Inner Circle - Gareth Butterworth

Our recurring series of chats with pals of the brand is back, albeit in a slightly different guise this time. Inner Circle is what we call this feature and Gareth Butterworth is now in ours, we reckon.

Gareth is the main head behind Psych Fest, subject of our latest collaborative tee. We thought now was a good time to get under his skin a bit and find out more about Psych Fest and the man himself. Here's what he had to say. 

When you're done with this, head here to see the range. 

What is Manchester Psych Fest then?

Manchester Psych Fest is a one of the UK’s leading city centre music & arts festivals. It hosts 12 stages plus multiple pop-up activities. Over 80 live music acts + DJs, Art, Food, Talks, Film, stalls & workshops.

You're the man behind it, how did it start?

It started off as an all-dayer at the Night & Day Cafe on Oldham Street in Manchester, with 8 acts playing. Each year I grew it by adding venues around the Northern Quarter. In 2019 we shifted the festival over to Oxford Road to have access to bigger venues so we could attract bigger, more established acts to play the festival. It has kept growing each year with our main stage now being Manchester Academy 1 this year. 

Psychedelic music is a pretty broad church. Can you define what makes a Psych Fest band relevant?

It totally depends on how people perceive what psych music is to them. It’s more of a social movement than a genre of music. I don’t think most bands start out and think ‘I want to be a psych band.’

Stereotypically it stems from 60s/70s 'far out' music. Lots of reverb. 8 minute songs,  crazy visuals. Whilst some of that is relevant to us, we feel like we want our idea of psych to expand beyond that, very much like what the whole psych experience is supposed to do the mind. There’s certainly a world which a lot of artists don’t fit but its not as narrow as some people might think. Not to us anyway. 

We love the logo and imagery you do. Who deserves the credit for that?

There’s a bunch of designers. My brother Mark who is a creative director at The Hut Group, Louise Rivett who runs Naftys and a designer at Cooneen and They Bryant who’s a freelance designer in Scotland combine to create all our assets. Louise is the designer who has worked exclusively on the Hikerdelic range. Her creative mind goes to places that I can’t imagine. She’s responsible for most the illustrations and assets.

Which bands or artists are you most looking forward to seeing this year?

Excited to see GOAT headline. We’ve wanted to book them for years and its finally happened. I love Jadu Heart and I’m buzzing for Sex Week :) 

It's been going more than 10 years now, who have been the highlights in that time?

Courtney Barnett headlining in 2019 felt like a moment. It was when we shifted over to Oxford Road and felt the festival was moving in the right direction.

The Horrors are one of my all time favourite bands and they played at midnight at Ritz in 2024. I was buzzing. 

The very first Psych Fest at Night & Day - I was on the back door helping bands load in, TOY who were headlining pulled down the road in their van, bottles of wine in hand with All You Need is Love blasting out their van. It was quite amusing. It was only about 2pm. 

Tell us more about yourself? For a start you're an increasingly rare breed. A football fan who actually regularly goes home and away. 

Ha, yes I suppose. If I’m passionate about something then I get really into it. Maybe a bit obsessive. I go United home and away and apart from this season, in Europe too! I went my first game in 94 and never really looked back. 

I live in Stretford with my partner and 2 year old daughter Rene. So a lot of time and energy goes into the fam now. I like travelling to different places and doing intense mad research on them. Then I end up going the same 3 places I like. Sorry, sounds a bit like a dating profile now. I also DJ now and again. 


Along with Manchester, Edinburgh and Brighton are part of the programme. Would you like to grow it beyond that? 

There’s talk of other cities or collaborating in Europe but we’re just so busy right now. It would need to be strong collaborations with extra team members. 

As a follow up to that, where would be your dream city to take Psych Fest?

Paris. Logically it makes sense. The crowd is there for it too. But there’s been absolutely no talks of it thus far. 

What's the future for Psych Fest?

We’re always looking to expand in the city. New bits of the festival here and there. Keep it fresh. This year we have grassroots music panels and a masterclass performance from YIN YIN. Plus some poetry. 

We don’t like to rely on the same ideas. We have a stage at Projekts skate park which debuted in 2024. That’s been a huge success. So more of that kind of creativity.