BeachLife Ranch fest brings alternative country music to Redondo Beach

The BeachLife Festival is going country this weekend as cowboy hats and boots meet the sand at the inaugural BeachLife Ranch country and Americana festival happening Sept. 16-18 in Redondo Beach.

A Southern California punk music legend and a noted surfing musician who are behind the lineup of more than 30 country acts say a little bit of hillbilly spirit is a natural fit for the beach.

“I mean putting cowboy boots on the sand is exciting,” said pro surfer turned musician Donavon Frankenreiter, who along with Pennywise frontman Jim Lindberg, as well as Redondo Beach entrepreneurs Allen Sanford and Rob Lissner, put together the alt-country festival. “Everyone loves a little bit of country every once in a while here on the coast.”

“We just wanted to celebrate this whole different side of California,” Lindberg added. “We wanted to get into that Central California landscape and bring that down to Southern California a little bit. Even though this is Los Angeles, this is still the wild west.”

While the BeachLife Festival — which took place at Redondo Beach’s Seaside Lagoon in May and featured performances by acts like Smashing Pumpkins, 311, Sheryl Crow, The Aggrolites and Weezer — is more modern rock and reggae-focused, the Ranch alt-country version will include sets by acts like Brandi Carlile, Dierks Bentley, Lukas Nelson & Promise of The Real, Greensky Bluegrass and Songs of Waylon Jennings, featuring Shooter Jennings and other musicians performing songs by his late father.

“I think we really managed to put together a good, eclectic lineup of people that are from the whole country and Americana world,” Lindberg said.

There are other non-country acts on the bill as well, including folk rock band The Lumineers, alternative rock band Wilco and day one headliners, soul-pop stars Daryl Hall & John Oates. The addition of Hall & Oates was a no-brainer for Lindberg.

“Hall & Oates is a band we would have at any BeachLife entity,” he said. “They cover so much ground and that was one where we wanted them to come down anytime.”

Roots of the Ranch

Well before before the third installment of the BeachLife Festival took place earlier this year, Lindberg, who was a music curator for the original event, and Sanford spoke about doing a follow up festival.

“Once we saw how successful it was and people were loving the festival, we decided it might be a good idea to branch out into something different and kind of tweak the formula a little bit,” he said.