Oh, 100%. We were like fuck this, we're just going to throw ragers.

Drue: 28:30

We've always done that, I think that's how music, the music like industry, connected us in 92. Because it's like there's so many facets of the music industry. You know what I mean. You got photographers, you got your business people, you got your musicians. You got, you know, you got your stage techs. There's just so much in every aspect of the music industry and it felt like we had all the moving pieces. You know what I mean to like put this thing together and give it a fucking, you know a good try what were some of the hardest things at the beginning to kind of figure out or solve for?

Erik Nilsson: 29:06

oh fuck, all of it. Lots of failing but lots of learning well, finding stable venues?

Randy: 29:15

yeah, probably still is doing that. It still is.

Erik Nilsson: 29:18

Yeah, it's gotten a little easier, but finding stable venues was very hard at the beginning have you run into that, like you've reached out to people like oh for black void, like yeah, of course we'll do this. Or most people like wait, you want to do what where? Why now?

Gebo: 29:31

now we have. Our reputation precedes us and we've never like blatantly fucked anyone over and we've always like a good way to live your life. Yeah, we've always like tried to, you know, be open and honest in our dealings. Like you make legit deals, pay people what we say we're going to pay, right, pay venues. Like don't destroy the venues. If something goes wrong, we cover it. Like really just like, I think, just being a genuine good person in business and like, uh, in a, in an industry that kind of has a bad rap, um, for maybe promoters running it off of drug money or you know, like all sorts of just paying people not paying people screwing them over, like you know, like I'll never forget we'll get shot like when well, sorry, when.

Gebo: 30:23

When we're just the complete opposite of that, just like legit, normal dudes. Um, our reputation precedes us, so, like a lot of venues and stuff will be like, we want to work with you guys and nobody else, because this industry is sketchy and we don't trust anyone. But we know we can trust you, so you do what you say you're gonna do you pay.

Erik Nilsson: 30:43

Who you're gonna pay? Like you're looking out for everything really good, and like, but it's also like on the venue side and those, like all of your partnerships you have, they see that it's like oh I'm usually working with like dirt bags and like cash where I don't know where it came from, and then on the other side, like hey we're on the other side.

Gebo: 31:10

People see that and they're like oh, like this is like a legitimately good time, like it's not sketchy, everyone's here, like good vibes. Yeah, there's still like, there's still that stigma and stuff, um, but after they, a lot of venue contacts like give us a chance once, and they're like awesome, you're good, let's keep booking shows. So I trust you because we, you know we pull up now with an emt. You know we we get the all the good things. We have like a ton of security, like we try to run our show really tight yeah, I've always been really impressed.

Erik Nilsson: 31:32

Like is because, again, like it could be, and there's a lot of past, present and will be future, like. I mean just like warehouse parties where it's like, yeah, just come on in, byob, there's a dj playing, so like, and it's like you almost feel like you're not necessarily like in a trap house, but you're like I don't feel safe here and you kind of just want to dip 100 dude.

Gebo: 31:50

And yeah, I mean, when we started out too, there was a lot more of that Right and the underground could be run pretty sketchy. It's so easy to do it Sketchy. So the mind fuck is doing something that traditionally is sketchy and doing it not sketchy yeah, and people like don't even know how to whoa.

Erik Nilsson: 32:06

It's crazy. Like what do you mean? This is all fine and everything worked out. Good, how does it?

Drue: 32:10

yeah, it's hilarious when people walk in to like somewhere and they'll be like this is nice yeah, it's like their first time and their friends bringing them to a late night bwb.

Gebo: 32:20

they're like what the fuck? What, where the hell are you taking me? And they walk in in. There's like devil imagery on the walls. They're like Jesus, fuck. And then, and then it's like, oh, this is actually, I feel, safe as shit. Yeah, everyone's so nice here. Yeah, that guy, that guy slapped my ass and they kicked him right the fuck out. Yeah.

Erik Nilsson: 32:38

I'm like you know I probably should have asked this earlier, but we're just gonna do it now. But if you guys could define, like, what Black Void is or what you guys are hoping to do, how would you explain it to someone who's never heard of it?

Drue: 32:52

Randy's got a great handle on this, actually.

Randy: 32:55

T it up for Randy. Yeah, I would say if I were just to describe to someone who knows nothing about it, I would explain to them first of all that the reason we do this, the reason we throw these parties, is so that we can highlight people that are incredibly talented and might not otherwise get a stage to showcase their talents. Local artists who you know. If you build them on a, on a traditional show, how most traditional promoters would do it, they might not perform in front of more than 40, 50 people, but they might be incredible producers and just as talented as someone who's main a main stage at edc. They're just not there yet, but we want to create a platform where that can exist. So that's, that's the first thing that I would say to someone.

