Turning Pineapples Into Possibilities: The DIY Music Festival That Helped Friends Turn Passion Into A Business

(Pictured above, from left) Justin Scalera, Sammy Quarantiello, and Jake Feldman, current booking agents and promoters of Blackburn Hall in Watchung, NJ.

Creating a DIY music space inside a church basement is definitely not something out of the ordinary, but holding a festival in one every summer? Seems a little ambitious. This didn’t stop Justin Scalera and Gordon Whitley from giving it a shot. At just 17 years old, Justin and Gordon, along with friend Jake Feldman and Collin Vergillio created Pineapple Fest; a music festival designed to showcase new talent as well as practice their own creative endeavors in front of an audience.

Blackburn Hall was a creative outlet that was never taken too seriously. As Pineapple Fest began to gain attention, many began going off to college, making it harder to collectively plan. That’s when Sammy hopped on to assist with booking and keep Blackburn Hall alive throughout the school year. Now 6 years later, Pineapple Fest is going strong. This year, Jake and Justin sat down with us to talk about the longevity of the fest, what the festival means to them, and how the untimely passing of co-founder Gordon Whitely is the driving force behind this years show.

How did Pineapple Fest come to be?

Justin: I think it was 2013 when we started hosting shows in Blackburn Hall; in February of that year we had a bunch of bands. Picture Perfect played the first show. While that was going on, Jake was rummaging through the back closet of the church and found this box of plastic Pineapples. 

Jake: There were probably a good 10-12 of them at the time, it was a full box of them.

Justin: I remember he would hide them everywhere during future shows. We’d have them pretty much once a month. By the summer we were like ‘okay, these pineapples are ridiculous now so we’re gonna make Pineapple Fest’.

Jake: It was really Justin, Collin, and Gordon doing the shows at the time. I would help out but they were the ones really pioneering and headlining that stuff.

Justin: Yeah, originally it was me and Gordon and then we added Collin who was all about finances and then Jake.

Jake: I liked music and I could really do sound things. I mean, maybe at the time I couldn’t really do sound things, but we all started working together on everything.

Justin: I think Pineapple Fest 2014 was the first one.

Jake: I still have the lineup. 

Justin: So February 2014 was when we officially started doing shows there.

Jake: At the time, we were 16-17 years old and we didn’t really realize that there was a local music scene, we had no idea how anything worked because we weren’t really going to shows, and Justin said ‘let’s do a festival!’ and our parents were like ‘you can’t do that, you need insurance and stuff!’ and we were like ‘let’s just do it!’. I remember the first one was a huge thing, we went to Zumiez and asked if we could put up posters, I had my dad print business cards, we even had backstage passes! We went all out. We didn’t know what we were doing we just wanted to make it really big. 

Justin: We ended up booking Such Gold, which was awesome but also cost a lot of money. That Pineapple Fest was amazing, great show and everything, but we lost a shit ton of money.

Jake: We learned a lot and then in the next year or two we all started going to shows and then somewhere in that time, my band Callout started doing some stuff. We started going to shows, meeting people, realizing that there are other places aside from Blackburn that you can do things.

Justin: We also had a band at the time called You Above All. Running shows at Blackburn Hall faded off because people started going away to college and stuff, but every summer we would still do the Pineapple Fest. We did it every single summer since then and this is the sixth year doing it. It’s pretty crazy that we’ve been doing this for so long.

Jake: The whole thing started as a joke like ‘oh, pineapples in the basement, pineapple fest, let’s just make a festival’. We worked hard on putting them together but then it started taking on a life of its own. I wanna say it was the fourth or fifth year was when the Facebook page saw the most engagement. All we did was post it and promote it, and it had upwards of 300 interactions in the first 24 hours.

Justin: That was 2017, I was just looking at the event pages today.

Jake: Yeah, and all we did was post about it and push it pretty hard but at the same time it just kinda did it’s own thing and even then, we started getting messages and people asking when we’d be announcing the next one.

Justin: Especially this year because we were so late, people asked if it was happening this year.

Jake: We always thought it was an informal kind of joke but I guess it’s turned into more than that. 

Do you feel like because 2017 was when you got the most engagement that that’s when DIY scenes really got bigger or do you think that they were always prominent and we just didn’t really know about them? Because we didn’t have spaces like we do now when we were in High School.

Jake: I think it definitely comes in waves. I also think though that when we were younger, we didn’t know about it quite as much. 

Justin: I also think that in this specific area there’s not a venue that’s close by. The closest is probably BoonTunes.

