Contributed by Hannah Norwood
I had the pleasure of interviewing Danylo “Dan” Fedoryka the guitarist and vocalist of the Celtic/folk band Scythian, about the 5th annual Appaloosa Music Festival. The band’s own homegrown roots music festival is being held August 30th-September 1st in Front Royal, Virginia. Voted the best music festival of Washington, D.C. last year, it’s just over an hour drive and the perfect Labor Day weekend getaway! He was kind enough to give us this exclusive promo code: VIP which gets you 35% off your whole purchase.
Q: Kid Friendly?
Dan: “Definitely! Because we’ve been around for 15 years you know a lot of our fans started off when they were single just out of college and now they have families. But it’s equally enjoyable for the young professional.
One thing we did is make 12-under, kids go FREE. And we have special family packages to make it affordable for families to come.
In the festival grounds itself we have this awesome kids zone with bouncy houses and free face paint! The whole festival is fenced in but within we have a second snow fencing where the kids can go in and be monitored.
The VIP tent is 21+ if you absolutely need to get away from kids. There’s a Happy Hour in VIP where the drinks are free from 4-6pm served with orderves and food.That’s where the artists come to drink. It’s been really popular!
For the adults we have this beautiful beer garden where you can sit and look at both stages, right in the heart of the festival. Made from reclaimed lumber by friends of ours locally the tables and benches are just gorgeous pieces.
We have Virginia craft beer, cider, and wine, Blue Mountain is our beer this year and Bold Rock cider.
It’s got this perfect vibe somehow, I don’t know how, but we struck the balance between kid-friendly but not too kiddy. We have food trucks, crafts vendors, and an ENO hammock village. There’s really something for everybody!”
Q: Camping situation?
“The RV Camping is sold out, but Dry RV camping is still available (here the sewage is serviced). Car camping is also still available.
There’s a family camping area and family VIP camping, these are totally separate it from the 21+ camping.”
Now that we’ve got down the basics of the festival, here’s some background on the group Scythian. The founding members started off as a group of college buddies including the two brothers Dan on guitar and Alex on the fiddle.
I had to ask, “Did you and your brother always play your respective instruments? Did you ever swap or switch between yourselves kind of thing?”
Dan: “Actually, it’s funny we’ve never swapped! It’s more of a—that’s yours, this is mine— and its always been that way. We grew up playing classical music. I grew up playing classical piano and my brother played violin.
He fell in love with Irish fiddle and really started studying the style. Then he went to Ireland, for four months and immersed himself in the music and the culture. It took him every bit of that four months to get the nuances of the Celtic fiddle. When he came back he had a total new found appreciation for not only bluegrass but also specifically the old time playing ‘cause he saw this direct line from the Celtic 
fiddle and so you know he made that transition.
I had already taught myself how to play the basics of guitar, just for fun.
He was like, hey listen… You have to learn how to back me up with the Celtic rhythm guitar.
You’ve gotta learn how to back me up on this because we will see the world. I promise you. This music is unstoppable. That’s what he felt about the Celtic fiddle and it kind of proved to be true.”
Dan had such a warm personality it was immediately like talking to an old friend as we exchanged stories about our favorite festivals. Watching them make a name for themselves going from the smallest stages up onto the big ones, and beyond has been incredible. I described a memory of meeting them around ten or so years ago back when they were still virtually unknown, through a mutual family friend in their first year performing at one festival in particular in North Carolina, Merlefest. Now they are a staple on the line-up at that festiva!l Always burning down The Dance Tent for Saturday night’s closing set. Given our familiarity with this one, it quickly became our reference point as the “festival standard” moving forward in our conversation. In speaking of those early days in particular, he was so thoughtful and appreciative.
Dan: “You know we started out for gas money playing on the streets and whenever we ran out of money we’d just open up our guitar cases and then we’d have money to get us to the next stop. It started that way, not really planning on being a band and then the response of the crowd was so enthusiastic. It was almost like our fans from the very beginning were pushing us from behind to go forward. From day one we’ve felt a very strong connection to our fans in the audience because it’s kind of like you know without them I don’t think we would be doing this.”
Growing such a strong fanbase along the way is actually a huge part of what enabled them to start their own festival. He describes how even though they only had two weeks notice getting the permit in Appaloosa’s first year that 3,500 people showed up. Furthermore, they’ve built this community over time that includes so many personal friends that are involved in directing and organizing big name festivals. He says, “Its a festival where festival directors come just to enjoy themselves.” Therefore in deciding to start their own festival there was a team of people ready and willing to pitch in with advice on the organization of everything from permits, to volunteer coordination, to the performers themselves. 
