The pianist/vocalist and guitarist/vocalist, who perform as Smith & Jones, are very popular around Bathurst, with 2021 quickly filling up with gigs.

"We've done a lot of festivals similar to this. We play at Tamworth Country Music Festival every year and we've been to the Gympie Muster and Inland Sea Of Sound," Jones said.

"We're looking forward to playing with a bunch of other bands as well ... it's definitely a pretty diverse line-up."

READ ALSO:

AltFest is known for blurring artistic boundaries, featuring artists whose work isn't restricted to one specific genre of music.

"We don't have a box that we fit neatly into; we have said alt-country [alternative country] before, but I guess we just classify ourselves as singer/songwriters," Jones said.

"I think what we bring to the table is pretty unique compared to what everyone else is doing, so it will be a good little combo of acts."

Smith & Jones will be playing as a full five-piece band for AltFest with the help of bass player Lian Wong, lead guitarist Matt Ferry and recent addition Kris Schubert on the Hammond organ.

"By the time we get to September, we'll be with the full five-piece band and hopefully have a bunch of new songs ready to go, which is really exciting," Jones said.

Festival director Abby Edwards is looking forward to the 2021 AltFest.

"The first [festival] was in 2019 in Adelaide and then we had a break because of the pandemic and we're rebooting it this year and hoping to make it a mini-fest from here onwards," Edwards said.

Working as a music promoter and manager for over 20 years, Edwards has been involved with multiple national and international music tours through her business Onya Soapbox.

Noticing a gap in the industry, with many artists and bands creating music that doesn't stick to just one genre, Edwards said she created the festival to fill that void.

"More and more I heard a lot of artists talk about not fitting a festival format - they didn't feel that they fit into a rock, blues or pop format that attract festivals because their music styles were genre blending," she said.

"So I thought I'm going to create a little sub-festival only programming artists that didn't really have a definition of what style of music they fit into."

The festival will be held at The Great Club at Marrickville on Saturday, September 4.

The line-up will also feature Hussy Hicks and Marz.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content: