From The Country To The City To The Country, The Rubens Come Full Circle

It's a common misconception that The Rubens hail from the middle of nowhere - many recounts of their coming-of-age story centre around the mythological journey of the three Margin brothers Elliott, Sam and Zaac and their childhood friends Scott Baldwin and William Zeglis, who moved from the tiny NSW town of Menangle and went on to become, well, The Rubens.

"It wasn't as rural as people like to imagine," Elliott Margin laughs. "Us Margin boys grew up in Menangle - so did Scott actually - which is just outside of Camden, a much bigger country town, which is only an hour out of Sydney. So we're not that far afield, but there's still cows in our backyard and stuff." Without means of transport and the fact that "there's not a lot of music venues" in the town, the Margin boys "didn't really see a lot of live music growing up," Margin tells. "There's not really anywhere to play in Camden, which is a bit of a shame — you have to travel to Sydney."

"You don't wanna make a huge footprint and ruin the place, you wanna come back and build a relationship."

With the rise of boutique, regional-based festivals such as Vanfest, Groovin The Moo and Secret Garden, country towns previously starved of the cultural experiences enjoyed by city-dwellers are becoming desirable destinations for music and the arts. 

Vanfest is a part of the new wave of boutique festivals that embraces the experience-based model that came to the fore with the death of the mega festival. "You see a lot of smaller festivals getting a lot of traction lately because people got sick of that whole Big Day Out thing, where they'd have a reunion tour for some massive band and then not really have any up-and-coming acts at all, and people want to see that - people listen to local radio like FBi and triple j, and they want to see those bands... It gives smaller bands a platform to get a new audience," explains Margin.

More and more festivals are embracing the experience-based model, benefiting both the host towns and those travelling interstate. "I think we saw that when we did Groovin The Moo in smaller towns; we saw a lot of people travelling up from Sydney or Melbourne or wherever, seeing places they wouldn't have seen before. And of course people who live out there they're seeing music, which they wouldn't have seen before, which was awesome — you could tell they appreciate it," Margin smiles. "I think [Vanfest will have an impact], especially on younger musicians or kids growing up with music, they'll see that and go, 'Oh, cool, being in a band is a job, maybe that's something I could pursue.'"

But Margin advises festivalgoers to be respectful of the local area when having the time of their lives. "You don't wanna make a huge footprint and ruin the place, you wanna come back and build a relationship. It should be a cultural thing for whatever town it is [in], putting money and music into the community."