SLAYER, MARILYN MANSON, KILLSWITCH, TRIVIUM SET FOR MAYHEM

Mayhem Festival mastermind Kevin Lyman shares his thoughts on why Rockstar’s Mayhem Festival is such a success

The Rockstar Mayhem Festival is set to kick off on July 10th in Sacramento, Ca and the second annual fest will feature Slayer, Marilyn Manson, Killswitch Engage, Bullet for My Valentine and Trivium to name a few. Building on the success of 2008’s in augural year, 2009 will once again showcase bands on three stages as well as a Jägermeister Battle of the Bands winner will be performing at each stop. Concert promoter Kevin Lyman, perhaps best known for putting on 15 years of the Warped Tour as well as the Mayhem Festival, continues to bring his knowledge of touring festivals as Mayhem gears more towards metal, while Warped Tour is focused more on Punk Rock.

Artisan News caught up with Kevin Lyman to get his thoughts on starting The Mayhem Festiavl because so many Metal bands wanted to play The Warped Tour.

“Really I got involved in that because I was trying to figure out why they were not breaking bands off their second stages. Why the Metal scene wasn’t developing their own headliners and so many Metal bands wanted to play The Warped Tour. As I Lay Dying, All That Remains they kept coming to do Warped and they were having success off of that. I started really looking at that and saying they needed their own festival that focused on developing artists and trying to help develop new headliners. I’m really proud of last Summer when you had bands like Suicide Silence and Five Finger Death Punch developing bands play those stages and now those bands could be legitimate main stage bands in a year or so.”

Just a few of the other acts on this years Mayhem Festival will be Mushroom Head, The TBack Dahlia Murder, All That Remains, Behemoth and God Forbid. Tour dates extend until August 15th in Dallas, Tx.