Now in its sixth year, Steelhouse Festival, the Welsh International classic rock festival, based in Ebbw Vale is going from strength to strength. We met with Max, one half of the team behind the success of the festival on his way to a meeting, to find out more about this year’s festival and how Steelhouse has become one of the most respected, exciting and fastest growing new festivals in the UK.

With an amazing set of names making up the bill this year, Max tells us that “We’ve really stepped it up again this year and it’s onwards and upwards now.” The team have managed to attract Thunder and The Darkness, two of the finest UK rock bands, as their headliners this year, ably supported by the likes of The Answer, Terrorvision, Dead Daisies, Blues Pills and many more. We ask Max what he thinks it is about Steelhouse that has contributed towards its success when other festivals like Merthyr Rock and Sonisphere have fallen by the wayside.

“I think it’s partly because we’re at a lower level and it must be hard for them (Sonisphere) to top their line-ups year on year. They’re obviously in a very competitive market with Download as well. From our point of view, what keeps us going is blind stupidity!”

Is the festival your brainchild?

“There were three of us originally that put this idea together and myself and Mikey Evans are the two partners that are taking this forward. But I have to say right from the word go, right from the first year, it’s the army of volunteers that make this happen. It really is. Without them, we couldn’t function. They’re incredible. The vast majority of the volunteer workforce that we have up there (there are about 75 all told), I’d say the bulk of those take two weeks off work to come and work 15 hours a day on top of a mountain on no pay. They’re just incredible people. Their loyalty and their passion for it… as Mike and myself, we’re very passionate about it, but it’s an incredible feeling up there when you’ve got that many people supporting you and wanting to be there. I’d say perhaps half of the volunteers are not actually into rock music. The other half are very passionately into the music but they come along because they’re family or friends, or friends of friends that have come up and it’s the atmosphere they love up there. Some of them have no interest in the genre of music but their first taste of the atmosphere up there, which is incredibly family friendly, they’ve just been bitten by the bug of this community spirit.”

This community spirit is what the rock and metal fraternity is renowned for!

“Absolutely I think in certain areas it gets bad press because of the image of it, but as soon as someone samples that type of event, they’re converted.

There are many parallels between Steelhouse festival and Bloodstock, another successful UK festival, albeit at different ends of the rock spectrum.

“We love to be compared to them, even if we’re six or seven years behind.

Is that your vision – to follow the same kind of trajectory that Bloodstock has in terms of the growth and success that it has experienced?

“Obviously they’re in a much heavier end of rock music. We’ve gone down the commercial end. I think there’s room for both of us and that model is perfect. We’re very supportive of them.”

I think that’s one of things about both festivals – you’ve both picked different ends of the spectrum with your niche areas whereas the Downloads, Sonispheres etc. try to appeal to all people. I think it’s the niche thing that people are buying in to.

“It’s a smaller festival. Personally I went to Download when it was Monsters of Rock years ago and since it’s been Download I’ve probably been the last 5 or 6 years. For me it’s too diverse. Multi stage, lots of walking about, you go and see half a set here, half a set there. Myself and Mike particularly had this vision of the old style Monsters of Rock. One stage; everything you want to see in one place.”

The old Monsters Of Rock line-ups used to be diverse and it used to be to get on the bill you had to have done something. To get up the bill or to headline, you had to have done something special. There was almost like criteria for each slot. I think that’s gone. There are even people playing festivals that aren’t signed.

“The thing is with four days and six stages, they’re having to fill a lot of space. That obviously has its market but we’re ploughing our own furrow. We’ve decided we wanted a single stage with one genre.”

On your website it says that you pride yourself on the family friendly environment that you’ve already mentioned and providing value for money. Is that the whole ethos behind Steelhouse?

“Absolutely, We know full well where we are in the world. In the Welsh valleys! We want to make sure that at the bar and all the food stalls, we keep the cost down. We keep the cost down on everything that’s sold on site. On the ticket price, we’ve really tried to keep a rein on that, while trying to get the best bands that we can, obviously It’s a numbers game at the end of the day. If and when in a few years’ time there’s tens of thousands of people there, then obviously there will be the budget there to have mega bands, but I have to say that I’m incredibly pleased to have the line-up we’ve managed to put together. Mikey is quite merrily in charge of that end of things and he does an incredible job, putting bills together on what is a relatively small budget.”

For me, growing up in Wales and loving rock music, the idea of seeing the likes of Doro, Michael Schenker or Sebastian Bach playing in Ebbw Vale is mind blowing so on behalf of all Welsh fans, thank you for what you’re doing.

