This weekend, metalheads will converge on the Beaumont Club for American Waste, a two-day festival of speed guitars, drum bursts, Cookie Monster vocals, moshing and infinite black T-shirts. Terry Taylor, vice president of Hunt Industries and member of two bands scheduled to perform (Hammerlord and the Blinding Light), has high hopes for the event. He took a little time out of his insane pre-Fest schedule of paper shuffling, countless phone calls and gear accumulating to answer a few questions from us via e-mail.
The Pitch: This festival is something you've been imagining for years, right? What made this summer the right time to go for it?
Terry Taylor: My friend Pat Fielder and I have talked about for almost 4 years that we wanted to do a cool hardcore and metal fest thing, but it always seemed like a pipe dream. We tried last year and the year before to put something together but nothing ever worked out. We decided this was the year to do it and that is how it is going to be. We asked a bunch of the local acts that we liked if they were into it. Most of them were, then we tracked down some headliners. Coalesce is a staple in the metal/hardcore scene in Midwest, so they were the first headliner we asked. After that we blew through some potential headliners for the first day but routing wise just didn't work out. The Testament/Unearth package just fell into our laps and it just sort of worked out that way!
As a promoter, you book single shows all the time. Putting a whole festival together is more complicated. You've done it before, though, right?
Yeah back home in Sioux Falls, I did at least one type of fest a year. There is so much more involved when doing this many bands -- gear, space, set length, time slots, controlling guest lists for 40 bands, food for all the bands, keeping everyone happy, not shooting yourself in the face the day of the show when everything goes wrong (i.e.: bands showing up late, gear breaking, bands playing longer than they are supposed to, etc), and most importantly paying your bills! We need about 1,300 people combined for the 2 days to come for us to break even and as of right now we are not looking so good. We really want this to be a yearly event that we can build on every year but if we take a big loss this year I don't know if we will do it next year.
More straight talk from Terry and an hour-by-hour tentative festival schedule after the jump.
Does the line-up pretty much reflect all the bands you hoped to bring in for American Waste?
Yeah for the most part. We really wanted Saved By Grave to do a reunion show for this but they couldn't get everyone together for it, but other than that we are happy we got all the bands we did. We figured this year we'd start with more locals than nationals, and then next year reach out to more nationals and try and get more nationwide attention.
What bands are you most excited for?
You can't ask me that, I am the promoter!!!! I will just say I am a long time Testament fan and I have not seem them since 1991, so that is exciting.
You're playing in at least two acts on the bill, right?
Yuppers, Hammerlord and the Blinding Light. The Blinding light is my South Dakota band I have played in for almost 10 years. We only play maybe 2 shows a year, so I am glad we are playing a cool fest like this.
When you're not shredding riffs on stage this weekend, Terry, what will you be doing? Moshing?
I have never been a mosher. I am more of a stand-on-side-stage-and-bob-my-head guy. To be honest, I will probably be stressing in a corner somewhere worrying about turnout and the 4,000 band guys running around, hahaha!
American Waste Tentative Schedule(Set times are in reverse chronological order)
Saturday
Main Stage
Testament - 8pm-10pm
Unearth - 7pm-7:45pm
Lazarus AD - 6:15pm-6:45pm
The Esoteric - 5:30pm-6:00pm
The Blinding Light - 4:45pm-5:15pm
Hammerlord - 4:00pm-4:30pm
Diskreet - 3:15pm-3:45pm
The Backyard
The Killer - 6:00pm-6:30pm
Snake Eater - 5:15pm-5:45pm
Troglodyte - 4:30pm-5:00pm
Koktopus - 3:45pm-4:15pm
Hundred Years War - 3:00pm-3:30pm
Sicadis 2:15pm-2:45pm
Iseah 1:30pm-2:00pm
Muzzle Loader 12:45pm-1:15pm
Sunday
Main Stage
Coalesce - 10:45pm - midnight
Eyes Of The Betrayer - 10:00pm-10:30pm
For Today - 9:15pm-9:45pm
At The Left Hand Of God - 8:30pm-9:00pm
Vena Amori - 7:45pm-8:15pm
Morie - 7:00pm-7:30pm
Battlefields - 6:15pm-6:45pm
Serated - 6-6:30pm
Old Ironside - 5:15pm-5:45pm
Roman Holiday - 5pm-5:30pm
Paria - 4:15-4:45pm
The Backyard
Byleth - 6:15pm-7:15pm
The Cast Pattern - 5:30pm-6pm
Continent Of Ash - 4:45pm-5:15pm
Hester Prynne - 4pm-4:30pm
One Blood - 3:15pm-3:45pm
Enemies Laid To Rest - 2:30pm-3pm
Daleria - 1:30pm-2:00pm
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