Randy: 33:46

And then mystery is kind of also at the core of our brand. We want people to be willing to do something different, do something that they might not be comfortable with. Not be going to see just a concert for their favorite artists, but to discover something new, to discover new music and just to do something that is different. And that's kind of what our brand is we're just trying to do something different in an industry that really it's. You know, there's all these other things and traditional ways to do it, and that needs to happen for the artist's economy, but we're just trying to do something that doesn't exist and is a little different, and that's kind of how I would describe it to someone.

Erik Nilsson: 34:30

No, I think that's fantastic, cause I mean, at the end of the day, like that's me exactly. Yeah, like every show of yours guys I've gone to, I've been always like, cause sometimes I was, I would be like, oh well, it's like it's not the djs, you would know, or it's not nothing like I always want to like downplay, but then I get there like I take it all back, we're all we're good, this is a great time and like, even like the first one, I mean, you got like into the parking garage I went to like the production value because I went in knowing nothing, like I had no idea, and then it's like I'm like, oh my gosh, that tv set was pretty sick.

Erik Nilsson: 34:59

Oh my gosh, like these ladies, like this is like wild, and that's before the ground started like jumping up and down and and so it was so fun just to find yourself in like the most random of places and the most random of nights, the most late of times, but at the same thing like everyone's having a good time, it's a safe place, there's great music, there's great people, and so I think it's it's fun to see how that's done, because, like anybody else in I mean similar nightlife entertainment, it's not that like because there was like. The memory I always have is so my fraternity in college decided to throw a taiga concert at salt air epic and I'll never because I was like part of like getting all together.

Erik Nilsson: 35:37

We're premium in the house so like we know he's gonna fly in, we're also stoked. We get bussed out to salt air and like people are opening or whatever, like we're all fucked up.

Erik Nilsson: 35:44

Let's be honest and 100 and all of a sudden we're like sitting there and like I'm in this like group chat with everybody, and they're like tiger's like not even landed yet. He's supposed to go on 15 minutes ago, like, and then 30 minutes later he just landed his private jet with because I think it was dating kylie I don't know these things but like ty kelly jenner, there they show up and he's like, yeah, I'm not doing it tonight.

Erik Nilsson: 36:04

And we're like, excuse me, like there's literally thousands of people waiting for you to go on and I'm like about to write and you're saying no, he's like no, I'm just like essentially said something of like the 2014 version of like the vibes were off yeah and and so all of a sudden I just remember seeing like our president up on stage like so it's not happening, we'll get you your money back, uh bye.

Erik Nilsson: 36:26

And I was like seriously and so. But then he tells this story of him kind of going into the back room with everybody from the promoters, the um, the, the, the venue, like, and everybody's there, just kind of like where's all our money? And like he's like there were multiple guns flashed, like he's. Like I knew that my priority was getting out of that room safe. Yeah, and if I had money in my hand, if I didn't, that is a secondary concern. And so it's like again going you guys as examples of that's. We just want to pay people what we told they would. We want to have a great place, we want to have a great environment.

Drue: 36:57

Yeah, like comparing to like other examples like similar to that I have, I'm like, yeah, I see how people would want that yeah, that's why, too, like can be like so aggressive in the music industry from like a behind the scenes perspective and that, and it's not even just like the music industry, it's like, you know, like comedy clubs or entertainment in general. You know what I'm saying. People like get screwed over all the time. It's like, oh, you just fucking play music or you tell jokes, or you know what I mean. It's easy to stiff people if you have any sort of power. Um, so that can definitely be a challenge. And kind of circling back to like what you said earlier about the challenges of when we first started and what randy was saying about like making the unknown known it like basically, like starting, like starting off like we didn't. We didn't have like the pull to be like, oh come, you know what I mean. It'll be sick, even though you don't know who's playing.

Erik Nilsson: 37:59

Like you come to this place at you in the morning and, yeah, well, come have fun.

Drue: 38:03

Yeah, it's just like go up and you're like, oh okay, but then like to kind of build that trust with people, that like you're going to be safe, it's going to be sick and you're going to talk about it and you're going to bring your friends next time, is like such a yeah we had hardly anything to do, really focus on that in the very beginning.

Gebo: 38:21

Um, and a lot of people in the very beginning like told us it won't work, like you just need to announce lineups. Why are you not announcing lineup like who's playing? And uh, we were just like, nope, just it's gonna work okay might take some time, but but it but it'll get there.

Erik Nilsson: 38:43

It's like good to like and because it's hard to like pick to your guns like that, because, like it's gonna work, we're gonna do, and be like it's not gonna work, you're not gonna do this, and then it gets to that point we're like all right now. Who said it wasn't gonna work? To the front here. Um, because, like, even since I started following like I was I mean it's pretty much every time I'd reach out to jiba to see if what his schedule was like, I would just kind of like, look at the black void like instagram follower account and be like, okay, like, oh shit, oh, still going, still going. Like it it's.

