Whiskey, Risk & Rockstars - The Hoochenanny Festival

From Billified: The Bill Moran Podcast Bill Moran

Two guys walk into a bar…
One used to play guitar in a band you definitely slow-danced to…
The other figured out how to turn chaos into a business model…

…and somehow they both ended up throwing a whiskey-fueled music festival in Western New York.

Bill sits down with Tommy Brunett and Sean McCarthy—the minds (and risk tolerance) behind the Hoochenanny Festival—to break down Hoochenanny 2026 (August 14–16), the new location, and the very real moments where this whole thing almost went off the rails.

This isn’t a promo piece.
This is what happens when you pull back the curtain.

We’re talking:

The jump from “I Melt With You” to “I ferment with you”
Why running a distillery might be harder than keeping a band together
The exact moment they looked at each other like… “we might’ve screwed this up”
And the kind of chaos that doesn’t make the press release

Bill pushes past the highlight reel and gets into the real questions:

What’s the near-disaster story they definitely didn’t want to tell?
And why—despite easier ways to make money—they keep doing this anyway

There’s whiskey. There’s honesty. There’s a little bit of “this felt like a good idea after a few drinks…

And somewhere in the middle, a truth hits:
Whiskey doesn’t make you do dumb things… it just introduces you to who you really are. Plus:

The unofficial Hoochenanny warning label (don’t be the guy who’s drunk before the opener)
Rockstar stories vs. small business reality checks

And at its core—what drives two guys to bet big, risk bigger, and do it all again next year. Because every great event has that one moment… where it’s either legendary… or a complete lawsuit.

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