A Conversation with Candace Devine, Founder of Pure Imagination Fest and Front Woman of Ponderosa Grove
In my late morning conversation with A Conversation with Candace Devine, Founder of Pure Imagination Fest and Front Woman of Ponderosa Grove, three things were very clear, she is a force to be reckoned with, the heights she will reach for knows no bounds and the love for her community. After two years of establishing the Pure Imagination Fest, A Conversation with Candace Devine, Founder of Pure Imagination Fest and Front Woman of Ponderosa Grove goes over what she is most excited about, what to look forward to this year and some things the super group Ponderosa Grove has on the horizon.
How long ago did you start the fest?
This is our third year, we feel like it’s a pinnacle year. All the train wheels are off at this point and we’ve expanded to two days. It’s been wonderful each year prior, we’ve built a loving festival fam and we are really excited for the growth of this year. We are a very eclectic festival and every year we try to diversify it sound wise as much as possible. I’m good friends with Vic Funtes who is the lead singer of Pierce the Veil and so many of my friends ask ‘when are you bringing in some emo or harder rock?’ and it hasn’t been for lack of trying [laughs] in the future I’m certain we will have an artist that will appeal to everyone’s taste.
The fest, only being in its third year, has already brought many amazing diverse talents to the area such as The National Parks, The Flaming Lips and Tanya Tucker to Prescott. The small town is located in the most central part of Arizona and is known for being a hub of live music and being surrounded by mountain scenery.
What you're doing is super important for Arizona and Prescott in general. What are some things that have changed from the inaugural year to now?
The best way to put it is that we leveled up, where we have been able to expand the most is in are behind the scenes systems. Trust me when I tell you when you take out a personal loan to start a festival, you don’t have enough money to put on a festival [laughs] We had a lot of help from the community and volunteers and friends, family members, husbands and wives, spouses and partners. Everybody was pitching in to ensure that all the details got done, this is the first year with the expansion that we really have the capability of teams and crews in place. We’ve always been able to present the fluidity to the attendee but we are very excited to be able to have the fluidity in house. My goal with this festival is always to create an environment where people leave everything that's happening in the world at the door and get two days to escape into positivity, joy and reconnect to themselves, to the earth, each other and their community. The core of our planning, our substance and our vision comes from a tight knit female team that really drives from the heart and mindspace of a hospitable standpoint of giving the best experience to our audience.
We try to give consideration to the fact that we know we are indigenous lands so we have the Hopi tribe come and bless the fest grounds and bless the attendees before we start with a ceremonial performance. It’s those kinds of details that I think add so much intention to the space and to the experience when you arrive.
Circling back to your band, Ponderosa Grove, which can almost be described as a super group. When was the project founded?
That’s very kind [laughs] I’ve had a long career and history in the music industry in multi faceted ways. I started my career singing backup for Christina Aguliera and then transitioned into my own solo records and then I was in another band called David and Devine. We were signed and touring all over, opening up for a lot of major acts and then we grew up and our lives changed. I moved here and had a family and started to really get to know the community of Prescott and the incredible musicianship that happens here that has managed to stay under the radar not for any good or bad reason but just that it’s a small town. During the shut down, I started some live streams to help the musicians keep making their income because Prescott is full of professional musicians who gig every night of the week and when everything was locked up and shut down those musicians couldn’t work. So I started the live streams for Prescott specifically called The Friday Feature that allowed people to tip their musicians online, which was doing great. We were doing 45 minute sets and we were getting anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 views a week. I got to work with a lot of the musicians, Drew Hall is a really well known guitarist in Prescott who is a brilliantly talented man. We really hit it off and we played some shows in different capacities together before but we spent that time not wanting to go stir crazy as musicians, so we just started writing and that became the immediate partnership of Ponderosa Grove.
The reason we named the band Ponderosa Grove is because we've had a circulating collective as a band. Drew and I are at the heart of it and our drummer Gregory ‘Gigi’ Gonaway has always been at the heart of it as well and then we’ve had a number of players be in the band as well. We have a set up from a two-piece duo to a trio, we have a 5-piece, we have a 6-piece, we have an 8-piece and we have a 9-piece set up. For the festival we are actually showing up as a 7-piece. Drew and I do a large section of the writing but we also try to invite in a lot of other writers from Prescott and from other places as well and make it really collaborative. I would say the heartbeat or the foundation of our band is that we are a harmony folk rock band. All of our players are incredible and we’ve really enjoyed running with it.
What is the meaning behind the name Ponderosa Grove?
