Bratfest music programmer Michael Alexander on Max Ink Radio

Michael Alexander and Big Whiskey. That song is called 4 a.m. Max Inc. on Civic Media. We are local music broadcasted across Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network. Hope you have it a great Saturday evening 844-967-2789.

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Jimmy in 1983, an effort to thank the customers of this family-owned and operated grocery store Tom Metcalfe and his wife Margaret, created a modest broad fry with a table of 3 chairs and a Weber grill.

They cooked up brats and sold them for 50 cents and people soon flocked to the store every memorial day weekend for a taste of Wisconsin's staple.

By 2004, the festival had become the world's largest broad fest and moved to Willow Island in the Alliance Energy Center where it continues to sell hundreds of thousands of brats every year, raising more than $2.4 million for local charities and now Madison is known as the broad capital of the world.

And there is live music, Jimmy, boasting several major stages and tons of local and national acts every year.

Michael Alexander is the music programmer for broad fest and tonight, Michael is in our studio with his daughter, Madison, to tell us about the music at this year's broad fest.

Michael, Madison, welcome to Max Inc. Radio.

Thanks for having us, guys.

I'm so happy to have you guys here. This feels like summer now, doesn't it?

It does, yeah.

You're like royalty with the sausages and music mingling together often, Weber.

Let's talk about your music real quick. We just listened to Big Whiskey here.

I had a couple shots at Whiskey before I said that.

What's going on with the band, dude?

I'm lucky enough to play with some of the best musicians in the world at all times.

Recording touring with, you know, whether it's Neil Middleton from Bliss or Scott Wilson from Able or whatever their projects are.

This show will be playing with Lanco.

In the last time we played with Lanco, I kind of toned it down and I did more of a country vibe instead of our southern rock, you know, vibe that we do.

Yeah, yeah.

And then they got up on stage and kicked our butts.

And so when we were talking with them after I said we were going to bring it.

So this year we're going to have Dane, Dane de Matia and Dallas Hall, who used to be in Whaland.

They'll both be on guitar.

Whoa.

And then we have Wendy from Sunspot, you know, is our fiddle player.

That is so good.

Mike is our bass player.

And then Paul Zander, he's been with me for 20 years on drums.

And then Frank Bush is going to sit in for a couple of hours.

This is like a super groove.

So Big Whiskey, whenever we do big shows, now we have the two guitar players and the fiddle players.

And Dane is so good.

Michael, you got to bring that to the layers of Saturday night, please.

Yeah, I think that will be great time.

Wow.

So here's a little trivia for you.

One of the first bands I discovered when I started doing this local music show back in 2010

or something like that in my basement was Sand.

I discovered Sand on repert nation, dude.

Yeah.

And you guys are playing broad fest.

Do you think new happening with you guys?

Yeah.

We've done, you know, like the guys in slaughter, Mark and Dane are buddies of mine.

So we decided we're going to do a little reunion show and we're going to play with slaughter.

So we did that and it went really well.

So Wade, Michael, myself and Paul have been rehearsing and playing just a handful of different gigs.

We're going to be doing the dump run this summer.

And we are doing broad fest for the first time.

You know, we took about 10 years off.

I needed a breather.

We had literally, you know, we were touring all over the country for $100 and high fives.

Right?

And, you know, we recorded that, loads your guns record at Jesse DePree's house.

He has a cock of the walk studios with Jeff Tomay.

We went down there.

We made an amazing record.

And then I went on tour about six months later with Wayland solo.

And I just decided after 11 years of beating my head against the wall,

it was time to give sand a break.

Right?

But I'm so excited to be back and playing that music because it's very different than big ones.

The two are, you know, people are like, well, you wrote the music for both.

Isn't that the same?

Well, no, it's not the same at all.

You know, it.

Every project is different.

And that's why you have different projects.

Yeah.

The sand is, you know, Michael and I singing together and it's a little more aggressive.

Right?

It's more of a, it, we're never screamers, but it's more of like a freight train just about to come off the rail.

So I've got to talk to you too.

Yeah.

But you're always like, well, is it going to get there?

Oh my gosh.

Hey, tell us, how did you get started with Broadfest?

So at the time, I was doing all the music for club tavern and dry bean.

And I had maybe seven other venues that I was booking the music for.

I was also running the youth center for the Y.

And as I was trying to get my music out there, you're doing anything you can to make ends meet, right?

Yeah.

And Bobby Duncanson from Bob Rocks and I don't, now he's with Masino, right?

Yeah.

Bobby came up to me and he said, hey, you know, Andy Davis is booking Broadfest.

And sometimes they're struggling to get, you know, the bands in and this and that.

And so I sat in in a couple of meetings and for the first three years, I booked it with Andy, right?

And just kind of, I helped out.

We booked back then it was a hundred bands, right?

And we did it all for, for seven years, I did it all for free.