Erik Nilsson: 39:08

It's like, I mean, it's like not obviously the easiest, um, uh, predicated like growth and how everything's going, but it's at least something to keep an eye on. So I mean that's, I mean almost like doubled since I started. Anyway, I digress, but, um, our instagram has been going crazy as fuck. I mean I'm following on two, three accounts actually. So bumping up those numbers, oh shit, dude, just kidding, I'm only following on one account. Everyone is an individual person, um, but so okay, so you have this idea. You start people, there's all these naysayers saying it's not gonna work. You're just throwing parties. You're just djs announce a lineup. We don't care. I mean, at what point did it start to like go from this we're trying something new, let's hope this works to being like oh wait a minute, there's something going on here that we didn't think was gonna go, like this dude, the uh inzo inzo yeah, they all agree about the inzo, bro, like yeah tell me about that.

Erik Nilsson: 39:57

What happened there?

Randy: 40:00

uh, that was in what 2019, or yeah, yeah, no, but like november of 2019 what we've been throwing shows for almost a year.

Gebo: 40:08

Almost a year, maybe a year maybe a year around, yeah, about probably a year.

Gebo: 40:13

And, um, we were, we'd all been listening to enzo for a while and he was still a pretty small artist, son, um, but he had that song, overthinker, I think. When we booked him, uh, we so, yeah, we booked him for cheap, cheap, like holy shit cheap. And when we booked him, that song had like five million listens and we were like this guy's gonna blow up, this is gonna be fucking awesome. Um, we had no idea he already basically was blowing it. He had like a solid base, the hints we gave and said it was on Wakand. Everyone was like fucking it's fucking Enzo Still mystery. But that was one of our first events where we kind of blew the doors off the place. I think what we had? Almost like 300 people, 350, yeah, 350, which now seems like wildly small for us honestly sometimes. Um, but then it was like what? Like we were all over the moon blown away.

Gebo: 41:16

The energy was crazy, people are headbanging, like the vibes were high and it was an immaculate show and that we all kind of started to go there's definitely that was the first time we looked at each other and we were like, we're up here now, like we level, we leveled up up and you do, you go for a while and then some another show happens and we're like, oh fuck, another level up, and then you're plateaued there and then, right, we've had a couple moments of those we're like, oh shit yeah, we've even had some like this year, like, even like the beginning of the year, with just doing like the masonic temple show, the first show we did at the masonic southwest.

Gebo: 41:51

That was another one, a pretty cool venue, similar feeling where we were like fucking, we just leveled up. You know that first masonic show was pretty legendary. We and yeah, it was crazy.

Erik Nilsson: 42:02

So I mean just for context. So you have this show with enzo, I mean headlining, a dj that you guys had both, you know you guys had all loved, yeah. And then he's like yeah, let's do it. You're like for how much? Like yeah, you know, this isn't a make-a-wish thing, right, like this is just for us.

Gebo: 42:16

He's still really common and then now I mean, now he's ginormous and he was a legend, and then the very next year unbookable, yeah. And then b2 booked him, sold out the complex, couple thousand people like that.

Drue: 42:27

He blew up and we knew he would and we were like fuck, yeah like even then, like just like sending out, like emails and shit, like when we would get a response of like interest, we would like jump for joy in like the kitchen. You know what I'm like.

Gebo: 42:39

Our second our second show ever that we went off to the block and did and booked hex car.

Drue: 42:46

Shouts out to Hex Cougar too.

Gebo: 42:47

Shouts out our boy Raj, when he got back to us he was just managing himself, didn't even have a manager back then. We jumped up and down.

Erik Nilsson: 42:59

I just imagine you all jumping, holding each other in the kitchen. We got it, we got it.

Gebo: 43:02

That was our first legit.

Randy: 43:04

That we had been fucking with for a while that was our first like legit that we've had been fucking with for a while and we're like no way, yeah, now he's fucking with us like second show. Yeah, it's happening. We're like all right, cool, like we can. We can book these artists that we really like it's really exciting, powerful feeling and like there's that liberate feeling with.

Erik Nilsson: 43:19

I mean, I think I feel something similar in the podcast sometimes, but like you can literally just email someone, dm somebody, like, hey, we're doing this thing, I think you'd be a great person to have on it. What do you think they're like? Yeah, I'm in. You're like. What do you mean? Like they're like yes, there's supposed to be more to this. Why is this? This is easy. Like, yeah, that sounds good, let's do this. You're like all right, cool, how about this time? Yeah, all right, cool, see you there. And it just like happens. Yeah, and it's like you have parts. But then also, I'm sure it's great to see some of like the, the DJs and musicians that you guys have highlighted growing up. You know there are any of those examples that you've had. I mean earlier shows and then now you're like hey, like you don't need us anymore. Like you don't like actually starting a career.

