SMNnews recently had a chance to talk with Ryan Taylor, one of the organizers for the highly successful Maryland Deathfest (not to mention being the U.S.’s ambassador to horny young Ukrainian girls). The point of this interview is fairly simple: if you’re capable of attending this festival, GO!

To start things off, how did the Maryland Deathfest first get started, and what was the initial goal of the festival?

“Basically Evan and I were standing around bored at work one evening and randomly talked about throwing a 1 day festival with mainly bands from the East Coast or Midwest, but of course it turned out to be much more than that. As we progressed with the booking process, the demand to play the festival increased and it turned into 3 days, 36 bands even with a few foreign surprises thrown into the mix. There wasn’t really an initial goal except giving a small, 1 day festival a shot.”

What’s the process for deciding which bands you want on the fest each year?

“Before anything is confirmed, Evan and I talk about every band that we either both want to play or has contacted us about playing. It’s our goal to have a nice variety of bands representing the diversity of extreme metal and perhaps more importantly bands that we listen to and support.”

Do you and Evan ever get in fights over which bands you want and you have to kick his ass?

“Actually no, our tastes in music are very similar and I don’t recall any disagreements in the past. That’s probably why we work together with ease.”

Some of the more closed minded people out there like to complain about the inclusion of grind bands on a “death fest,” has it been a conscious decision to include more and more non-death metal bands as the years have gone by?

“Nope, we don’t really think about it too much. It just seems that we’ve been able to confirm so many quality European grind bands that have never been to the states or haven’t been to the states in a long time. We listen to most anything in the extreme metal spectrum and people will just have to expect a quality mix of bands each year that we organize MDF. We’ve thought about changing the name to make it not sound like only death metal bands play at MDF, but everyone seems to know the festival by that name now and we just don’t really care about naming it something else. So sorry to any of the close minded folks out there.”

You’ve recently been living and working in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, how is the metal scene over there compared to the U.S.?

“Slovakia I don’t know so much about because I was only there for a bit more than 3 months, but the Czech Republic rules for metal and more specifically grindcore. Generally speaking people are more rabid for metal throughout all of Europe and quality run fests attract a lot more people than anything in the states. There has always been a respectable crowd even in small towns in the Czech Republic. For bands like Ingrowing, Gride, Malignant Tumour, Isacaarum, Uprise, Jig-Ai, and so on and so forth. Many great bands here in CZ…”

I’m sure a lot of people in the U.S. would kill to see some of those Czech bands, is there any chance they’ll be brought over any time soon?

“In a perfect world most of those bands would’ve already been brought over to play MDF, but visas are constantly an issue. However the visa process seems to be easing up just a bit here, so MDF 2008 would be a more realistic bet for a CZ band or two on the bill.”

Nice, well speaking of your time in Europe, rumors run rampant on the Internet that you spend most of your time overseas fucking foreign chicks, how do you even find time for MDF or your job with all that Euro-pussy?

“Hmmm, well I certainly wish that was true, but unfortunately I don’t get laid every time I try. I’m not a full time hustla, not yet at least. I need time to work, pay the bills, and of course spend time organizing MDF. Euro-pussy is constantly sought after, so don’t get me wrong.”

haha, nice. So in the five years of doing MDF, what’s the most pathetic excuse you’ve received from a band for dropping off the show?

“I’m gonna have to go with Cynic on that one. I’m not interested in dragging out that situation more than it already has, but the reasoning and way we were informed about it was pretty lame. Most bands that have canceled in the past usually have legit reasons that simply can’t be avoided or at least make an effort to communicate with us in an appropriate fashion.”

Do you usually have backups lined up, because I’m sure by now you expect at least a few bands to fall through?

“Yeah, usually we have something lined up. Often times decent bands will write us just saying to keep them in mind in the event of a band dropping off, so it’s quite easy to find a replacement.”

There’s a lot of other festivals in the U.S. that are basically failures, lackluster lineups, horribly planned and organized…what do you think sets MDF apart from those?

“At this point I guess it’s just the fact that we have nearly 5 years of experience doing it and have learned how to make a fest run with the least amount of problems as possible. We’ve made successful attempts at keeping things running smoothly since the first year, so I can’t really explain why other festivals might fail. Perhaps some people decide to throw a fest not expecting it to be considered like a full time job. All angles have to be covered from people working on the stage, a professional venue with professional staff, a professional backline to cut down on set up times, and so on. All we do is try to treat the bands in a very humanitarian way and create a nice atmosphere for everyone who attends, so as long as everyone is going home happy at the end of the fest, we don’t have to worry about failure.”

Well you haven’t had all success though, you recently tried setting up a second festival, the Auditory Assault Fest, which didn’t do quite as well as you had hoped. What do you think happened with that, and is that the last we’ll see of it?

“True. That entire idea was simply experimental, and although we honestly weren’t expecting some huge turnout for it, it just didn’t go over too well and we suffered quite a financial hit from it. That did mess things up just a tad with our MDF budgeting, so solely because of that you will probably never see that fest again.”

Well this year’s MDF seems like it’ll be the biggest yet, so how long do you expect MDF to continue, and where do you see it going in the future? Bigger venues? More days? Maybe turning it into a tour of sorts?

“It does seem to keep going in a positive direction, so those are all good questions. We’re really happy with the current home of MDF at Sonar, but realize that ultimately we’ll probably need to look for a bigger venue or even consider something open air. I don’t see it turning into more than 2 days, and we’re fans of just having 1 stage so fans don’t have to pick and choose what bands they want to see at a certain time. For the quality of the bands we have play at the fest, all of them deserve the spotlight on one main stage, so that’s something you can always expect. Basically we’ll brainstorm about what to do as far as the location of MDF after the 2007 fest and take it from there. Maybe we can get away with Sonar being big enough for one more year or maybe we’ll go to something bigger…”

What band are you most excited about seeing this year?

“Only one?”

Fine, give your top three. As long as one of them is Dead Infection.

“Brutal Truth probably as #1 simply because I’ve never seen them before. Otherwise Birdflesh, Dead Infection and Cripple Bastards. I’ve seen those bands numerous times and look forward to seeing them destroy everyone once again.”

Has any thought been given to next year’s festival, in terms of bands you’d like to potentially have?

“Maybe Papa Roach, Creed, Stone Sour and the Spin Doctors…but seriously, we don’t really think about the following year until the festival is finished. We prefer to get one out of the way before worrying about bands playing the next one.”

Nice, Papa Roach should make all the brutal death metal fans shut up and be happy. Well, that’s pretty much it. Any final words, or advice for any chicks who want to hook up with you this May?

“I hope so. Thanks for supporting MDF, and if any chicks want to hook up with me this May, I am single and there is an office in the back with a lock. Thank you.”

www.marylanddeathfest.com
www.myspace.com/marylanddeathfest

Rate this interview: (9 votes, average: 4.11 out of 5)
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This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 11:23 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Crucified Coma wrote:

Ryan was fucking 4 chicks while doing this interview. Truth.

April 27th, 2007 at 12:22 pm

SMNnews.com | Interview With Maryland Deathfest Organizer Ryan Taylor Posted Online wrote:

[…] Maryland Deathfest - Ryan Taylor, organizer […]

April 28th, 2007 at 7:19 pm

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