Rocker turned activist who founded a Bali festival on shaking the world up

Sacha Stone is an interesting chap. Eloquent and passionate about his causes, it’s hard to believe he has ever been anything but a hard-core activist – in areas ranging from human rights to sustainability to how social constructs like taxes are spiritually bankrupt.

He also looks like a rock star. Is dressed like a rock star. And, in fact, was a vocalist in the eponymous band Stone, years ago.

This, he says, earned him just enough exposure to ignite his role as an activist, enabling him to launch a number of projects including the seven-day NewEarth Festival (NEF) in Bali, which started on June 19 and runs until June 25.

“My days are focused on working toward bridging leadership and the grass roots,” he says. “Not as an apologist for one or a defender of the other, particularly, but because if we do not cut through the BS ourselves, as living men and women of the soil, we will be extinct before we get to work out the folly of our collective actions.”

Over the last decade he has reached out to communities to instigate a network of advocates, activists, and academics. They have established what Stone calls their own playing field to promote international and interfaith dialogue and diplomacy, as well as the pursuit of natural justice.