“It was small, like 120 people for a little mountain rave up in the woods.
But we started doing it every summer because it was just popular; people liked it.
But there’s a lot more to the story.
Coachella’s Do LaB stage.Jess Gallo/Atlas Media
Still to this day, our whole crew is listening to music all the time.
Even when the festival opened up to attendees on the first day, they didn’t stop playing music.
“And it turned into this party of like a thousand people.”
Coachella’s Do LaB stage.Jess Gallo/Atlas Media
There are noise curfews in effect, after all.
Instead of asking for permission, they just agreed to ask for forgiveness if they got in trouble.
I hope they don’t get mad,'” Josh recalls.
Odesza plays a surprise set at 2023 Coachella’s Do LaB.Jess Gallo/Atlas Media
“We didn’t ask, but we were just going to do it.”
And it turned out that the Coachella organizers weren’t mad at all.
And we were like, ‘Maybe?'"
Coachella’s Do LaB stage.Jess Gallo/Atlas Media
Josh says with a laugh.
Once that happened, then we had the green light to just go for it.
We started booking DJs and friends to come and play.
Jesse smiles as he adds, “We just started running with it.
“We were broke, starving artists for a long time,” Josh says.
“It was a company, but it wasn’t really a business.
If people paid us, we just used that money to buy some more lights or whatever.
And that went on for years.
The three of us looked at each other and we all realized we had something special there.
Then we just went all in on Do LaB projects.”
“And we’re like, ‘Holy s—, we’re on a lineup!’
It’s a badge of honor being the very last thing on that poster.”
“And that actually happened.
We couldn’t believe it.”
“Nobody got paid to do this, it was all volunteers,” Jesse adds.
“Even the major acts booked to play.
We actually lost money doing this for the first 10 years.
We would always spend more than the investors gave us.
We invested it all into the structures we just couldn’t help ourselves.
There was no business plan.
We aren’t business people.
We’re just artists that happened to start a business, and the business got bigger and bigger.”
But behind the scenes, the brothers are still running it like it’s that first renegade year.
“Sometimes you’ve got to just get it done, you know?
“They would give us an inch and we’d take a mile,” Josh adds.
“Honestly, we pushed our way in.
It’s just part of that Wild West mentality that we had those early years.”
“But I don’t know what else we’re going to do.
What are we going to do?
Dede adds, “Sometimes we talk about quitting.
We’re like, ‘When are we going to be done?’
But we’d probably throw in the towel and then just throw another party.”
“A going-away party,” Josh clarifies.
“And then this would start all over again.”
