Over the past 25 years, the Duluth Homegrown Music Festival has helped develop some of the biggest names in Minnesota music. Low, Trampled by Turtles, and Gaelynn Lea have all performed multiple times, but the magic of this annual rock ‘n’ roll spectacle comes from discovery.

The 2024 Homegrown Music Festival will feature more than 150 Northland-based artists performing on dozens of stages between Sunday, April 28, and Sunday, May 5. With participating venues clustered close together — each featuring multiple acts nightly — there are countless opportunities to find new favorites.

Regulars boast of seeing the newly formed Trampled by Turtles perform its first 45-minute Homegrown gig in 2003. Seven years later, the group was part of a Homegrown bill that filled the 800-seat NorShor Theatre.

Three acts that are exciting newcomers for 2024 are embalmingEva, the Penny Peaches, and Roadside Casino.

Homegrown co-director Cory Jezierski said featuring both established and new acts helps drive success. Festival curators look for ambitious artists with recordings or videos posted online, a good social media presence and a steady live performance calendar.

“It brings a lot of new energy to the festival,” he says, describing a progression of young musicians attending Homegrown first as fans. Once they see the crowds, meet other artists, and gain inspiration from the scene, it becomes a goal to be a performer there.

Even with a solid plan for attending Homegrown, it’s easy for things to get derailed. “They’re going to a venue because there’s a band they already like, or they just go to a venue they like and they end up sticking around because someone comes on stage and starts kicking their ass,” Jezierski says.

Read on to learn more about Duluth artists making their first Homegrown appearance — all fully capable of a good ass-kicking.

The Penny Peaches

Blood harmonies and alt-country swing produced by Hattie and Grace Peach form the core of the Penny Peaches. The sisters’ upbringing featured regular classical music lessons and frequent road trips through southern Minnesota to watch their father’s band.

“Both of our lives have always had a musical backbone of sorts,” says Hattie Peach. “At this point, we’ve been making music together for over half our lives.”

The sisters attended the University of Minnesota Duluth and formed the Penny Peaches in 2018 with their father John Peach on drums and guitarist Eli Erickson. After playing countless cover songs, weddings, and local showcases, the group released a self-titled debut EP featuring original work in 2021.

The record sounds like something Sweden’s First Aid Kit would have produced if they grew up on the rolling prairies and blue lakes of Le Sueur County. Songs soar, dive, and stretch out over dusty dirt roads. Themes include young love, forgiveness, and seeking the truth.

“A strong through-line in our songs is a lesson or insight learned along the way,” says Hattie Peach, the group’s main songwriter. “The most difficult, challenging, and meaningful moments in life often take a while to process in my heart and soul. After these things happen, I find that the songs start to write themselves.”

The group has opened for Turn Turn Turn at Sacred Heart Music Center in Duluth, made a Twin Cities appearance at Insight Brewing in Minneapolis and performed its first out-of-state show in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. A 10-song, full-length album is in the works.

“When people share that they listen to us or have heard our music before, I always feel a deep sense of gratitude,” said Hattie Peach. “There is no purer way to share the human experience than through art, and it’s even more wonderful to be able to express that with family standing beside you.”

The Penny Peaches perform at 10 p.m. on Saturday, May 4 at Sir Benedict’s Tavern on The Lake. 

embalmingEva

Last summer, Galalee Wright and Jesse Hatten debuted their haunting, genre-defying, techno-art project embalmingEva in a doomed railroad warehouse-turned art space on the Duluth harbor. The sensuous, light-and-sound, underground performance wasn’t their first stage experience: The pair have been creating music since they were seven-year-olds.

“We’ve been singing together for 16 years and counting,” says Wright.

As elementary school students from music-minded families, Wright and Hatten formed a piano group with Hatten’s older sister Dylan. The trio gained local notice for its tight harmonies and strong songwriting, which earned them a spot in the 2012 Homegrown Music Festival. But as teenagers, the pressure became too intense.

“We took several years to soul-search and perfect our sound and lyrics,” says Wright. “During COVID-19, we were forced to isolate and formed a pod together which fed our creative desires and reignited our deep love for collaboration. Knowing each other in this capacity — throughout so many of life's stages — our bond is eternal.”

That bond is evident in concert. embalmingEva deliver all-original electronic music with ethereal, synchronized vocals and a tightly choreographed stage presentation. The experience is a visual fever dream as much as an ocean of sound. Performances are designed to world-build, call to light unhealthy patterns, and create a space for healing, says Wright. 

“We are inspired by the uncomfortable, our hardships, and personal experiences with grief and profound loss,” she says. “We have learned to cope with these struggles together by transforming feelings into tangible audio experiences.”

Accomplished musicians, Hatten and Wright dabble in violin, saxophone, drums, harp, guitar/ukulele, and mandolin. Most recently they have harnessed technology and pushed their work into new realms using a DAW/keyboard and computers. Caroline Polacheck, OKLOU, Portishead, and Imogen Heap may be influences, but most of their work comes from within.

“We use our music to capture and preserve our joy,” says Wright. “Because of our experiences early on with grief, the fear of death — without this evidence to pass on — was overwhelming us. We have both deeply struggled with the vulnerability of sharing our music, but knew we would live with a lifetime of regret if we didn’t face our fears.”

embalmingEva perform at 8:45 p.m. Thursday, May 2 at the Main Club in Superior, Wisconsin.

Roadside Casino

The four-piece band Roadside Casino came roaring out of a basement in a West Duluth house called “Casa Lasagna” last summer.

Fronted by non-binary, femme punk ring-leader Bird, the group performs raw, high-volume screamers inspired by greats like Kathleen Hanna in Bikini Kill, Adrienne Droogas in Spitboy, and Aus Rotten. Drummer Teddy Jeddeloh, bassist Worm, and new guitarist Mara Dawn Lovejoy round out the mayhem.

Bird says the band has gone through a couple of iterations, but its mission remains the same: “We continued to organize shows with a goal to create safe and welcoming spaces for queer folk or folks who would generally not feel safe attending a show at a bar. We honestly hope that, more than anything, people focus less on listening to our music and more on coming out to shows and building community.There are a million punk bands, and most of them are better than we are. But hopefully you can come to a show and feel inspired to engage with people around you, to talk about things you maybe haven’t before.”

Instagram evidence from Casa Lasagna exhibits lots of white face paint, spiked hair, cross-dressing, and fans packed wall-to-wall well beyond city fire code. The band has ventured into the Twin Cities, recently performing at the White Rock Lounge in St. Paul and The Pilllar Forum in northeast Minneapolis.

Roadside Casino deliver songs that address civil injustice, U.S. geopolitical hypocrisy, and police aggression towards skateboarders. These songs may not necessarily change the world, but changes can be seen in the mosh pit.

“Roadside’s pits have become not only more feminine, but more aggressive, where folks can express their feminine rage,” Bird says. “I am a femme person, who screams to other feminine people who cannot and will not fit into the categories that we are expected to be in to be digestible.”

Roadside Casino perform at 11 p.m. on Sunday, April 28 at Pizza Luce in downtown Duluth.