“I’m a fan as well. One of the first bands I got into when I was 12 or 13 was Y&T. I absolutely loved them. I’ve got an older cousin and he introduced me to Y&T and he kind of drifted out of that music scene. But it was brilliant last year that we arranged to meet up. It was one of only two bands that I saw last year at the festival because I was busy elsewhere. I managed to see Tyketto and Y&T. I stood in a field with my older cousin who introduced me to Y&T and listening to their albums less than a mile from that venue, we were able to stand there and watch Dave Meniketti and Y&T on stage. I was very emotional that day. It was a dream come true.”

I can imagine you, as many people did in the 80s, doing the annual pilgrimage to Donnington. Did you sit down with friends and say ‘I know, let’s put a festival on.’ Was that how it went, or was there a bit more level headedness to it?

“No not at all. The way it was born was, I work in marketing and event management and have done for many years. We had the opportunity to run a club night at a venue up in Ebbw Vale at the rugby club, that we re-branded as the Steelhouse. Primarily to do with the area, with the steelworks and that kind of thing. We had a couple of very good events there and with a few sell-out crowds, there was a real appetite for it in the area. Our original plan was just to move it out onto the pitch and have a summer spectacular. But that met with huge resistance from the local authority.” At this point, Max and Mike managed to find a landowner on a farm on the mountain top of Ebbw Vale who was prepared to house the festival. “In total it took us about 18 months to get permits and licences in place, because there’s nothing like that of that kind of scale that has happened in that area. So they were very hesitant and resistant to the whole thing. But we established ourselves. The first year was a relatively modest event and once we’d established that first year and set a precedent, since then they’ve been, I wouldn’t say supportive, but less obstructive. Touch wood, we’ve got an unblemished record; it’s a very safe environment. It’s gone off without a hitch and the local authority leaves us to it now and it’s growing year on year, but it really came from those club nights and wanting to move it out on the field. But when that didn’t work we managed to find a landowner who has been incredibly supportive to us. It must have been a real leap of faith that first year for him as he would have had no idea how that site was going to be left. The fact that we left it in a better condition than when we’ve arrived every year, he’s more than happy with. He’s incredibly supportive. He’s quite an eccentric entrepreneur.”

Another Michael Eavis?

“Very much so. I know he enjoys it very much. He loves the atmosphere up there.”

How far ahead are you in terms of booking bands? Are you already thinking about next year?

“Yeah. In fact, we’ve pencilled bands in for next year. I think through the negotiations of putting this line-up together, if bands we wanted to play this year weren’t available or it didn’t fit in with their touring schedule or they weren’t in the country, we’ve had those conversations.

We notice that your big four this year (namely Thunder, The Darkness, Terrorvision and The Answer) are all British bands. Is that just how the coins have dropped or did you go out to do a best of British?

“A little bit of both. I had a general feeling last year that we went slightly too American, although I do love the idea of the American sound as well. I’ve grown up listening to rock music in the 80s. it’s unavoidable to be American biased. I just think we went slightly too far in that direction. It wasn’t an intention issue to have four top bands all British this year. In fact, one of the first bands that we had locked in would have been the Saturday special guest and that would have been an American band. They were locked in but we allowed them out of their contract because they had an enormous opportunity that we didn’t want to stand in the way of. It’s not good for ongoing working relationships. We’re a small festival. We can’t dig our heels in, so we allowed that.”

Do bands approach you wanting to play the festival as well?

“Absolutely. In the first two years we couldn’t get arrested by the managers and agents. We had no track record. They didn’t know who we were. But by year three, they started coming to us, or at the very least, when we were approaching people they knew who we were and that we’d already had a couple of years behind us. Now I know that we have regular dialogue right around the year with agents. They want to know what our plans are for next year and how it fits in and again not for their mega bands. They know the Metallicas and Iron Maidens of this world, but they have lots of bands that they know would fit in nicely with us and that we would love to have so it works really well. Perhaps through accident rather than design we dealt with some of the larger agents and now because we’ve got 5 or 6 years’ relationship with them, they’re very accommodating for us.”

We spoke to Ricky Warwick earlier this year who was very flattering about Steelhouse, having played there with Black Star Riders in 2014.

“It was touch and go this year whether Ricky was going to come and do a solo set. Because Thin Lizzy are playing at Rambling Man festival, he was going to come to us for the Sunday. But then Thin Lizzy added an extra date in Europe, which is fine. But Black Star Riders and Thin Lizzy, their agents and managers have been incredibly supportive to us. We’re very appreciative of their help.”

