Fightstar, A, Apocalyptica and more added to Download 2015 lineup

Download 2015 comes a huge step closer today with DAY TICKETS for Europe’s biggest rock and metal music festival set to go on sale at 9am on Friday 27 February and a whopping 38 bands joining the line-up.     

Bands joining the line-up include the mighty Fightstar: a decade on from their debut release, the post hardcore giants came back from a 4 year hiatus at the end of last year for a triumphant run of sold out shows celebrating their 10th anniversary and return to the Donington stage for the first time since their main stage performance in 2008.

Charlie Simpson from Fightstar said: 

We are incredibly excited to be playing our first festival appearance in five years at this year’s Download Festival. Download has always been one of our favourite festivals in the calendar and this year is going to be the best yet! We can't wait to hit the stage again and enjoy the mayhem.

Cult British alt-pop punks, ‘A’, are another act to return after years of rumours and hearsay for their first Donington appearance in a decade.

Speaking on their Download Festival comeback, frontman Adam Perry said: 

We are stoked to be playing Download again, I think the last time we played it was 10 years ago in 2005, so it’s been while! We are excited to announce that Shay (formally of Kids in Glass Houses) will be joining us on bass for the show and it feels great to have “A” back in our lives. Looking forward to seeing some old and new faces down the front!

Alongside them, Apocalyptica, the world’s favourite titans of neoclassical metal return to Download for the first time in seven years to prove that the cello can be as mighty as the axe, while two giants of rock and metal music over the past 20 years, Max and Igor, bring the Cavalera Conspiracy to Donington for the first time in seven years.

Apocalyptica’s Eicca Toppinen said: 

It has been a while since we played Download last. We love the festival and have great memories to play there and to see other bands and friends. Finally we release a new studio album – Shadowmaker – and we are proud we are able to premiere the new touring cycle for England at Download.

Meanwhile neither Cavalera brother pulled their punches when describing what Download fans can expect.

Iggor said: 

I am super excited to be part of this amazing line up for Download 2015, we can't wait to hit the stage and display some brutality from our new record. See you all on the pit!

Max said: 

I am excited to return to Download with Cavalera Conspiracy!  I promise you all the most brutal show ever!

Other exciting acts bound for Donington include Modestep. The rock-dubstep crossover marauders join the line-up for Download 2015 ahead of the release of their hotly anticipated second album, London Road.

Josh from Modestep said:

We feel privileged to be coming back to Download for a third time, we hope this will be our heaviest show yet. Our first ever show as a band was at Download, so it's always a moment for us to return.”

The Sword are also back, with the Texan stoner-doom-sludge-merchants confirmed for Download just in time to hit the studio in March to record their fifth album, while Sylosis bring their signature mix of thrash and death metal back to Download for the first time since the release of January’s gigantic album Dormant Heart.

Emerging fem-punk rockers The Pink Slips make their Download debut this year, fronted by seventeen year-old Grace McKagen, whose father has dabbled with the bass guitar once or twice at Donington over the years.

Another enfant terrible heading to Download is the UK’s premiere blues rock prodigy, Aaron Keylock, the seventeen year-old Oxford resident who already shreds like a rock heavyweight. 

Among their fellow newcomers are metalcore cum punk powerhouse Beartooth, fronted by former Attack! Attack! frontman Caleb Shomo; and Butcher Babies, the Heavy Metal sirens famed for their confrontational performance style and horror-themed on-stage antics.

The Download faithful will also have a first opportunity to see Donington regular Ginger Wildheart moonlighting as an ass-kicking glam rocker with Hey! Hello!, and a first chance to witness former Ipso Facto singer Rosalie Cunningham’s intensely atmospheric progressive psych-rock project Purson..

Other homegrown talent coming to Download includes the melodic rock of Emp!re, powered along by Joe Green’s astonishing vocals, and London rap/electro/hardcore punk crossover experimentalists The One Hundred, while bands proudly maintaining the Midlands’ tradition of producing top class rock and metal music include Wolverhampton’s eighties-influenced melodic rockers Iconic Eye, their close neighbours, hardcore-grunge maestros God Damn, Telford’s uncompromising alt-grunge predators Hyena and Milton Keynes metallers Heart of a Coward – following the release of brutal new album Severance in November.

Other upcoming British acts setting foot on the iconic stages for the first time are Leeds alt-grungersAllUsOnDrugs, highly rated pop-punk quintet Roam, sludgy stoner rockers Dolomite Minor, Bath post-hardcore upstarts Decade, North East rockers Sirens In The Delta and pop punk tyros Love Zombies andTrash Boat.

Download 2015 will also feature some of the most mind-alteringly awesome new music from across the Atlantic and beyond, including the genetic experiment in post-apocalyptic doom-punk known as Code Orange whose fellow Pennsylvanians Crobot will also be serving up their steel-reinforced, supercharged blues rock to the Donington masses for the first time.

Other newcomers include Southern bluegrass-rock groovesters Blackberry Smoke, Texan Rockers American Fangs, the insane and distinctive melodic hooks of Dead Daisies – the Australian-American revolving door of Rock’s best and brightest – leaders in a genre of one and self-proclaimed “Hauntedmansioncore” proponentsNew Year’s Day, hard rockers Pop Evil and electronic horror-rockers Ghost Town.

In Hearts Wake join the Australian metalcore insurgency gripping Download this year, while highly-rated Finnish doom mongers Insomnium, New Zealand punk-rockers Rival State and Canadian melodic metalcore supremos Counterparts bring up-to-date what is becoming a truly breathtaking line-up.

This deluge of talent flooding Donington Park from June 12-14 will be joined by headliners SlipknotMuse andKiss, main support Judas PriestFaith No More and Mötley Crüe, and such rock and metal megastarsBlack Stone CherryEnter ShikariMarilyn MansonFive Finger Death PunchA Day To Remember,Slash and Miles KennedyBlack Veil BridesLamb of GodRise AgainstBilly IdolL7, Andrew W.K, In Flames, Testament, Parkway DriveHollywood UndeadClutchBody CountEagles of Death Metal,GodsmackMallory KnoxMotionless in WhiteMadballEvery Time I DieDragonforceBackyard BabiesCrown the EmpireNorthlane and H.E.A.T.