Download update: Sabbath Sunday

Refused

For some it was a dry festival…

Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe has completely given up drinking – but when he did take alcohol, he took a better quality than the stuff his bandmates do.

Randy Blythe, Lamb of God: I haven’t had a drink for two years, but the rest of the guys like a few. I have non-alcoholic beer on my rider, hopefully Becks. If Miller Light is available they’ll have that – because my bandmates have no taste in beer whatsoever. When I drank, I drank good beer… It’s a crime to be in England and drink Miller Light, but they do.

Dez Fafara, Devildriver: I don’t drink on tour. Never drink on the road – that’s pretty sensible. But I can still have some fun. I’m waiting until Zakk Wylde gets on the premises. We’ll have coffee.

Heavy from the heart…

Surprisingly this weekend marked the Dropkick Murphys’ first-ever visit to Donington. But frontman Ken Casey was sure they’d fit right in – and reveals they have a pre-show tradition that’s more of a security check.

Ken Casey: The aggression we have comes in the delivery and the lyrics and what we have to say. It’s not, ‘Oh no, we’re playing with metal bands, we’ve got to be hard.’ We’ll never be as heavy as them. The heaviness comes from the sincerity.

Al Barr and I used to slap each other to wake each other up and get pumped up, but the hand marks were getting too obvious – you’d want to outdo each other. Now we pretty much just put our hands in. That’s more to make sure there’s seven hands in there… With seven guys we’ve taken the stage and gone, ‘Wait a minute, where’s that asshole?’

Film fears…

Big-screen tie-ins appear to be the near-future of rock band promotion. Soundgarden recently added their comeback song Live to Rise to The Avengers soundtrack. But Sebastian Bach warns fans not to blame him if the Rock of Ages movie in which he appears turns out to be rubbish.

Ben Shepherd, Soundgarden: The studio said it couldn’t be as extremely hardcore as some of our material. I never think about what people like that want but we didn’t want to scare off families, so it had to be toned down a little. But it was fine, it was beautiful, powerful an dark. We’re probably the darkest band to be associated with Disney.

Sebastian Bach: Rock of Ages was fun. I walked up to Tom Cruise and I go, ‘How’s it going, man?’ and he goes, ‘Sebastian, I’ve been following you for a long time.’ It’s amazing. I think he can sing; he hits the high notes at the end which is very impressive. It’s in theatres now. I haven’t seen it yet – if it sucks it’s not my fault…

Stand up for yourself…

Shinedown are keen for their recent single Bully to be clearly understood – it’s not a weak-spirited apology.

Brent Smith: We don’t feel like anyone has the right to mentally or physically push other people around. If you’re in that situation you should attack them back. So Bully is a song about being proud of yourself and who you are. Refuse to be bullied.

Next page: Fighting for fitness…