Another band that have touched our radar this year, funnily enough through a recommendation by Ricky Warwick are Tax The Heat, who we notice that you’ve got playing at the festival this year.

“Yes, they share a manager. They’re a great band and it’s great to have them back up there (they also played in 2014). I think they’re destined for big things. Tax The Heat have got great presence. There’s something about them. They’ve got their own style, their own sound. They’re a very good band and lovely guys too.

When we met with you previously, you had yet to announce some of the big names that you have attracted to the festival. Now that your full line-up has been released and is in the public domain, is it a case of all systems go?

“We like to think that we work in a very honourable respectful manner. We were told what we could and couldn’t say. We stayed within that because for us, there’s no value in rubbing up the agents or managers the wrong way. We have to work with them so it’s a huge relief to have the line-up out there and for us to not think what we can or can’t say. Now it’s out there we’re going to market the hell out of it. Hopefully it will be a record breaking attendance this year; it’s looking that way. We want to break the 10,000 over the weekend, that would work really well for us. I’m confident that we will get to that level this year, then well look at enlarging the site. In saying that, if it works on that scale and it has done for the last couple of years, I don’t think it’s our ambition to get too large.

We’ve had incredible feedback from the people that have attended the festival about its atmosphere and friendly vibe. We don’t want to lose that; that’s a huge part of its success. It’s a double edged sword because people demand bigger and better bands every year. I know the year that we had Saxon, someone said ‘Well, you’ve had Saxon this year so you can have AC/DC next year!’. There’s a huge disparity in the fees of those two bands, but ultimately if you’re a fan of those two bands and you see them together on a jacket, there’s that perception that they’re on the same level. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

The stage show Saxon put on was absolutely incredible. That gig was a real leap up and since then we’ve had Europe and Black Star Riders. That was our spring board really and Saxon really started that.”

Are a lot of people travelling far and wide for the festival?

“Absolutely. Last year and the previous year we had more people from outside the UK than ever before. We had one guy who came over from Australia! He saw the advert in Classic Rock magazine. He came over to us and Bloodstock and made a two-week holiday out of it. His daughter did a Steelhouse banner for him! We’ve had lots of people from mainland Europe and America and lots from the North of England and Scotland. Two years ago there was a family from Kilmarnock. The husband and wife had always gone to festivals for years and years and now had a young family. They hadn’t been to a festival for 10-12 years and thought they’d come down. They had an 800 mile round trip and stayed in the area and made a holiday out of it. They came back again last year and I know they’re coming again this year. That is incredibly heart-warming. The Welsh public are the ones who buy latest. I think they check the weather forecast and decide whether to come up or not! People from further away have to make plans much earlier, so at the moment, I’d say the vast majority of our sales are from outside of Wales.”

 You’ve got The Answer playing for the third time, so you’re obviously big fans of the band.

“They’ve always put great performances on for us. They’re re-issuing their ‘Rise’ album and are doing a special performance of that so it’s fantastic to have them back. We know that they always put on a fantastic show and they’re lovely guys as well.”

Weren’t they one of the bands that played the Steelhouse club that you mentioned earlier?

“Yes, they played at the club. Whereas the club started with fairly local bands, they were the first real nationally recognised, contemporary band that we had at the club and that I think sparked the idea of bringing bands into the area. It was a real coup for us. We tested the water with that. It went down an absolute storm. We had a full house and we thought, ‘OK, perhaps there’s something in this, perhaps there’s an idea here.’”

“That army of serious volunteers, self-titled The Steelhouse Family, are incredible. They’re so protective of the whole event and passionate about it. They work tirelessly; particularly last year because the weather wasn’t great. It was physically exhausting and the fact that everyone still has a smile on their face – they make the atmosphere up there without a shadow of a doubt. Almost every review we’ve had over the last five years has mentioned two things which are the location which is really unique. There isn’t another festival like that on top of a mountain. And secondly the atmosphere. That comes out of the volunteers. They do it for the absolute love of it. For people that want to help and love the music, I can understand that. For people that just help out for the hell of it, that’s going the extra mile!”

With that we thank Max for his time and leave him to rush off to his meeting, but we are stuck by how passionate he is not only with rock music but also by his homeland of Wales and the community in which he lives. For more information about the festival or to purchase tickets, please visit www.steelhousefestival.com