Jake: Right, and that’s still 30-40 minutes away. And then you’ve got the Brunswick shows which are also kind far and are also really fun but they’re not like full on venues. Not that Blackburn is really a full on venue but it’s bigger than a basement. 

Justin: Hey man, it is! It may be a church basement but it can fit 300 people in there!

Do you have someone that runs it when you’re gone? 

Jake: I had the potential to run it but it never worked out. 

Justin: The first couple of years when we went to college, our friend Sammy ran it and put on a couple shows there by herself. 

Jake: We have the potential to do it. We get people asking to use our venue.

Justin: It’s kinda hard to do that with other people also because we have a good relationship with the people because we went to that church when we were little so they know us and they trust us. We’re really the only people that can put on shows. 

Jake: If someone else puts on a show there, one of us will still have to be there the whole time and kinda take it on as our own project to get permission for it.

What makes Pineapple Fest so special to you?

Justin: Gordon Whitley. Me and Gordon started Blackburn Hall 7 years ago and he had such a big vision for it and was responsible for such amazing talent coming through there. The unique bands and artists he brought through there were so awesome. It’s weird going forward without him; he made all the artwork for Pineapple Fest so we’re reusing it now. 

Jake: Yeah, this years banner is all his artwork from the past six years just collaged together. 

Justin:  It’s hard to think about doing this without him but I know that he would want us to keep pushing forward with this and keep it going as long as we can. That’s why this year, we knew we had to make it special for him. This year Pinapple Fest is a benefit show for The Trevor Project, which is a suicide prevention and crisis intervention program for LGBTQ teens; he was all about that program. We tried to do a show for them years ago but it fell through so this year we’re doing it for him in his name.

Jake: All of the profit from the show goes right to it. It’s weird to think about it, but looking back, Justin and Gordon really put me on a path to where I am now with everything. Running Blackburn Hall when we were 16-17 growing up, being able to put on our own shows really introduced me to the DIY community. And then also playing shows with You Above All and writing songs, I think 2-3 of Callouts first shows were at Blackburn Hall. But Gordon creating that space and all of the stuff that he did to make it happen gave me the ability to be where I am now and it’s nice to think about everything that he did.

Justin: It’s really sad to think about, but his legacy will carry on through this stuff and it’s keeping us going. 

What have been some of your favorite artists that have played Pineapple Fest?

Justin: There’s so many! At the beginning of the summer, Jake went through all of the sets from Pineapple Fest and the ridiculous amount of people who played. Gordon played every year. 

Jake: The Company Kept, I like them a lot. 

Justin: Holy shit, Diet! Do you remember Diet? I loved Diet. 

Jake: Jean Pool! Consistently one of my favorites. Will Wood, loved him! Feeny, I’m a fan of Feeny. The Ones You Forgot are really good.

Justin: 2017 was the fucking year man. Dreamer and Son, do you remember Dreamer and Son? 

Jake: We had a lot of bands on 2018. 

Justin: 2018 was packed. Forever Losing Sleep! I loved them, but they’re not a band anymore. 

Jake: There were a lot, it’s hard to pick favorites.

What are some of your favorite memories from Pineapple Fest?

Jake: Smashing the un-used pineapples at the end of the year.

Justin: I was gonna say that! We always buy real pineapples as decoration, sometimes we eat them but there are always leftover ones that end up getting rotten. I have a video of Jake in the Blackburn Hall lawn with a broken drumstick smashing one.

Jake: There’s also one of Justin with a mic-stand smashing one like a baseball.

Justin: Playing baseball with pineapples and a mic stand, that usually happens after Pineapple Fest. That’s also a good time, the morning after Pineapple Fest. Another one that happened last year is that it’s always so fucking hot in that basement during Pineapple Fest because it’s summer and there’s a shit ton of people down there, so last year when Feeny was playing it got so hot that it triggered the fire alarm. 

Jake: We had to kick everyone out, not to make them leave the show but because the fire department had to come and we needed to cool it off and people were like ‘do we have to?’. I kept yelling ‘it’s the fire alarm’!

Justin: We also didn’t completely know what happened we were like ‘oh god, is something on fire’. So yea, that was in the middle of Feeny’s set and eventually we got everyone out and figured out that it was because it got too hot in there. Something also happened where the heater got turned on so it made it even hotter. But the joke after that was that Pineapple Fest was so wild and hot that it sets off the fire alarm. Hopefully this year since it’s a little later in the year it’ll be cooler. 

Jake: Other good memories are people crowd surfing in this small basement. 

Justin: I think the craziest it got was during Such Gold and people were stage diving and shit.

Jake: There were times when it was PACKED and we had a really good turnout. 

