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 Jock from Puppy, congrats on playing Download this year – are you all ready for festival season?
We’ve been preparing for it all year actually. I was very impressed with Rammstein’s set in 2016, so we’ve been working with some minor members of Circus of Horrors to try to learn how to play metal music while slightly on fire.
What’s your top tip for surviving a summer spent in fields and on the road?
Stay hydrated and buy a Final Fantasy game on your mobile device to keep you entertained on long drives. That was a non sponsored plug by the way, but if Square Enix are reading this, I’m totally open to discussions.
Do you have any fond memories of Download from years gone by?
My two big ones would be when me and Billy went as kids as saw Soil (a very big band for us at the time) and Deftones (who still are), and the other was when we played in 2016. It was our first proper festival and felt like a very big moment for the band.
Which bands are you most looking forward to seeing there this year? Will you be meeting up with any pals?
Guns N’ Roses. And hopefully, by the end of the weekend, we will be pals with Guns N’ Roses and we will meet up with them and hang out.
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’m not sure that they have more responsibility than anyone else, but obviously, it’s a really great thing. The more aware everyone is, the better chance there is that people will consciously try to help contribute in a positive way.
If you were running your own festival, are there any ‘do good’ initiatives like the above that you’d want to introduce?
I don’t know; I think we’d blow our entire budget on booking Apache Indian and have no money leftover to do anything else. Maybe we’d ask him to mention something about vegetarianism in between songs.
What else are you up to this summer, do you have a busy few months coming up?
A couple of festivals, and hopefully some new music coming soon. We’ve been very busy in the studio so we can’t wait for people to hear what we’ve done. Particularly whoever it is that gives out grammies.