Randy: 43:57

Yeah, like they jumpstarted their career already and it's like, hopefully, when they go through their run and they want it through, do.

Gebo: 44:09

We booked a couple people multiple times, hex Cougar being one of them. We'll always book him again and again because he's a fucking legend in Black Void lore. Yes, we'll never let it go.

Erik Nilsson: 44:22

Black Void Hall of Fame. Yeah and Jibo did.

Drue: 44:24

Jibo named his cat after him.

Gebo: 44:27

I did. My cat's name is Hex and I actually have a photo of he cougar with hex in our basement after we brought him out on our anniversary a few years later. Yeah, I haven't seen. I have a. I have a hex section photo of hex with hex. Dude hex on hex on hex literally like made me so happy. That's honestly sick I was like, I was like bro, I don't want want to freak you out or anything, but I named my cat after you and he was like fuck.

Drue: 44:58

Uber's here. Where's the cat? I'm gone.

Erik Nilsson: 45:03

Just grabbed you guys like take the picture. This is only happening once. Well, because I know that you guys have also been partnering recently. Because I mean you had a couple of shows like in San Diego and kind of going other places too. I mean tell, had a couple of shows like in San Diego and kind of going other places too. I mean tell me about that and like is it been kind of something you've wanted to do for a while? Is like branch out partnership more out and about instead of kind of sticking around or just opportunity that brought itself?

Gebo: 45:24

We were actively seeking it Cool.

Randy: 45:27

Yeah, I was like we've been looking for crews that are kind of doing similar things as us in other states Because, you know, as important as I was telling you about creating a platform, we can't be the only ones who do it. We think it's more powerful if there's a whole network and a whole independent movement of people in different states doing the same thing, so that then you can actually almost create its own economy of independent promoters putting on smaller, up and coming artists. So we'd been looking for different crews in different states kind of doing something similar or with similar vibes, people that book similar artists as us. And that's kind of how we've found these other crews is usually through artists you know them booking similar artists that we did one week and we book them a few months later, or we book them and then they randomly book them. It's like, oh well, we must have something in common.

Erik Nilsson: 46:18

Yeah, if we're all booking the same people at different times, then probably some overlap.

Gebo: 46:22

Well, so our first out-of-state show. That's kind of how it happened with Good Society Shout out, josh. With Good Society, one of our best friends now. Um, we had booked oshi and liney on a lineup. Um, like the day before, good society also booked oshi and liney, which we were like that's crazy because so they, they both came out to our show and they're posting like his show as well right, because it's coming up to promo it, and we were like interesting. So we looked them up, I saw they're doing cool shit, they have cool flyers, and just dm'd them like yo, like obviously we have similar taste because we just we've booked the same lineup a day apart.

Gebo: 47:07

It was crazy. It's kind of like meant to be in that way. And um, josh just called me. We immediately jumped on the phone and just broed out for like hours, hours and talked about how we want to do like a show exchange and how you know, and I'm just kind of like thinking he's like bigger and this whole crazy thing and out in la, and he's like, nah, dude, like I'm doing this all like my goddamn self. Uh, got a cool little record label, I throw shows and like he actually just like respected us as like equals and shit. And he was like, yeah, I'd love to do like a show out in salt lake with you guys and I'll bring you guys out to la.

Gebo: 47:47

And we were like fuck yes, we're in and uh first show out there was a frigging boat party with him, his first boat party.

Erik Nilsson: 47:57

Not a bad way to get started.

Gebo: 47:59

Our first boat party, obviously out of Long Beach, and it was sick as hell and we ran it back. We've done two out there with him now and we brought him out here two times as well.

Randy: 48:08

Yeah.

Gebo: 48:09

We're planning something with him in LA again later this year, maybe just a warehouse party this time.

Erik Nilsson: 48:14

Something fun.

Gebo: 48:15

Well, we're just kind of going back and forth.

Erik Nilsson: 48:17

Because what you do is, I mean, it's not like the most niche thing in the world, but it is like a very unique experience. Like it's not like you can go around and find like 10 people in like a crowded room that like know something about it. So, having someone who like him, he's like I'm doing this all by myself, let's talk, and you're like, yeah, like we. Just he's like I mean, there's just like so many like things you can talk about, connect on like vibe with like riff on that neither of you have that like anybody else you could do it with. But then also have like the vibes you're at. It's like yeah, yeah, I'll have you out, you have me out. We all know the same artist. We're obviously a lot of similar um perspectives on artists that we want to have in hosts and 100. And it's it's nice to be able to like grow that umbrella even more. Yeah.

Gebo: 48:57

And we share like artists and stuff. He'll be like have you heard of this guy Fucking crazy? I'm dropping a song with him on my label and we'll be like fuck Okay. And then we get like introduced through him on some more homie shit which we've always liked.

