How did Perry Farrell come up with the name Lollapalooza?
The modern-day festival circuit is somewhat of a self-fulfilling machine; in the summer months, almost every week is occupied by a music festival of some kind, catering to all genres and tastes, and providing a healthy place for burgeoning bands to continuously play, but it wasn’t always like that.
Festivals weren’t the brand opportunity they are now viewed as being, and instead, they were just the pillars of legacy that gave us somewhere to escape. On this side of the pond, that was of course Glastonbury, Isle of Wight and Reading Festival, but Stateside it was different.
Founded in 1991, initially as a touring show, Lollapalooza acted as the country’s first major festival, and now, its American version resides firmly in Chicago, where it showcases music in Grant Park, also boasting several international editions, including Chile (Cerrillos), Brazil (São Paulo), Argentina (Buenos Aires), Germany (Berlin), France (Paris), and India (Mumbai).
The name, though, has become synonymous with partying; in the same way the modern festival is usually launched with the word ‘fest’ fixed to the end of it, ‘palooza’ has now become the appropriate word to sew onto the end of pretty much anything, to let people know that a party is taking place.
What does Lollapalooza mean, and how did the organisers come up with it?
Because of how freely the word is used in a party context, I, like many others, just swiftly assumed that it was a bespoke word for ‘party’. It would have made sense given the fact that the festival’s organiser was Perry Farrell, member of Jane’s Addiction, The Doors, Porno for Pyros, Psi Com and Satellite Party, and someone capable of conjuring a word out of thin air to help shape culture. But it turns out, while Farrell can be credited for adapting the word in modern culture, he can’t be labelled the inventor of the word.
“We had in those days, dictionaries,” he explained, “We didn’t look up a word online, we could only look it up in a dictionary. And I liked reading dictionaries because, as a young poet, you never know. You might run across a word. The word is so amazing, it sparks a song. Or you get to throw in some interesting words. It’s kind of like writing music when you’re writing poetry.”
He continued, “Mark Geiger, my buddy from William Morris, who co-created it with me, told me we needed to come up with a name for it, a special name for it. That’s what we do. We name our tours, basically. So I came across the Lollapalooza. It was in the L section.”
In that moment, the cultural lexicon was changed forever, and the pair sparked a chain of influence that meant literally anything could be labelled a ‘palooza’, but Farrell wasn’t as protective of the idea as people wished he was and instead, encouraged us all to get on board with the phrase, despite the copyright infringements that may be caused.
He explained, “So early on, my lawyers kept on trying to sue people if they would use ‘Palooza’. And you understand why? Because they get a lot of money. The more people they sue, the more money they make.”
While reluctantly on board with it in the beginning, he added, “But I always felt bad about it because I felt like they’re just so excited about being able to come up with this thing and calling it a ‘palooza’. And I eventually just told them, ‘Leave them alone. Don’t worry about it’.”