Often artists they’ve met backstage of different shows as Scythian on tour, they’ll make friends with and end up booking for Appaloosa. He described this shakedown with a number of artists on previous years lineups such as Billy Strings. They booked him for “peanuts” a few years ago when he was just trying to get his name out there and can’t even afford him anymore. Dan boasts, “Appaloosa is getting a reputation as the place you come to find bands before they break it big. It’s been so fun watching our alumni just take off.” With a track record that speaks for itself, I can’t argue there.
Q: What encouraged you, rather inspired you to start your own festival?
Dan: “I was just sitting there one morning thinking. Man we always have to leave Washington, DC to find work. I have all of these favorite festivals, like Merlefest, and all other kinds around the country we’ve seen so many amazing festivals and have met so many amazing people. We live next to a major metropolis that has no roots music festival. Appaloosa fills the void in DC. Gets us a gig that we don’t have to travel for. And provides our community with a chance to see exactly what we’ve been doing for the past 15 years.”
Starting up a music festival in their hometown of 15,000 people, a place he moved to when he was 6 years old and wasn’t 16 until the first time he ever saw a live band in said town, was a lofty goal. Yet they wanted a chance to create that special kind of musical event experience for their own community. Dan elaborated, “We loved seeing the tradition. You know the kids that grew up at a festival. They get the same camping spot every year and they have friends that they’ve been seeing once a year, for fifteen years.”
I knew exactly what he was talking about. That was me. I was that kid and now I’m that adult. Did I mention I was in middle school when I first met Scythian so long ago? Oh yeah and I absolutely camp in the same spots every year at all of my favorite festivals, because place-making is one of the first steps in building community.
Q: Favorite set or stage you perform at yourself at Appaloosa?
“Aw geez! Well our kids set. We have a kids project called Cake for Dinner. It’s kind of grueling because we’re hosting the festival, we have a kids set each day. We’re gonna do 3 kids sets and 3 adult sets. Friday, Saturday, Sunday one each day for both audiences. The kids set is always one of my favorites because we’ll have like 300+ kids 1-10 years old and that tent is just Bonkers! I laugh so hard every year. A lot of adults come too because its just so fun. That’s always a favorite of mine.
But also you just can’t beat playing in your hometown on a main-stage made from reclaimed local lumber. We actually had a barn raising, the whole community came together and in one weekend put all of the siding up on this massive stage that looks like gigantic Virginia barn, just cut in half. It’s one of the most beautiful stages I’ve seen at any festival.
To be on that stage playing for the people I grew up with is fun. The first year, I loved seeing their eyes. When I said I was in a band I’m sure they were imagining something just out of my mom’s garage. I kind of saw their eyes open wide and they were like Oooooo, I had no clue that THIS is what you did. You know for 10 years they never knew what I really did. So that to me is always just magical. Our fans will drive from Ohio, NC, PA, etc. and all of them come back and say I’ve never seen a more energized set than that one!”
Q: Performers we should keep our eye on this year that are on the rise?
Dan: “Upstate for sure! They’re just electric and gonna be there on Friday only.
Jessica Willis Fisher, is debuting her solo career and she’ll have a 3-piece on Sunday.
Honey Day is blowing me away! They are just getting started, a young band, I went and saw them audition. My brother and I were like Holy Cow! These girls could be on the main stage at some larger festival right now. They’re playing both Friday and Saturday.
Of course we always got the big headliners, this year we’ve got The Steep Canyon Rangers, Dustbowl Revival, and Yarn to name a few!
One of our closers we actually discovered at Merlefest, Aztec Sun, but they’re from right here in DC. It’s funny we had to go to North Carolina to find a band that’s right here in our backyard. Aztec Sun is gonna explode here in the next couple of years.”
From the start Dan expressed that the goal Appaloosa set out with was to have, “the same hospitable vibe they have at Merlefest, where I feel like the attendees aren’t just attendees but I feel that they are close to me. They’re like: welcome to our little slice of heaven! We wanted to do that as hosts too.” It is encapsulated perfectly in the motto of the festival: Music among friends. The fact their friends from the road, the bands that they book, the fans, the people from the community they grew up in, and even strangers can all come together for this one event being welcomed warmly with open arms, is pretty dang magical feat.
I feel like I’m a part of it already and I just got the invite. I’m so grateful for this opportunity to help them continue to achieve their wholesome goals of building community. Excited to be there soon enjoying some world class music, and making some new friends too!