Gebo: 49:10

Like booking smaller, up and coming artists, like on a more chill level or friends of friends, in a way more more like we can build a relationship with you and like enjoy just partying with you. That's like way more important to us than like a big booking that's contractual Pick them up from the airport, shake your hand, play Okay, go home Right. Like we're way more about like booking that's contractual pick them up from the airport, shake your hand, play okay, go home right. Like we're way more about like a lot of the time we book based off of feeling and like if you know a friend of ours that is also in the industry that we respect, that was like recommended you and then we start talking and it's just like a lot easier, more like casual way to do what we do and actually enjoy it, cause at the end of the day, we do it because we enjoy it Like we don't want it to feel super corporate industry transactional like ever. That's not how we do things.

Gebo: 50:07

Take all the fun out of it. Working with Josh and these other promoters is like our own little cool network of like just homies, now Homie shit.

Erik Nilsson: 50:17

I mean, especially when it's like the heart, like last thing you want to do is like dming artists on instagram or trying to find someone who knows someone, or working with agents where it's like oh, like, you know him and like obviously I trust you, you, he trusts you and this is someone we want, like it's so much better that way than trying to like warm intro worse things yeah, fuck.

Gebo: 50:29

Yeah, dude, we know your music're sick. Let's get you out here Like so much easier. Like sick, yeah, I'm in. We prefer that. It's like yeah, it's way cooler.

Erik Nilsson: 50:38

So what else is? So you said you have some stuff planning in LA, but like, what else is upcoming that you guys are excited for?

Randy: 50:51

Whether it's I mean shows here on in the 29th. It's still not fully announced and, in the the spirit of our spirit of being like secretive, I'm not going to announce it right now. We did just drop something that's going to go on the 29th. It'll be hold on. Let me put that in my calendar. Yeah, it'll be a a long one.

Erik Nilsson: 51:10

It'll be extended hours I'll prepare myself for a marathon, not a square yeah, yeah, dancing shoes, dancing shorts, dude like I'll dance however you need me to dance you tell me to dance and I'll do it.

Gebo: 51:21

Yeah, it's a new concept we haven't done before a little bit, a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger, bigger is, bigger is good.

Erik Nilsson: 51:28

I mean especially going from, because you said that there was the show with um, um, oh, my gosh, enzo, where you're like like there's 350 people here, holy shit, how did we get them here? Yeah, I mean just for like context of where that was. And now I mean, how many people do you have showing up to shows?

Randy: 51:41

uh, it depends on. Depends on the venue, obviously, but at our like, bigger venues that can hold it, we've done like 750 dang yeah, 800 embrace.

Gebo: 51:53

The void was over eight, yeah, and then we've done a bunch of shows this last year, close to seven dang on average like uh. And if we do like a show, that's like 450 or something, we're like fuck, that was kind of a bomb where I'm just like wow, that used to be like massive yeah, and now it's like a down party but it's like still a total rager for everyone.

Gebo: 52:16

It's still a good time and like there's like damn attendance is like a couple hundred less than we want, but like most attendees like wouldn't notice and they're like it's still so sick, you know.

Erik Nilsson: 52:25

And it's so like it's weird to tell yourself that. But yeah, we've been throwing some pretty big events. Yeah, yeah, we plan to go bigger but maintain our vibe, trying to get like 750 people out to a place at the weeest hours of the morning till the weeest hours of the morning, man, and have it. Yeah, have it. Be a good time. It always works out so well, it's been fun and like even just like participating. It's been fun to be part of it all in one way, shape or form.

Randy: 53:04

Thank you, like going back earlier, like when we were in Spain and like it was part of you know, the whole inspiration is like the nightlife there doesn't start for you guys in spain, like uh, like in barcelona we were in northern spain, we were in oviedo, but we we traveled all throughout spain.

Randy: 53:20

But the nightlife doesn't start till midnight or one, and it goes till seven eight go very hard in nine, like sometimes you're there's clubs that don't open, or like bars and stuff that don't open till five and then you go get breakfast and there's fucking nobody out, yeah. So so it was like you know, living here and just having the bars and everything closes at one. When we got back, we're like, well, there's definitely something missing. That we just experienced.

Erik Nilsson: 53:46

Yeah, we can't be the only ones who think this would be sick.

Randy: 53:48

Yeah, and it's like we threw it, you know.

Gebo: 53:50

Yeah, that was kind of like stewing in our minds for a long time. And then when Drew brought it up and we wanted to start throwing parties and then we kind of stumbled by happenstance into there already was kind of a scene here Definitely Of late night underground Totally, but it was just, it was different and it was a different type of house music. It tended to be a little bit older people right, and it's been happening for a long time. Just, a lot of people didn't really know about it. When we stumbled into the late night BYLB thing we were like this is all we want to do and Salt Lake needs that later, that reason to go later, like Spain there's an appetite for it and people eat that shit.

