HEAVY MTL Festival Organizer: 'We Want To Continue To Grow The Diversity Of The Genre Of Music'

Robert Cotter of Fixion Media recently spoke to Daniel Glick, the director of concerts and events at Evenko — Montreal, Quebec's premiere promoter and arguably the most important independent promoter and producer in Canada.

Evenko last year promoted more than a thousand shows, including Heavy MTL, a two-day festival for fans of metal, hard rock, and a slew of other heavy music genres in between.

"That's been the festival since the beginning," Glick said. "And we want to continue to grow the diversity of the genre of music, not just heavy metal. A) There are only so many heavy metal bands. B) We want some of our fans, let's say our hard rock fans, falls in love with MASTODON and that will lead them to another band, maybe a harder band. Someone going there just for MEGADETH and discovers BARONESS, and he's like, 'Wow, that's pretty cool.' It's a little more hard rocky. But he would probably not listen to that on his/her own if [they weren't] at the festival. You know, we're just trying to build music."

He continued: "Metal and hard rock has always been a very niche, unique genre of music and market. We'll look at it maybe a month into booking and we're like ‘we have three elements, we need three more.' You always start with your top 50. You see who's around, who's in Europe. Talking to agents — figuring out how much money they want; if they're planning a tour, if they're not planning a tour, [or] if we're going to be the only date in Canada — all kinds of things. And then we see who's there and start building it.

"Sometimes we pick the bands we really want and go after them hard. Sometimes maybe they'll route a tour around us. That happened with MEGADETH and [Gigantour]. I think there are a couple of them that have started tours around Heavy MTL, which is totally cool. We're kind of honored."

It's important to note that Heavy MTL is not just for local Montrealers. It is becoming a destination event. "I think right now maybe 15% are from the [United States] already," Glick said. "We're definitely attracting from all over the place. Not just the Quebec region. There's still quite a few from Ontario coming in; whether it be Ottawa, Kingston, some from Toronto — because there is no Heavy T.O. proper festival this year. The outreach is pretty strong."

This year's edition of the Heavy MTL festival is set to take place August 10-11 at Parc Jean-Drapeau in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Acts scheduled to appear at the event include ROB ZOMBIE, AVENGED SEVENFOLD, GODSMACK, MEGADETH and HALESTORM.

For more information, visit HeavyMTL.com.