ON TRACK - SONISPHERE SPECIAL: THE DEFILED TAKE ON THE CHALLENGE

Sonisphere Festival is back with a bang in 2014. The famous Knebworth site - celebrating 40 years of festivals in 2014 - will welcome headliners The Prodigy, Iron Maiden and Metallica alongside a taut, terrific bill of the heavy-heavy which also includes Alice in Chains, Slayer, Mastodon, Anthrax and Milton Keynes' own TesseracT. Opening the Main Stage entertainment on the Friday will be British metal monsters The Defiled. The quintet issued their most recent album, Daggers, in 2013 and promise 'lots of smiles' with their Sonisphere set. The Defiled have certainly earned their spot on the bill.  Over the years the hand has played every stage at Sonisphere working up to this Main Stage debut, and it's hard grafting that has got them there... www.totalmk.co.uk asked frontman Stitch D to share his musical likes and dislikes with us...   The song that first awakened your musical senses Like millions of other kids...Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana  Physical or digital – how do you take your music I wish I could be cool and say physical, but definitely digital  The first time you thought 'Music – this is the job for me' I don't think I ever thought 'Hey, I want this to be my job', it's just something I've always wanted to do. I've always just wanted to play music, be it in front of 10 people or 20,000 people Your best on stage memory I think playing at the Forum in London at the end of last year, just seeing a sold-out crowd losing their s*** was incredible And the worst gig you've ever done At The Borderline inLondon a few years back.  We had a lot of industry people come and we were just horrible, like truly awful! That, plus a lot of technical problems... What made you want to take up the guitar I guess I always wanted to since I was like four years old.  I used to run around the house with a red plastic guitar and a headband on pretending to be Mark Knopfler or Keith Richards. Then I asked for a guitar when I was around nine or 10 years old and it took over my whole life Which one song by another artist do you wish you'd written Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter.  The first minute of that song is total perfection And one - by yourself - which holds special significance Everlong by Foo Fighters.  I still play that riff every time I pick up a guitar.  I also played it at the first gig I ever played If you could step into the shoes of another musician, living or dead, who would it be and what would you do I guess I'd wanna be Kurt Cobain - just with less heroin Are there any current musicians you might look to I've been a bit obsessed with Gojira since we toured with them last year, them and an Australian band called Violent Soho And any genre of music you can't stand? That crappy house/twerk stuff they play in upmarket clubs now... Given the chance, whose set would you most like to catch over the Sonisphere weekend I really want to see Ghost and Alice in Chains What can we expect from your Sonsiphere set? I'm guessing for once, lots of smiles!  We've played every stage at previous Sonisphere festivals starting on the smallest one, so it's going to be an honour to play the Main Stage    Sonisphere individual day and weekend tickets are on sale now.  Visit www.sonisphere.co.uk