Gebo: 54:35

Up there's such an appetite for it, and so we were like we will provide.

Drue: 54:39

And even now too, like I think it's like good for people like who are just like moving here. You know what I mean. All of these apartment buildings are going up, but then, like all, when all the people move here, like what are they gonna do? You know what I mean? You can't go to a fucking jazz game every weekend or like the movies, like you feel me. Yeah, I mean especially with like Nightlife wise, at least.

Erik Nilsson: 55:03

Yeah, I mean especially with like nightlife culture that's grown so much over the past years. I mean EDM culture, which has grown so much over the years. I mean raves in general so much over the years. I mean raves and like raves used to be like a very neg, like negative connotation especially like the 90s definitely like it was like techno.

Erik Nilsson: 55:17

raves would just be like people in binkies, just like almost like borderline tweaking and like this is just from like what I would hear from people and like negative connotations. But now it's like everybody's going to raves, everyone's going to festivals, everyone's putting on a bit for it and it's just like so much more um, prolific and like we see. And so it's like you can't just think that people just want to go to like one festival a year and be like, well, that's it. But in reality it's like all right, like 1am bars are closed. I kind of want to go have more fun, like what is there? And all of a sudden I get a text from Blackfoot being like hey, here's the address, here's the link for tickets.

Gebo: 55:49

See you there.

Erik Nilsson: 55:49

raving was legitimately, uh, illegal in the 90s is this like the, the 2024 version of footloose?

Gebo: 56:00

seriously I heard that uh recording of uh biden no saying uh, arrest the promoter. And he's like talking about these raves and they're doing molly and drugs and everything he's like what you do is arrest the promoter. It's actually some pretty sweet edm remixes of that sample.

Gebo: 56:20

Yeah, shout out. Mo green. Yeah, I like his remake of that, but it literally was like illegal and stigmatized and so that's what. Like our parents see, and you know my parents always hated that I did black void and told me to stop and I'm just uh, uh supporting drug culture and things like that and we were, I was just like it's not at all at all what we're trying to do. You know, yeah, it is really about the music and the vibes and and growing like a really sweet ass community and raving and and this party scene I it is becoming more generally accepted in the public eye. Yeah, it's awesome to see we.

Erik Nilsson: 57:00

You know salt lake city is pretty receptive to it, actually more than you would think because I know this all likes had a pretty good underground like, especially like drum and bass scene from like almost when like drum and bass was defined as drum and bass and so again that was kind of like when I first walked from like almost when like drum and bass was defined as drum and bass and so again that was kind of like when I first walked into like blackfoot, that's what I felt like. Ah, here's the drum and bass scene that like everybody kind of talks about that kind of elusive.

Gebo: 57:24

well, it was way bigger back in the day and then it kind of died out in america for a while, yeah, and now it's just making a massive resurgence here at least.

Erik Nilsson: 57:32

Yeah, oh, I mean every like when I was talking to someone about it, cuz I mean, like one of my favorite um uh, artists of the past, like year and a half is like Fred again who is essentially just like bringing back drum and bass to the masses.

Erik Nilsson: 57:45

In like one way, shape or form, it makes like every, because I mean Fred is Fred Cuz. He's just sick as fuck. Yeah, I know, I was trying to figure out how I can make a way because he performing at the Coliseum on Friday in LA and I was like hey, how can I make this work? And, needless to say, I couldn't. Yeah, but yeah, I mean. Yeah, I mean it's like. It's like means the Fred's, I mean it's like the original. Oh my gosh. Like I remember going to a show at solitaire to go see a Vici for the first time and like which? Like now is like all right, pete, like yeah, and. But like I didn't get it until you're there, but you to your point, like you have to get there and you have to be able to be the person. Be like this might be a little different. This isn't something necessarily I've done before, but like I'm gonna give it my all and if you can do, if you're gonna do at least those few things, you're gonna have the greatest time of your life.

Drue: 58:35

If you're gonna clutch your pearls and be and turn your nose, then just go home like just yeah, yeah, and we've honestly like kind of developed like even um, a decent amount of older people from the scene like before our time. You know what I mean because, like, there's aspects of what we do that is still reminiscent of raves in the 90s in terms of like oh, you gotta get a text message to see where we're going, and it's in this completely random spot like how did they do that? How did they get there like? And it's it's so like perfect.

Drue: 59:10

I feel like too with like the youth as well, because I see kids out like wearing jinko jeans and shit, like it's the 90s again, like you know what I mean beach blonde hair, like. I feel like it's it's culminating to where, like pete, like both younger and older, like generations, are kind of meeting in the middle, at least in totally what we do. And it's been kind of cool to see like such a wide array of people come to our shows, because I feel like our crowd isn't what you're typical like, even like big festival like crowd is like it's kind of people from all walks of life or people who don't even primarily listen to edm, and they just are out with their friends because they heard like something well, well, and to that point, a little bit playing off that we we've always said we throw parties not not raves.

