Damnation Festival 2010 Preview - Interview with Panic Cell

The lineup for the 6th Damnation festival is shaping up nicely. Among the latest wave of bands announced for the event in Leeds are globetrotting British metal band Panic Cell. As Festival Director Gavin McInally said: “a Jager drenched evening with Panic Cell is a highlight of any festival. It's great to have those boys back in the UK after playing with the likes of Metallica, Alice Cooper and Slayer earlier this year"

Panic Cell are hot property at the moment, and their profile is rising on the back of their acclaimed third album 'Fire It Up', and a string of high profile festival appearances across Europe.

We caught up with front man Luke Bell to get the bands thoughts on appearing at the festival.

It has just been announced that you are playing the Damnation festival in Leeds, an exciting prospect ?

Exciting prospect is a understatement. The Damnation Festival is something we hold close to our hearts, we are good friends with the organisers. The festival has grown so much since its first year back in 2005 and we cannot wait to play it again after the amazing time we had back in 2007.

How did this come about ? Did the organisers approach you or did your management go to them ?

We were on tour in Europe with Anthrax, Gav McInally phoned me up to talk over a few things non band related and asked what Panic Cell were up to. One thing led to another and we were offered the slot.

How long did it take from the initial contact to confirmation of your slot?

As in the announcement made the Monday just gone? These things take time, I think we were offered the slot back in July.

You have been playing some of the biggest festivals in Europe, it must be a massive buzz to play to those huge crowds ?

It’s mad and brilliant all rolled into one! When our agent made the call to me about opening the main stage to Metallica and all those other great bands, I had the biggest grin. The guys couldn’t believe it either. Both that and Polish Woodstock have been the biggest shows we have done to date, in fact I think we’ve played close to 300,000 people this summer, mind boggling. A massive buzz indeed. Now we’ve put that work into Europe, it’s time to come back home and sow some seeds for the latest release and the upcoming Crazy single.

How do you think you will find the much more intimate setting of the Leeds Uni ?

It’s still a pretty big venue in its own right, yep it will be good to get back to the up close n personal shows, we thrive on these. Interacting with the crowd is something im keen on, we’re all there to have a good time at the end of the day!

You put in an appearance on the Acoustic stage at Download, an interesting, or terrifying, experience ?

A brilliant brilliant time. We were asked by Jagermiester UK management who were running the stage to put together an acoustic show together, something we’ve never done before. So yes a bit nervous but it turned out great, the crowd got right behind us and I got see smiles a plenty when we were banging on acoustic versions of our songs. We had such a good time we are now looking to put together a mini acoustic album made up of songs from the 3 Panic Cell albums and a few new tunes.

The organisers of Damnation are putting together a very strong lineup. Anyone on there you're particularly looking forward to checking out ?

Plenty of bands we want to check out including Dillinger, Paradise Lost, Lawnmower Death and the return of Earthtone 9!! Gonna be class!!

So what can we expect from Panic Cell at Damnation?

It’s more of a case not what to expect, we’ve got so many ideas for our slot it’s gonna take a week to weed out the good from the bad and the god damn ugly!! Bring it on, Damnation 2010 is going to own!!!

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