I booked it all for free.

I, you know, I played for free, you know, this and that.

But that's how it really got started.

And then eventually I took over and then we kind of changed the face of what Broadfest was.

Oh, wow.

We figured out, you know, we started paying bands.

Everybody at least a hundred bucks, no matter what.

Because nobody ever got paid back in the day.

It was all considered a good, well done.

Yeah, just like the four headliners, I think, would end.

It's a fundraiser.

Yeah.

And then we really changed it when, you know, I brought in Brett Michael.

I was at that first really.

Hold on.

Yeah.

And that was really when we took that risk, we took that leap.

Oh, it was so good.

You know, and now we're rolling at about 50,000 people on average per day.

So Brett Michaels poisoned the water.

He poisoned the water.

Really.

Yeah.

Well, tell us about Broadfest from your perspective.

Yeah.

How many stages, how many musicians, how many bands?

And it's such a great place to discover new music for people that are like, I need to hear

some new music too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we have a very, you know, whether it's at my venue or festivals that run or, you know,

pick a thing, right?

My favorite thing is that we're an independent event, right?

Yes.

It's not booked by live nation or it's not, you know, it's a situation where we get to have complete control.

Now that being said, I have 20 years of booking and I still have to have an argument often times

about having locals do direct for nationals because they don't, they usually, national bands

usually tour with either a buy on band or an opening act.

But my whole thing is you're never going to make the scene better unless you take those

best bands and you put them up in front of the bands that are actually doing things.

Right.

If you think about the crystal grand, right, when you play that stage, I can walk off that stage

and sell, you know, $2,000 in merch.

Now, when I walk off of a stage and I'm the headliner around here, I might, if I do 250

a night, that's usually what I do.

I can attest to this, just gin blossoms.

And Sunspot, open Sunspot, local Madison band, open for the gin blossoms.

I was standing next to the lead singer we had interviewed him.

And he said to me, I like these guys.

You know, and then you hope that relationship goes somewhere.

And it does.

And that's, you know, I've toured so cool.

All over with some of the bands that I grew up listening to, right?

But that's because I had the opportunities.

And if you get those opportunities, then people need to be let down a path, right?

Yeah.

So anyway, that's what we do.

We take the locals, we put them with the nationals.

That's what we've always done.

This year, we got amazing locals.

We also have.

It's a good list.

And you got your daughter, your Madison.

I know.

Yeah, we have my daughter's Madison here.

Madison, what are you doing to help your dad out with Broadfest?

He's going to be giving me one of the stages to run and manage.

Just giving you the stage to run and manage.

I wish.

I wish on show.

Yeah.

She's going to be the boss, so isn't she?

I can see it.

I'm 17.

You're 17, man.

And you also are a musician yourself, right?

Yes.

I play all sorts of instruments.

That's what Jimmy K was going to ask.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Go for it, Jimmy K.

Are you hoping to play music?

Are you hoping to manage music or manage music in general?

I would kind of love to do a little bit of both.

I'm not entirely sure what I want to do.

But I think it would be kind of cool to live up to his legacy.

Absolutely.

Oh, my gosh.

He's talking about you, dad.

My gosh.

That's right.

I know.

That's just giving me goosebumps, though.

That's so strange.

How did you get started playing music?

Well, because of him, I mean, if you don't play an instrument and you mean, I mean,

I don't want to end up on the street, you know?

Yeah.

Oh, she's got good humor to do.

That's great, really.

Oh.

Oh, my.

Well, she plays everything from what we've been here.

I heard ukulele, piano, trumpet, acoustic guitar, bass, icing.

That's so funny.

You need to follow yourself.

I hate music yourself.

Yeah.

You need to follow yourself.

You could have your own band with yourself.

Yeah.

But that doesn't work out.

Keep working on it.

We only have about 30 seconds here, Michael.

If people wanted to get more information about Brotfest, get the full line up the bands.

Yeah.

What do we do?

Go to Brotfest.com.

Some of, you know, we do have a huge lineup with Lanko.

We have Whalen getting back together.

We have Village people.

I know.

We have.

Boba Flex is back together for, again, for this bad boy.

Wow.

It's Tiger Lily Gold.

You know, it's going to be another amazing event.

Quiet Riot.

Check it out.

Quiet Riot.

Brotfest.com.

Get all the details.

Don't forget.

It's for charity.

All the brats, all the beer you buy is all about charity, right?

The bratwurst is so good.

Go ahead, Michael.

2.5 million raised for charity so far.

What's the goal for this year, man?

What do you want to hit?

We never really pay attention to the brats.

We're just worried about making sure that people are safe and have a great time.

Awesome.

What's happening here?

Hey.

This band is complaining.

Brotfest.

They're from Nashville, Tennessee.

They are called Randall Trap.

This is called The Rage Within.

It's back.

See you on Civic Media.

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