Gebo: 1:00:03

so obviously they take on a very ravey form um, but we we don't like really talk ever about dress code or anything like that. Like people come in hoodies, people come in, you know, full rave fits. Sometimes Full rave fits.

Erik Nilsson: 1:00:21

Like come however you want, fishnets, come however you want to Come party.

Gebo: 1:00:25

Some people bring like poi and rave toys and then other people are just like no, that ain't for me. But like yeah, like I think our parties are interesting because we've always kind of leaned into calling them parties and not raves. So it's ravey but it's. It's really just with the byob thing and and all that. A lot of people say our uh events feel like a really high-powered house party. That's a fair description.

Gebo: 1:00:51

Like you pulled up to someone's house but there's freaking lasers and a lot more people, yeah, but that kind of vibe yeah, we want people to be able to talk to each other. You know, we don't want our sound to be like so loud that you're like screaming to the person next to you, like blowing your vocal cords out, because we're not trying to throw like a massive show all the time we're trying to do a party yeah, I mean, it's not all so people can meet.

Erik Nilsson: 1:01:23

Yeah, vibe, because like the production value is important, but it's not. You guys aren't sitting there every day being like all right, how can we make our production value? Like, yes, but at the same time, like we want to throw parties, we want to bring the right people here, we want to make sure the right people are coming. Everybody can feel safe and do what they want to do.

Gebo: 1:01:36

People matter the most.

Erik Nilsson: 1:01:38

Oh, cause one bad, one bad apple gets in, and I mean, that can ruin someone's, I mean day, week, night life.

Gebo: 1:01:44

The biggest kind of compliment we probably get is that people love the people that we attract to our events, and that's been like very much by design.

Erik Nilsson: 1:02:01

We've always tried to get people that rage and chill, and that's actually section of are you going to bring it?

Gebo: 1:02:05

That's yeah, it's all right, another term that we've talked about, literally coined since, uh, high school, when we would do our house parties or, like my signature, dark parties. Uh, we always talked about just chill rage, chill rage. It's like people that rage in a chill way because you're still a chiller but you like to party. Does that make sense?

Erik Nilsson: 1:02:26

no, I get you because like there's like the people, that's kind of rage on the other far, like too far of the rage and you're like you're a liability. And then there's like too far on the chill, you're like you're not hey, like, why are we sitting in chairs in the backyard, like around a fire, like which is fine, but like a little bit more rage would be great.

Gebo: 1:02:43

Turn the fuck up in a chill way, man, and that's what we invite everyone at our shows to do rage responsibly.

Drue: 1:02:49

It's literally you want to keep one of our in the hose away energy to a complete minimum.

Erik Nilsson: 1:02:54

Yeah, they're out a hundred percent. Once all the girls starts leaving cause there's this one guy asking for hugs or something, then listen 100%.

Gebo: 1:03:04

Girls have to feel safe. You know, everyone's just gotta be chill and cool and respectful and not a liability, for sure.

Erik Nilsson: 1:03:13

Oh, and like the, I'm sure you guys have seen it, but, like the, I can't remember what it's called, but it's the documentary they did on the like the woodstock 99.

Erik Nilsson: 1:03:19

Oh dude, that thing's crazy shit yeah and like so that was crazy, obviously not what you want to happen. If people go like full like lord of the flies case study and yeah case that like psych psychological case studies, like obviously you don't want that. You don't like the amount of like sexual assault that happened, the amount of racism that happened, the amount of like that is obviously what you don't. And half of that is bringing in the right people and attracting the right people and well, well.

Gebo: 1:03:45

Well, why that totally fell apart is because the people running it were focused on profit. Yep, they didn't care about the people at all. Oh yeah, the experience it was just like hot and shitty and no basic amenities, like 30 dollars for water, right, and then just fucking them to death, like, basically, you take people and treat them like animals, they start acting like animals and they're all just like. And so I've been to other smaller scale events where you start to get a feeling of that, like this is very loosely put together like there's a mutiny almost forming right now, like it's not a good feeling.

Gebo: 1:04:24

when you're at a big event and you're the whole crowd and you can feel in the air, everyone starts to feel like who's in charge here, who the fuck is running this? Do the employees even know who their boss is? What the fuck? Where's security? Why is this so loosely? What the fuck? I've been to some events where I'm like, oh fuck, and it's like it's that. Like so at our events we try to like have a bunch of security, like not so people feel like they're being watched, but like if you go to an event that you feel is like professionally ran and it's like clean enough and it's like if it's ran well and you, the crowd feels it and they know that someone's in charge and you're safe, that matters for the vibe massively and if it's not there, that's when things.

Gebo: 1:05:10

If it's not there, dude, like that's where you have like events that turn into complete riots and fucking people jumping fences and all that shit yeah, hard, hard pass yeah, like fire festival and like at 99, woods at 99 and some other uh big promoters.

