Interview...

Two dudes in Tucson got together and decided to throw a music fest. And no, it wasn’t a naked Indian and Jim Morrison who told them to do so. They were just bored and decided to do something about it other then bitch about how Arizona isn’t New York. No shit it’s not New York, we can walk more then five feet without smelling piss and stepping over a homeless man. So, what these two guys came up with is Southwest Terror Fest, which is in Tucson, AZ on October 19th & 20th.  I called up David Rodgers, one of the men behind the fest, to see what was up.

[Brett] Hello.
[David] What’s up man?
How you doing?
Good, how are you?
Pretty good, pretty good.
So, you want to just give me the basic details on what this Tucson fest is for somebody who has hasn’t heard much about it?
Yeah, so basically it’s a DIY fest, all the guys throwing it are musicians in bands; we wanted to bring something to Arizona, which is a good kind of central location in the southwest. Lots of bands come through here already, and there’s not a lot (of fests) here besides “Within These Walls” which is a hardcore festival. So myself and Dave Carroll from the Diseased Reason got together and we kind of just figured why couldn’t we just throw one of these ourselves? We just started calling everyone we knew and got thirty-two bands to come out. We have people coming from as far away such as Hull (New York), Sons of Tonatiuh (Georgia), three or four bands coming from California, bands from Colorado, along with a pretty good representation from a few different local scenes.
Cool, who are you looking forward to seeing the most?
Uh, I’m really looking forward to seeing Bereft, all those dudes are amazing musicians and I don’t think they have played out of California yet but I love the album that they just put out. Also looking forward to Hull a lot cause those guys are amazing, and I don’t know, I’m really just looking forward to the whole weekend because its bringing together a whole bunch of people I know from a bunch of different places and it’s just going to be fun hanging out with everybody.
Is this fest going to be better then Woodstock? 
Absolutely. One, there will be no hippies. Two, it will be inside so even if a hippie shows up and it rains, we wont have a wet dirty hippie, and I will make sure there is no brown acid. So right there, we are on top of Woodstock already.
How many virgin sacrifices will there be?
(Sighs) Ohhh man, are we counting the pre-fest party?
Yeah, I guess that counts.
Okay, and I’m guessing we are counting any after parties too? I’m going to say…. forty-seven?
That’s a pretty solid number.
Yeah, at least three dozen, somewhere around there.
How many times have you seen a metal dude from behind thinking that metal girl with the long hair has a flat ass and nice boots?
Hahahaha… I think its happening more at hardcore shows, with them borrowing their sister’s jeans and having the same haircut as their girlfriend. Um, but you know, um, usually you can tell because not that many girls wear combat boots. But, I know what you’re feeling there, can’t say it hasn’t happened to me its probably happened to everyone.
Hahahaha… Alright, what band do you play in and what are they doing next?
I play guitar and scream in Godhunter and we are playing up in Phoenix right before the fest, with Saint Vitus, Weedeater, Sourvein, and Twin Giant. I’m friends with a bunch of those dudes so that will be an awesome drive. After the fest we are taking off on a long winter tour and won’t be back until January.
Nice. How many black shirts do you own?
Haha, an easier question would be how many don’t I own, I want to say I have maybe nine white t shirts, like a white Black Flag shirt, a Kylesa shirt, a white Landmine Marathon, other then that all I own is black t shirts.
I heard that Pigeonwing is a straightedge Christian band?
Um, that is pretty much what I heard. Ya know, its funny that guy Ryan from that band wrote me email after email begging me to throw them on the fest, then he started throwing in bribes, and once the money got pretty high I was like, “Alright man, we’ll put you on here, I don’t think you guys will fit in at all, but hey, come out, rock it, and if someone throws a bottle at your head its on you bro.”
Hahaha good answer. I heard that band Ladybird asked for two male stripers, some horse lube, and fifteen pre peeled bananas as their rider.
Ah, I thought it was more bananas. We actually have to get them their own VIP area which no one else has access to which I thought was a little weird, but hey whatever bands have to do to get ready for a show I’m going to let them because we’re just trying to throw the best show that we can.
Do you plan on doing this next year?
That’s our goal. If we don’t lose too much money this year we’ll call it a success and then we’ll try it again, if we could break even on it and hopefully we can make it a little bit bigger and better for next year. Dave, my partner in this venture wants to do it with multiple venues next year or maybe the year after that. So we definitely have some plans for the future, and as long as we have good shows this year we’ll do it again.
Well I’m glad to hear that, sounds like you know what you’re doing so…
…Oh we have absolutely no idea what we are doing.
Hahaha.
Ya know, I don’t even really know how to play guitar, most of the time my shits not plugged in, so I’m faking ALL of this basically, so if any of this works its somebody else’s fault.
Hahaha alright, sounds good man thanks for doing this for me.
Anytime, no problem.
Yeah, I’ll see you soon.
Cool, we’ll see you at the fest. Have a good one.
You too.
Later.

If you want to see a fest that is better than Woodstock, head out to Tucson Arizona. $15 for both days, 32 metal bands, 47 virgin sacrifices, 1 Christian band, and most importantly 0 hippies.

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