'Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival' Organizer, Bands Interviewed
July 6, 2008Shawn Skager of the Sumner Reporter reports: This summer, heavy metal is roaring back, this time in the form of the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, a 13-band, three-stage metal-stravaganza — featuring DISTURBED, SLIPKNOT, DRAGONFORCE and MASTODON — that will storm into the White River Amphitheater on July 9.
The tour's genesis came as concert promoter Kevin Lyman finished up the 2007 Vans Warped Tour, a multi-band festival featuring alternative and punk bands that started in 1995.
"My cell phone started ringing and it was Metal Blade and Roadrunner Records [both primarily heavy metal record labels] asking me about getting more of their bands on the Warped Tour for the next year," Lyman, 45, said.
According to Lyman, the labels were encouraged by the success of metal band AS I LAY DYING's newest release, "An Ocean Between Us", which debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard chart. The band had been one of the featured artists on the Warped Tour the month the album came out.
The gears in Lyman's head began turning.
"It was realIy the pressure that got to me," he said. "I already had all the punk bands and the emo bands and the screamo bands (with the Warped and Taste of Chaos tours) and now I've got to do the metal bands, too? And I thought 'Why aren't they breaking these bands on their own tours?'"
Read the entire article from the Sumner Reporter.
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