The Into the Darkness Festival is shaping up to be one one helluva can’t miss event. With some of the best bands in extreme metal attending this 2 day event in the coolest bowling alley outside Kingpin (no word yet if Bill Murrary will be in attendance) make sure to keep your calendar clear July 29-30th and start making your travel plans. This is one event you can’t afford to miss!
Festival organizer and founder of Redefining Darkness Records and Seeing Red Records and all around cool dude,Thomas Haywood,took a few moments to talk to us about this amazing show.
Trve Kvlt Coffee: You have 2 different record companies, Redefining Darkness Records and Seeing Red Records. How did you get started?
Thomas Haywood: My background is, I’m a musician first. I actually went to school for music in Los Angeles at the Musician’s Institute. Then I was trying to get gigs, I auditioned for tons of bands, then I ended up moving to Cleveland and one of my good friends had gotten a gig with Abigail Williams who were on tour with Dark Funeral and Enslaved at the time. After that tour the band broke up and my friend was continuing to play with the main songwriter Abigail Williams. They ended up doing something new and brought me into the fold into what would become Born of Fire. We got signed to Roadrunner records. The album never came out. They gave us an offer, “We can put out your album in 2 years or we’ll release you (from the contract) right now and give you this money.” We didn’t want to wait around so we took the money. We continued Abigail after that because they were still getting offers, so I toured with them for the next 2 years and did the album Shadow of a Thousand Suns.
I gave up the touring life, I had already been married and we were having our first kid. I missed the first 3-4 months of my daughter’s life, so after that we decided I wouldn’t tour anymore. Then life changed, got divorced, had another kid, so I took a break from everything and focused on my life. Once things were settled in my life and things started getting good again, I had always had my foot in the door. I had done some writing with Aborted and started writing for a UK blog called All About the Rock doing some extreme metal reviews and started doing some more podcast based stuff. In doing so and reviewing all of these bands and all of the people that I have met on the road who were sharing their projects with me. I thought, man I kinda have all of this at my fingertips and the thing I had not done yet was being on the business side of music. I was like, Why don’t I try to release this stuff?
The other half of that was empowering artists, something I didn’t have when we were signed to Roadrunner. I wanted to put power back into musicians’ hands, I believe all song writers should own their own music, their own publishing and that sort of thing. That was the main reason for starting the labels. I started them in 2015.
A lot of people ask me, “Why 2?” I ask myself that question a lot as well. At the time I was doing some research and one of the labels that was on the rise was Dark Descent. All of these niche labels were doing well, all these labels that catered to one style, the fan base was built in. If you like one band you’re almost guaranteed to like the next band. Dark Descent was kind of doing the same thing at the time, so I thought, “I love extreme and death metal,” So I’ll keep that on one side. I love so much music; post punk, goth, industrial, hard core that I still need an outlet for that stuff. If there is a band I believe in, a band I want to support, I still want to have an avenue for that. That’s where Seeing Red Records came from.
TK: Looking at the lineup for the Into the Darkness Fest, it looks incredible. I mean you have veterans like Macabre and Deceased. Then you have some relative up and comers like Imperial Triumphant and a ton of other bands. How long has this show been in the works?
TH: This past July was when I first got in touch with the venue. First I wanted to find a location. The venue is in Youngstown (Ohio). Youngstown is only known for a couple of things. It was Murderville, USA because it is the main artery that cuts through Pennsylvania to New York, it’s kind of the gateway from New York to Chicago. There was a lot of mob running, like a hub. There was a lot of bombings, people killing each other, that kind of thing. They have this great venue, Westside Bowl, I think it’s 30,000 square feet. It is enormous, it’s like a city block, tons of ample parking, tons of room for bands. The area has great park systems for people who want to hike and that sort of thing. It’s done by the same guys who developed Central Park in New York. There are great breweries that are popping up everywhere and Youngstown is no exception to that. There is Nobel Creature which is really close and we are tying into it and not far from there is Cloven Hoof, they are coming down and taking part. We are trying to get the community involved into it as well.
I had finally come across Westside Bowl, someone had recommended them to me, so I gave the owner a call based on that recommendation and finally met him in October. We pretty much locked it in then. So it’s been going on for a while, not quite a year in advance but not quite far off.
TK: It’s refreshing to hear that this is a show that was recently planned and not something that kept getting pushed and rescheduled due to Covid.
TH: We didn’t really schedule anything, it was just more of a conversation. Some venues want you to rent the venue out, some want to participate and they were very great. Nathan, the owner and his wife, were super receptive. They want to do more, they want to be involved and more things and become a destination so that bands want to play Youngstown. It’s going to take them some time to build it but if we can help each other, that’s kind of the goal there.
