Queens Of Metal Founder, Bacchus (also singer from Hatred)

Queens Of Metal Founder

Bacchus



Mordfilm(MF): How many people made it to the Queens of Metal Fest this year?

Bacchus: We had something around 1200 people on Friday and approximately 1450 on Saturday. We don?t have the exact numbers, ?cause we're still at the area cleaning everything there and taking the garbage away. So you see, we do everything ourselves - from bands booking to cleaning the camping areas...

MF: Were you thinking there wasn?t going to be enough people this year to have the festival next year?

Bacchus: We don?t have all the bills yet, so we can?t say yes or no right now, but my belly says "yes". It's cause of the fucking weather on Thursday and Friday, you know, there were less people both days then we needed, so we'll see. I think we will know it by the next two weeks or so.

MF: You gathered some amazing bands for the fest. Do they normally come to you, or do you ask them to come?

Bacchus: It's this side and that side. "Smaller" bands ask us and send promos, the "bigger" bands we have to ask. You know, we're not Wacken Open Air, we're still learning to stand up on our own as a festival. But the "Queen" will rise har-har-har...

MF: Leng Tch'E had to cancel because their drummer left. Were you disappointed that they couldn't show up?

Bacchus: Of course, finally we booked the band! It's a great band, and we wanted to have some grindcore at the festival. But that's something that can happen all the time. The thing is, the closer you get to the festival, the harder it is to find a backup band that has the same quality...!

MF: The cost of cleanup of the camping ground must be huge. Does it cause a problem getting permission for the next year, with all the clean up needed?

Bacchus: There will be no problem to get the camping area again, cause we all ready talked to the owners and we told them to clean up everything. But if we make a QOM 2008, we have to think about a camping tax, ?cause it's horrible what the people left behind this year. We tried it now for two years without camping taxes, but the people didn't respect it (I will say not all, but many!!), so we have to make consequences out of this. Sorry!

MF: How do the people who live in Kleinwenkheim, feel about the festival in their town?

Bacchus: That's a funny thing. Last year we thought: Ok, we make it one year here and then we have to find a new location, ?cause they will fuck us up after the festival...., but nothing happened. It was the opposite! They said: Hey these people look strange and make things "normal" people wouldn't do (hearing strange music, drinking like hell, having beards and long hairs, black clothes....), but they destroyed nothing and said hello on the street! That's ok for us.
You know, it's always the thoughts people have, but when they know us metal freaks better, they see that we're not as different from them as they thought.

MF: Has there ever been a large problem getting permission from them to play?

Bacchus: The first year it was really hard. I got insane. You know, it's one of my jobs in the QOM staff to get permissions... The guys in the offices did not really know what to do with a metal festival, many of them we're afraid and thought of a second Monsters of Rock like in Schweinfurt 20 years ago (the inner city of Schweinfurt was completely damaged after that festival) and me and the other three guys in the staff had a long, long way to explain them, that there will be nothing destroy!!! But finally we made it and they saw that nothing happened, so it was much easier this year to get permission.

MF: Do you think there was enough publicity for the fest?

Bacchus: There is never enough publicity ) We had 125.000 flyers, 2000 posters and I don't know how many posts in guestbooks, chats.... It's mostly a question of money! But we are satisfied with the promotion this year! We had a good working campagne.

MF: I noticed there was no advertisements in EMP this year? Did that maybe hurt the turn out?

Bacchus: We recognised last year that the EMP advertisements were without a reaction. So we decided to make no advertisement there for this year! There are so many advertisements in the EMP that most people don't read it or even see it. We took the money to make more advertisements in Nuclear Blast Magazine or RockHard Magazine, what was good. We're satisfied with the decisions we made this way.

MF: Will there be a QOM 2008?

Bacchus: As I said before, right now we can not say yes or no, but if you guys drank enough.....
We'll tell the people in ~ two weeks on our page. You have to wait that long!

MF: Any thing else you can think of, that I may have forgotten, or statements you would like to make to the metal fans reading this?

Bacchus: Hey metal freaks out there, that were at the Queens of Metal Festival 2007, we - the staff - want to say a fucking big THANK YOU to you guys! You made the fest a fucking great party and hopefully we will see you guys again for next year!

Thank you for your time, and hospitality at the fest.

It's always a pleasure!