Magpie Johnston reflects on journey to create Gum Ball at Dashville

Like a lost relic from another time the tapes showed a then 22-year-old Matt performing with his older brother, Dan, in their former rock band Johnny Real & The Lovemakers.

The event was the inaugural Gum Ball music festival, then held in front of a couple of hundred punters in what was essentially the Johnston family's bush paddock.

It was a far cry from the established multi-event venue that has been developed slowly on the Lower Belford property, best known these days as Dashville.

"We weren't sure if we were gonna be able to do another one," Matt Johnston tells Weekender under the awning of Dashville's Ruby's Pizzeria.

"Nobody taught us how to do any of that, it was a different kind of time.

"Nobody taught us how to play music either. We just worked it out and did it. There's a lot more resources these days to learn how to put on an event and make it all work and play music and do the whole thing.

"She was a blank canvas back then."

On April 21 to 23 the Gum Ball returns to Dashville for its 17th edition.

The 39-act line-up, helped in part from a NSW Government's Regional Events Accelerator Fund, is arguably the strongest in the festival's history.

It features American grunge headliners Mudhoney, as well as Canadian rockers The Sheepdogs, Something For Kate frontman Paul Dempsey and Australian rock legends Baby Animals.

"Without question, what we have on the table this year is a good offering, it's hard to suggest we'll be able to put up a line-up as good next year," Matt says.

"Each year has it's own challenges."

After attending Byron Bay's Bluesfest, Meredith Festival in Victoria and others overseas, the Johnston brothers decided in 2005 to host their own music festival, called the Gum Ball.

"That was the most powerful feeling I'd felt," Matt remembers. "At that time I'd done a lot of things, but I was never so certain in my life that it was something I had to have a crack at, to do the festival.

"I don't know where that stems from, but I just remember that being a really clear distinct feeling."

Music festivals, by their very nature, are a challenging business. They require compliance with a litany of council regulations and safety codes and you're often at the mercy of the weather.

The Dashville story began in 1982 when Darryl "Dash" Johnston and his wife Colleen left Sydney and purchased a bush property in Lower Belford to train horses.

Matt, known to his friends as "Magpie", was born in January 1983, joining his elder siblings Alyson and Dan, and younger brother Andrew arrived nine years later.

Matt and Dan bonded through their love of music and formed high school bands at Singleton's St Catherine's Catholic College, which later morphed into Johnny Real & The Lovemakers.

These days Dan leads the Americana band Johnston City, while Matt fronts Magpie Diaries, which also features his wife Jessica on drums.

The inaugural festival featured Iota, Australian Beef Week Show, Bomba and Newcastle bands Dirty Pink Jeans and the Great Dividing Range.

Matt laughs as he describes the inaugural Gum Ball as "horrendous".

"We had the blinkers on big time," he says. "We had a vision of what we wanted to achieve, but we didn't really know how to achieve that, we just had a go.

"The [Singleton Shire] Council had their vision and they just smashed us with all these requirements.

"We were all flying a little bit blind back then. It took me about 10 years to pay off that first one, just in payment plans."

Despite the hefty debt, the brothers persisted. For 2006 and 2007 they held 500-capacity festivals at James Estate in Pokolbin, with alt-rock favourites Regurgitator headlining the second edition at the winery.

But after James Estate sold they were forced to find a new venue and decided to take the Gum Ball in 2008 to Wollombi.

The Johnstons were dealt a crushing blow when a week out from the festival the Cessnock City Council ruled it did not meet environmental and planning guidelines.

"We had a three-day festival with bands booked like Dan Sultan, Urthboy, Mia Dyson. It was a big line-up. It was a cracker," Matt says.

"We had to cancel them all and pay a lot of those bills. That one hurt a bit."

By that stage Dan stepped away from the operating and planning of the Gum Ball as Matt pushed on by returning the festival to Dashville in 2009.

"This is where the vision was from the get go and I had been getting pushed around by all these other people, telling me what I needed to do," Matt says.

"I needed to do what I intended to do and we've never looked back."

Over time Matt and his crew of volunteers and mates slowly built up the infrastructure of Dashville. Building permanent showers, toilets, a bar and cafe - all with a distinct rustic and DIY vibe.

The crowd grew steadily too, mostly by word of mouth as music fans were seduced by the family-friendly and chilled atmosphere.

The festival's real breakthrough came in 2014 when it sold out for the first time, as 2500 punters turned out to catch the headlining Hoodoo Gurus.

In 2015 the Gum Ball took a year off when the newly-married Matt and Jess travelled overseas, but later that year they launched the first Dashville Skyline Americana and alt-country festival.

Dashville has also since introduced the punk and metal-focused Thrashville.

Matt estimates about 600 acts have performed at Dashville. His personal highlights include Dan Sultan's performance of Purple Rain just days after the death of Prince in 2016 and Redgum's emotional Anzac Day set in 2013.

"It's funny how those things seem to come together and usually it's through grief or some kind of adversity that these moments are created," he says.

An unexpected byproduct of the Gum Ball and Dashville has been the creation of its own local scene.

ARIA Award-winning Cessnock-based singer-songwriter William Crighton has performed countless times at Dashville since Matt gave him a headline slot at Skyline in 2015, before he'd even released his debut album.

Acclaimed Kurri Kurri folk songstress Melody Pool and Newcastle Americana songwriters Ben Leece and Dave Wells are other artists that have become synonymous with the festivals.

Younger acts like Turpentine Babycino, Kingsley James and Piper Butcher have also benefited from their involvement with Dashville.

"There's a huge family of songwriters around Australia who call this place their second home," Matt says.

"We're definitely proud of that. It's nice to be able to say we used to have these people but they're too big now and won't ever come back.

"The Teskey Brothers played here, The Preachers, all these bands when they were at the start of their career and have gone through the roof."

No matter how popular Crighton becomes, for him Dashville is "like a second home."

"You won't find a better bloke than Magpie and his whole family are like family to me and I'll always support Dashville and always be a part of Dashville and always be thankful to them for giving me that go," Crighton says.

"That's the thing about Dashville, you go out there and you feel a part of it and the people you come out to watch the bands feel a part of it.

"It's like I'm here at a mate's place, there's just a lot of people here and there's bands playing. It's a community."

In January Matt turned 40 and a month later he and Jess welcomed their second child, Elroy, who joined his older sister Ruby.

Matt laughs when I ask if the grand scheme is to eventually pass the torch of the Dashville empire to Ruby and Elroy?

"They say you go hard in your 30s and start winding down in your 40s," he says.

"I'm definitely trying to navigate my way through to the next generation and keep everything going.

"That's the challenge. We're coming up to 20 years of the festival. I can't say if it will be going for another 20 years because there's so many hurdles that we'll come across.

"I'm eager to enjoy my children's youth and hang out with them. As a father they grow up so quick, so as long as that's in check, it'll be OK."

The Gum Ball returns to Dashville at Lower Belford from April 21 to 23.