A Blitz of Sounds from the Edge - Big Ears Festival 2026: the Echoes Interview with Ashley Capps

In the Echoes Podcast it’s our annual interview with Ashley Capps, the founder of Big Ears Festival. He also created Bonaroo and resurrected Moogfest. We cover Big Ears because they often have a lot of Echoes artists and they are just the best, most civilized and most surprising festival in America.

Ashley: what we’re trying to avoid is the bland and the innocuous, know, are just things that, know, you know, just nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, you know. That doesn’t really interest me.

Big Ears is anything but bland. It will take place in Knoxville, TN March 26-29, 2026. There will be over 200 acts including Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, SUSS, Pat Metheny, multiples of John Zorn, Hania Rani, Nik Bartsch’s Ronin and Nels Cline. The first hour of Echoes will be all music from the forthcoming Big Ears Festival 2026 and our interview with Ashley Capps who talks about putting the festival together. Ears are wide open on Echoes.