Ahead of their performance at Download I got chance to pick the brains of one of the new acts in this country who have impressed me the most so far this year. Peter Shoulder is the main man from Winterville, a band who's sound is very varied and so I was interested to see what musical influences the band had and what they are currently into.
"First off it was Nirvana, then I got into Zeppelin then a load of blues stuff. At first it was the bands from the late 60's blues explosion. Then I went further back and sought out all of those bands' influences. Then it was Neil young, CSN, Joni Mitchell, Tim and Jeff Buckley, Neal Casal, anything that had passion behind it.
"At the minute I'm rediscovering all of my old Tim Buckley albums. His voice was just unreal, almost supernatural. I'm also listening to a lot of Ryan Adams too, he's an amazing songwriter."
And are their any new acts that they think we should look out for?
"There's a guy up in Newcastle called Richard Dawson who's great. Its kind of folky but with lots of other stuff thrown in too: his songs are great."
Winterville's sound mixes aspects of the blues right through to grunge and rock acts around right now, but with such varied influences their live shows have been said to be quite creative occasions. However for a reasonably new act, Download is a massive step up, so would this change in anyway?
"People can expect to hear the songs from our album played with a lot more freedom. We're a live band first and foremost; the records are there for a reference point. I personally have never played an event as big as Download before, Joss and Mario will probably have played gigs on the same scale with other bands they've been with in the past. I can't wait to get out there. Its only going to be a short set, so we need to show the audience in that short period of time what the bands all about. I think it's going to be quite a rocking set, not many ballads!"
For those of us not in bands, the opportunity to mix in with superstars must be one of the real attractions of a festival. Given that grunge in one genre which the band have listened to and loved, one big name did stand out which might be up their alley.
"I can't wait to see Alice in Chains. I know it wont be the same without Layne Staley, but it will be great to see. I've heard that Duff Mckagan is playing rhythm guitar for them too, Should be interesting to see.
Although the album is still reasonably new, it came out November 2005, it seems that Winterville aren't hanging around as far as the next record is concerned. Sadly we may have to wait for a while to see a full on UK tour from them.
"As far as this summer goes, after Download we'll be concentrating on the second album. I'm busy writing at the minute.
No doubt we will do a few gigs here and there before the next album comes out, but you can expect a full tour to support it when it comes out."
To check how they got on at this year's Download,
Click here for the review.