This weekend all the rockiest rock bands are heading to Donington Park for Download Festival. Alongside headliners Avenged Sevenfold, Guns N’ Roses and Ozzy Osbourne, you’ll find a number of Upset’s faves – from former cover stars Black Foxxes and Milk Teeth, to cover-stars-in-waiting The Faim (right, guys?!). We sent a bunch of ‘em our patented (not really) Download 2018 Q&A to find out what their plans are, and who they’re looking forward to checking out (spoiler alert – almost everyone said Guns N’ Roses)…
Hey Justine from Employed to Serve, congrats on playing Download this year – are you all ready for festival season?
Thanks! Yeah, we can’t wait, it’s the first time in our band’s career that we have this many festivals lined up and playing Download has always been on our bucket lists!
What’s your top tip for surviving a summer spent in fields and on the road?
Good coffee! I’ve recently bought a mini coffee filter (tenner from Amazon, brilliant) and my own kettle so I can make good coffee whenever I want. I’m not a connoisseur or anything, but nothing bums me out more than tasteless black dishwater coffee when I need to stay awake! Plus it saves me so much cash since I chain-drink it so I can buy more records and beer wheyyy.
Do you have any fond memories of Download from years gone by?
This is actually my first ever time! But I just asked our drummer Robbie and when he was 17 him, and 15 of his friends sunk four beer bongs each and immediately watched Deftones and Rage Against The Machine one after the other. When they returned back to the camp, they couldn’t talk because they were so blown away by their performances (and probably the beer).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A1cc-dgF_I
Which bands are you most looking forward to seeing there this year? Will you be meeting up with any pals?
So many! Looking forward to hanging and watching our pals Rolo Tomassi, Helpless, Milk Teeth, Tesseract and Jamie Lenman. Also excited to meet and watch Stray From The Path before we play some shows with them in Europe. The bands we can’t wait to see are Malevolence, Stick To Your Guns, Meshuggah, Alexisonfire and Hatebreed… to name a few!
Download’s got a new Greenpeace campsite this year – do you think festivals have a responsibility to do some good by raising awareness of things like environmental and/or social issues?
I think it’s great they do stuff like that, I think people are more likely to take things on board when they’re in a relaxed environment (drunken state).
If you were running your own festival, are there any ‘do good’ initiatives like the above that you’d want to introduce?
I’d like to introduce a reusable coffee and beer cup that you get given when you turn up to the site and get that filled up instead of getting a new plastic cup every time. I’m sure it’s the case with most people, but ever since watching Blue Planet 2, I’ve been a lot more conscious of how much plastic I personally consume. Sharks and other marine life are awesome, and it would be devastating if they eventually died out because we (as a planet) didn’t remember to take a water bottle when we head out.
What else are you up to this summer, do you have a busy few months coming up?
Yeah! We’re heading into the studio next week and then straight after that we go out on our festival warm up dates in the UK with Conjurer and God Complex. We’re really excited to play Download, Graspop and With Full Force festivals as well as some shows in between which will be announced soon.
