Watch out Grandma, and watch out Download - Nottingham nutters Lawnmower Deth are coming to get you - they return to Donington Park this week, come rain (pretty likely) or shine.
Total MK grabbed frontman Pete Lee for a quick chinwag about the weekend ahead...
How special is it to be playing at Download again – the British home of rock and metal?
It’s always special playing Download. It’s not just Download, it’s Donington. It’s where we first wanted to be in a band. I remember going to Monsters of Rock with Chris and Steve and knowing that’s what we wanted to do. We started going there in ’85 I think. Those days one stage and 5 bands.
Now look how much it’s changed. But it doesn’t make it any less exciting. It’s our 5th time. We never thought when we started Lawnmower that we would ever end up playing Donington, ever, and here we are on a 5th appearance, it’s all quite bizarre. Lovely, but bizarre.
What can the Download faithful expect from your set?
It’s Lawnmower Deth. Don’t expect anything and hold on to your hats, something quite strange will happen and hopefully with a fair wind we will all go home with a smile on our faces.
We will turn up, we’ll play some songs, we will have some very strange things happening on stage usually including a six foot rabbit, a cross dressing 10 foot stilt walker, gunge tanks and so on.
It’s all in the Lawnmower way. This year we have an ace in the pack.
We can’t talk about it, it will be a BIG surprise on the day, but it will be off the scale and people will talk about it for a very long time to come.
All I can say is you don’t want to miss this one. It will be an ‘I was there when……’ moment.
How will you spend the rest of your time on site?
We know just how this works, it’s bedlam. It’s much more fun being in the crowd, trust me.
We will be arriving early morning. It usually takes about two hours to do all the accreditation and get the gear into site. Find dressing room and coffee. Equipment has to be loaded into the stage 3 hours before set time.
Usually spend the next couple of hours chewing fingers down to the wick and drinking. Play a reasonably short set. Post set, drink quickly and then spend the next two to three hours in press.
Eventually I get let out for good behaviour and get to meet my tolerant wife and kids and if I’m lucky this is usually in time to see the headliner. Yes, it’s that glamorous, you literally get to see no bands at all.
And I love it!!!
Anyone else you are keen to check out?
I’m desperately keen to see a lot of bands but due to the way things fall I will fall, I will see very few, if any of them.
We play the Saturday so I would love to see Sixx:AM but I think we may overlap.
For me I will, come hell or high water see Pennywise which is the must for me. The band all want to see Sabbath, so I suspect they will go that way, whilst I try and run between stage one and three and get a bit of both.
I won’t be there on the Sunday but would have liked to see Ghost, Napalm Death and Saxon.
Tell us about your best – and worst – festival experiences
Festivals, no matter what, are an experience.
Every time we play a major show like this it’s my favourite so it’s always the best until the next best one.
I do think this year with what we are planning has the potential to be the very best. I think the first time we played Download was a special one, just because it was the first.
But we’re lucky we’ve played so many different festivals. I love Bloodstock too. It’s a great festival, a really manageable size and you get to have much more of a sociable day there with way less pressure.
I don’t really have a worst experience although I’ve got to say Download 4 or 5 years ago in the mud was challenging. Bands couldn’t make it on to site, stage times were all over the place, you couldn’t even get a back drop up because the wind was so strong, it was sheer chaos.
Watching Prodigy stood in mud to your calves was pretty damn miserable.
And what three festival essentials should Download ticket-holders be sure to pack before heading to the site?
Hand wash, toilet roll, and more hand wash!
And share a little of what you've been up to lately
How long have you got? It seems life since about October has been ridiculously busy. Somehow, by luck, engineering, good fortune or strange movement in the universal lay lines we seem to have become Radio 2 friendly.
We’ve written the theme tune to Simon Mayos Dr Mosh feature and get played on the show every week. We’ve just released a new track, the first full one in 22 years and you can get it free of charge from those lovely people at Download Festival herehttp://downloadfestival.co.uk/news/exclusive-lawnmower-deth-interview-free-i-am-cob-download
We have no plans to ever record in the traditional way ever again and nor will we tour, but we like to look for interesting ways to release the occasional song, and we love to do ‘events’.
Recently we’ve just played with Exodus and Cradle of Filth in Wales, we’re off to Download in a couple of weeks, we have a rock and bike festival to squeeze in and we’re just planning a UK Christmas show in a club somewhere to yet be decided.
We don’t plan what we’re doing now, lately or in the future, we just wait for nice people to give us a ring.
To book tickets for Download visit https://downloadfestival.co.uk/