Drue: 1:05:28

I I'm not gonna mention dude like, but everyone knows if you know, you know out there, like our nightmare on 13th bro, like it's. It's like watching like poltergeist for the first time. When you see like one of those docs as like a promoter, you're like, oh shit, this is oh shit, like this is the scariest thing I've watched in a decade I'm like literally biting my nails, like, oh, that would suck so hard.

Erik Nilsson: 1:05:51

Cheese sandwiches, um so there's two questions I always end every episode with one is if you could as if you guys could have someone on the small lake city podcast and hear more about, I mean, what they're doing and why they're doing it. Who comes to mind?

Drue: 1:06:08

Oh, I want to. I want to nominate Adam banks. He's a. He's a good friend of mine who's recorded like a bunch of my songs and stuff, but he's a. He's a producer and an artist that is putting on for the hip-hop yeah scene here. Um, like tons of people go to his studio to work and they it sounds like amazing, like half the shit that comes out of here. Like you wouldn't imagine that people from here made that you know what I mean?

Erik Nilsson: 1:06:43

yeah, I mean that. Yeah, he's part of the community he's like utah scott storage but like cooler, but cooler, totally.

Gebo: 1:06:51

There are people in salt lake just doing super cool things. I feel like you definitely already know mohan. Oh yeah, and has he been on the podcast? No, I was talking about it. He should be on. Yeah, I mean, you're probably already talking about it when he right.

Erik Nilsson: 1:07:05

Yeah, he's, he's probably done I met him friend of a friend and, yeah, we talked about it like it was one of those like we talked about, because I don't love talking about the podcast more than I need to yeah because, literally, if you like talk with me along, I'll be like, well, let's talk to this one person like, was it for the podcast?

Erik Nilsson: 1:07:18

like listen, yes, it was, because it's half the people I talked to for the podcast. But I was at, um, it was actually for, like the bipoc event here. One of my friends who took me to my first black void event, lisa, she was there with him and actually she went to no, that wasn't you guys, that was a um temple on temple thing. Um, for the Zed's dead night.

Erik Nilsson: 1:07:38

Yeah, and but cause I didn't know him like, oh, you remember here, I think I met you once and he's talking about what he does. I'm like I have a podcast, you should be on it and you for the reminder to follow up on him, at least because mohan likes to party dude oh yeah, the downhouse guys, yeah who you and mitch from downhouse yeah downhouse great one they're doing cool.

Gebo: 1:07:59

Mohan with um project embrace doing amazing, wonderful things. I just think like it's really cool. Do you know what his charity does?

Gebo: 1:08:09

if I couldn't regurgitate it, but when you say it, I will remember it yeah, so they basically um gather up all the used hospital equipment from hospitals or or people donating, but a lot of hospitals just get grants and get all new equipment and they completely just would traditionally like throw away or get rid of their old equipment, even though it's state of the art and only like a year old yeah, like insane, and and it'll, it'll last forever, but they just get rid of it. So he's gathering, getting contracts with a lot of the hospitals and organizations around here and like gathering that stuff and then distributing it to fully refurbish it. Refurbish stuff and distributing it to communities that like don't have access to that, like the Navajo nation, and they're starting to do crazy international stuff, like they went to syria, india, um, yeah, and so it's pretty cool no, I mean love people who make people's lives better.

Erik Nilsson: 1:09:02

Yeah, especially with things that are going to get thrown away, they can literally save their life, yeah, so I think that's pretty cool, cool cool. And then, secondly, if people want to find out more about the black void, join the void. Where's? If people want to find out more about the Black Void, join the Void. Where's the best way to find some information? Instagram.

Gebo: 1:09:19

Yeah, and just text our text list. Get on the list.

Erik Nilsson: 1:09:23

And Instagram is just at Black Void B-L-A-Q-V-O-I-D. Yep Correct. And then what's the number to text in case people want to join us.

Randy: 1:09:30

They'll find it on instagram.

Erik Nilsson: 1:09:31

There we go yeah, so go, go, go find them on instagram. Get ready for the 29th. There's so many other things going on. Come be open-minded, have a good time, and if you don't, it's okay. It's probably not for you, yeah, but if you do, it's your ball show.

Erik Nilsson: 1:09:47

It's pretty pretty chill and enter the void just gotta say that you love saying that you have now entered the void q bass drop yeah yeah, no, thank you so much. I'm glad we could make it happen, so stoked for all you're doing. Keep throwing parties. I'll keep showing up. I'll keep bringing my friends thank you bro ones who will enjoy it. The other ones go to bed, stay home. Yeah, they're screwed. Yeah, they're just fucked.

Drue: 1:10:14

No, no, thanks for coming guys. Yeah, I appreciate you, man. Thanks for having us, for sure.