Justin: In 2017 it rained, so we had to move the acoustic stage that’s outside, into another part of the church and I was constantly running back and forth down the hallways of this church to the different stages and just seeing these hoards of people running through the church was super funny.

What are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned from putting on your own DIY Festival?

Justin: Don’t wait until the last minute, even though we do that every year. 

Jake: It gets worse and worse each year. I think in 2017/2018 we started booking earlier and we ended up having a really good show. Another lesson is booking and picking people to play, because we do have a lot of people ask us. We can only put so many people on. If people want to know how they can play, seriously just ask us, and keep reminding us. You’re not bothering us, we just get busy. 

Justin: There’s only so much time in the day. We usually have 25-30 bands that play and usually there’s more than that that ask and it’s always hard to pick.

Jake: If anybody ever wants business management experience, throw a festival.

Justin: Yeah!

Jake: You do everything. Scheduling, finances, contacting, high stress environment. It’s perfect! If you wanna learn business management, throw a festival. 

Why do you think that DIY music scenes are so important? 

Justin: For me, I think it was a unique way to grow up as a teenager. Going to this specific type of environment, you get experiences that you don’t really get anywhere else. To be able to do that for other people is so important, because that had such a big impact on me and where I’m going with my life, it’s nice to be able to make that happen for other kids. It’s also a way for people to express themselves.

Jake: For me too, as a musician it’s a place to play before getting onto bigger stages. It’s also a community because there are so many supportive people there; it’s a great way to show your music and gain support. Every famous musician comes from somewhere. We’re in the internet age so it’s a little easier to grow online but it’s so important to have a home family and support system. All of the great experiences I’ve had as a musician like touring and playing big venues, it all comes from having support in a DIY scene. We wouldn’t be able to sell the tickets, know the people that we do, have the opportunities we have if we weren’t able to do the things we did. It’s great because you can always go back and see people that you know. It’s great connections for both business and friendship. From a business and emotional point, it’s just a good support system.

Justin: And it’s just fun. It’s just a fun place to be. A good way to spend your Saturday.

What are some plans you have for the future of Pineapple Fest?

Jake: We’ll do them as long as we can and as long as it makes sense. If you come to them, then we’ll know that we can do more and keep it going. Tell us if you wanna see more, because we would love to do more!

Justin: Yeah, I would love to keep doing this and I’d love to see a Pineapple Fest in 10 years because I think that would be wild.

Jake: That would be a lot of fun. We love doing the festival as long as people stay interested. 

Justin: I would like to see Pineapple Fest become bigger because we’ve had some pretty big names come through like Such Gold and Pronoun is headlining this year.

Oh yeah! Can you tell us a little bit more about how you booked Pronoun for the show?

Justin: I was on a roadtrip at the beginning of the summer. When I was driving through Baltimore, I saw that Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties were playing in that night and I went because I like that guy and I wanted to see them. The opening band was pronoun and I really liked them and thought that they were really cool and I started listening to them a lot. As we started planning Pineapple Fest I thought that it would be great to have pronoun play this but I never contacted them.

Later in the summer, I went to Forget Me Not Fest in Wanaque, NJ and pronoun was playing there with Real Friends and Keep Flying and a bunch of others. It was at a venue that’s pretty much the same as Blackburn Hall. After that show, I saw Alyse at her merch booth and I just went up and asked and she said ‘that sounds awesome’. It ended up working out and now she’s playing!

That’s so cool, I’m super excited to see her perform! Do you have any last words to wrap things up?

Jake: If anybody wants to donate equipment, let us know! If you want to play next year’s Pineapple Fest, come to this one! We’d love to meet you. Come out, introduce yourself, we’d love to talk to you. If we look angry or stressed, I promise we are just tired, but we always want to meet new people.

Justin: I would say just come out this year, if you’re not gonna come out ever again, come to this one. This one is super important to us and it’s for a great cause. We have a lot of different bands that have never played here before so it’s a new crowd. It’s always been a pretty diverse lineup; we have heavy bands, hip hop artists, and there’s even an electronic artist this year.

Jake: We try to book both new and old bands. At its core, we always wanted Pineapple Fest to be a platform for people that don’t really have a chance to play. 

All money raised at the festival this year will be going straight to the Trevor Project in honor of Gordon Whitley, who tragically passed away in December. He brought such a huge light to Pineapple Fest and everyone who attended and the festival wouldn’t be what it is today if not for him. If you can’t make it out this year, Blackburn Hall is taking online donations which you can find here. You can find more information on Pineapple Fest 2019 on Facebook.