Prescott Arizona has the largest Ponderosa pine population in the nation, we have a massive Ponderosa pine forest. What we liked about the name is that it represented where we are from but it also represented the fact that we are a collective and that we do invite players into our mix to collaborate and so we thought Ponderosa Grove embodied both of those elements very well.
What were your inspirations that you drew from for this project?
We would say we have such a diverse influential line up because our band spans so many different age groups. We have people in the band that are 20 and we have people in the band who are 40, we are all sharing music with each other all the time of all different kinds of genres. We have people in the band who love jam bands and long instrumentals, we have people who love some hard core rock and roll, people who love the true 70’s decade of music and people who love EDM. We really try to write based not only on our shared experiences but our individual experiences, we all have very diverse backgrounds from each other so we draw on our personal experiences a lot. We are dropping a new single actually on May 17th (the first day of the fest) called A Bird Can’t Fly, I had a miscarriage and so it was written as combination of a corona-virus/miscarriage but also anthemic is gonna be fine you just gotta get up and dust yourself off kind of a song. We also wrote a song previously called Don’t Worry Child that was inspired by the fact that Drew’s daughter was coming of age and was going to be heading out in the world soon as an adult. The song conveys the optimism that you’re going to be okay and you just gotta live life to the fullest and you’ll always find a way to land on your feet.
We have a new EP coming out this summer as well as the single dropping in May so we have a whole bunch of new stuff from new chapters and new events coming out. I think that’s why we’ve collected that fans over the years the way we have, being relatable. We are just humans on a stage singing about our shit [laughs].
The two projects (the fest and Ponderosa Grove) that’s how they’ve come together through the years, the collective experience of feeling like you’re going through something alone when in reality you have a community of people who are going through a similar experience. The universal language of music reminds us that humanity exists for everyone and we all have trials and tribulations, we all have our successes and our wins. There are times and places where we just need to remember that and let go of the differences and find the commonality.
About a year ago, Candace, you performed the national anthem at the Suns game here in Phoenix, can you tell me about that experience?
They have been very gracious having me back which is wonderful, the Suns organization has sudo adopted me in a way. I’ve sung for a number of their games and they are always very kind and let me sing for their big playoff games, I wish they were going to the playoffs this year, they had already reached out in hopes [laughs] but the experience is incredible, the Arizona fans are incredible, the Footprint Center is a house of awesome. People are there to have a great time, I’ve never had a bad experience with the Suns organization or with the Footprint Center, I can’t say enough wonderful things about it. I am always honored to sing the national anthem, I consider it a huge honor in the fact that they’ve had me back a number of times just means a lot to me. I always give it my absolute best. For the good and bad of any nation around the world, I am very proud to be an American, we don’t always get it right by any means but at least we have the opportunity to try and change it and I think that’s the most exciting thing about living in this country.
Do you feel like Prescott as a city inspires you?
The short answer is, yes of course. The motto for Prescott is ‘everybody’s hometown’ and that couldn’t be more true from my personal experience. I have not been more welcomed by any place really and I’ve traveled a lot, I have made myself get my boots around the world in a number of facets. Prescott has this infectious kindness as a general rule the people here are very warm, the landscape and the topography is beyond inspiring, you have a little bit of everything between the Granite Dells and the forest, the high desert, the rivers and the lakes. It doesn’t leave much more to be desired. The topography is awe inspiring and the people here just have that innate kindness and warmth and community. There’s just so much kindness here and that is inspiring, it’s nice to see people working together. We have communities here that absolutely sit on opposite sides of the fence in a number of ways but they work through their discourse in a really polite and civil way and that’s the way it’s supposed to be and that’s the thing I give Prescott a lot of respect for and a lot of love for is that people can share their differences and manage to get their point across without being aggressive, they keep it civil and kind. It’s a reminder that we have more in common together than we have apart. I think our community exemplifies that as well as the festival, humans are humans everywhere and when given the chance to be their best they can rise to that occasion. I’ve had older members of the community come to me and say ‘I don’t know one person on your lineup but I’m gonna come anyways!’ [laughs] That just says it all right there, it’s like thank you so much! Because you’ll know you’ll walk away with something extra special, make memories and you might just walk away as a fan of new music you never knew you needed.
What does the future look like for the fest and the band?
Two words: wonderful chaos, by the time the festival and the band all collide, the festival finishes out and the band pushes the new singles out while trying to manage to be a mom, sleep, run a business and make food somewhere in there. It’s wonderful chaos and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Check out Ponderosa Grove along with a line up of over 12 different artists May 17th & May 18th at Watson Lake in Prescott Arizona.
Festival Passes are available here
