To celebrate Halloween this year, Red Bull Sound Select Sydney announces a Halloween-themed spectacular curated by Laneway Festival’s Travis Banko for this Friday, October 27.

Flipped over with spooky décor, Freda’s in Chippendale will be transformed into a sinister home, fit for celebrating the latest emerging music as well as the performance of very special international guests, All We Are.

Red Bull Sound Select is an artist development program designed to support and uncover local artists through a series of monthly live shows in both Sydney and Melbourne. We caught up with one of the legends behind this month’s program to help you with your Halloween costume dilemma. 

BYO: Introduce yourself

Travis: I’m Travis Banko; programmer at Laneway Festival, artist manager at Lunatic Entertainment and also have had the privilege of being a curator for RBSS (Red Bull Sound Select) over the last couple of years.

BYO: How did you first get involved with Red Bull Sound Select?

Travis: Red Bull approached me about getting involved off the back of our existing relationship with the festival (Red Bull have been a valued partner of Laneway since the beginning). Once they explained the great artist development philosophy behind the RBSS, and the free trip to LA, I was in!

BYO: Tell me about your role as a curator for this program?

Travis: I’ve really enjoyed it, the way it works is the curator will bring an idea for a 3 artist lineup to Red Bull. From there, we start working through ideas for venues, a story to tie the three acts together in some way, etc and bring it all together. It’s been a lot of fun.

BYO: As a curator/artist manager, what inspires you to find emerging artists?

Travis: It’s always been based off gut instinct, if something sounds great then I dig a little deeper and if all the parts fit then the next step is to try to find a way to work together with that act on something.

BYO: Where do you find your talent?

Travis: Word of mouth, recommendations, pitches from other people in the industry, Spotify, SoundCloud, radio, reading about them, etc etc etc

BYO: Is there a particular genre you look for?

Travis: Not really but I do have my favourites like anyone else.

BYO: How has the program helped emerging artists?

Travis: The biggest thing so far from the artists I’ve programmed has been sending Sampa the Great to Europe to do some writing sessions, and also getting her to the US for the 30 Days in LA show we put on last year with Isaiah Rashad, Sampa and Mansionair. Sampa killed it.

BYO: What should we look most forward towards for this week’s Red Bull Sound Select X Halloween event?

Travis: The debut Australian show from All We Are, they’re from Liverpool and have recently released their second record. Also not to be missed is Exhibitionist, they’ve just signed to Future Classic and are making some stunning music, and Blessed who blew everyone away at Bigsound so definitely get down early for him.

BYO: Any suggestions on costume ideas?

Travis: With season 2 of Stranger Things dropping this weekend, there’s no doubt dressing up as the characters from the show will be very popular. I’ve been trying to get one of the guys from our office to dress as Eleven but he’s having none of it!

BYO: What is the raddest costume you’ve ever come across?

Travis: There was a guy dressed as “Jon Snow-White” last year, which was solid: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/31/23-genius-halloween-costumes-that-won-the-internet/

BYO: What are you doing for Halloween this year?

Travis: Partying down at Freda’s for RBSS with All We Are, Exhibitionist and Blessed.

You can catch all the action of Red Bull Sound Select, curated by Laneway Festival's Travis Banko this Friday, October 27 @ Freda's, Chippendale. With headline artists All We Are, Exhibitionist & BLESSED.

To RSVP:
hwww.redbullsoundselect.com/events/2017/10/red-bull-sound-select-presents-sydney