TK: I was checking out the venue online and I already want to go! The bowling, pickle pizza, it definitely sounds like a cool and unique venue. I think when the word gets out about this venue, more people will come out to shows.
TH: I think they will be surprised. “This is a bowling alley?” Yes, it’s definitely a bowling alley. The intention of the owners is that they always wanted a venue first. The bowling alley actually saved them, especially when Covid hit. When all the other venues had to close, they still had the bowling alley. People were allowed to come in, bowl and mask up. They didn’t lose revenue because they couldn’t do shows. They were able to keep the lights on and keep people employed. So that was a saving grace for them but their goal was never to own a bowling alley. They happened upon a venue that combined these things. I think the pictures are great (online) but they really don’t do it justice. When you walk in you’re like, “Oh shit!” The stage is legit! It is enormous! I wasn’t sure how the sound would be in a bowling alley being that it is so open, but the way bowling alleys are designed is that they are super insulated with all sorts of sound proofing. If you look at the ceiling of a bowling alley it’s contoured kind of strange and the way the sound travels is that when the pins are hit, the sound hits the bowler. So it’s the same with the sound coming from the stage, they didn’t do anything to that ceiling so the sound kind of rolls in a way where it hits the listener in the chest. They had Aretha Franklin’s sound guy set up their system and it sounds amazing! Fuckin’ high quality sound!I was completely shocked the first time I saw a show there. Blown away.
TK: Sound is one of the most important parts of the show. Sometimes you’ll be at a venue that may have been repurposed and the sound is just terrible.
TH: Not just the sound but they didn’t skimp on any part of the presentation, amazing lighting rigs as well. I think they can fit 1000 in the main room and I think a 250-300 cap in the other room. Plenty of room for merch and the crowd. The fact that they have 2 stages, they have arcade games, bowling, they have food in house, another bar if you want to get away from the music, they have a giant patio outside. There is just so much to do there. We are going to try to keep people there, keep them engaged so that no one is ever bored.
TK: This sounds like such a killer event. So you are going to utilize the 2 stages?
TH: Yes. We are going to go back and forth, never on top of each other, we are going to literally go from one stage to the next. I was able to include more bands that way. I think it benefits the show to have both of those stages.
TK: I like hearing that there is no overlapping of bands. There is nothing worse than being at a festival and your favorite bands are playing at the same time and you are forced to make a difficult decision on who to see.
TH: Exactly. Ironically, I just met Obituary for the first time on this last run they did in Cleveland. I went to hang out with a good friend of mine, Gus Rios from Gruesome. It just so happened their tech for that tour was Mike Hamilton, who also drums for Exhumed and Deeds of Flesh. He just has so much experience and has been doing this for so long not only in his own bands but teaching for some of these bigger bands. He actually lives up here now, 5 minutes from my house which I had no idea! We talked about it and he’s going to be home in July, so I hired him to be my stage manager! For this whole back and forth stage thing I have a super pro guy who will run it with hopefully no overlap.
TK: That’s incredible! Is this show something that you are possibly looking at putting on as an annual event?
TH: That all depends on what happens this year, right? (laughs) The first time you never really know and I’ve never done anything like this before and I’m just getting into crunch time promotion. We just did a full page ad in Decibel and it’s in the issue before their Beer and Metal Festival, so it will be available there. The ad features all of our sponsors like Trve Kvlt Coffee, so thank you Trve Kvlt! That was kind of the first step into the major promotion push. Decibel will be doing a piece as well leading up to the show, we got Death Comes Lifting, then will probably do some Google Ad targeting. Anyone reading this, if they have some friends or may want some flyers, I can either send the file or send you money to print them or try to mail you some stuff to hand out at shows. We are trying to get people from all over anyway we can. We are keeping the price super cheap. It’s $30 for a 2 day pass, I don’t think you can get much cheaper than that. Just find a way to get here! We’ve also set up group rates with hotels. Go to Intothedarkness.com and scroll down to the ticket sales area. I think one link takes you to the group rate and the other one you have to call and ask for the group rate. I’m looking into a shuttle to go between the hotel and venues. People are buying merch or maybe they want to go back and rest, hopefully the shuttle will be on a half hour cycle. Just trying to make it as easy as possible for people when they get here.
TK: I hope the show does well. We recently had news that it looks like the Maryland Deathfest may be finished after this year. I think someone needs to take on the reins. We’ll need a new destination kind of show and I think this one could do it. I’m just super excited about the venue!
TH: It’s gonna be awesome man! People are gonna be shocked by that place. It’s one of those places when you go, you’ll want to come back whether as a guest or a band. They are doing things right, those are the type of people I want to align myself with.
TK: Last thing I wanted to ask and I’ll let you go; Which bands are you the most excited to see perform at this fest?
TH: It’s hard to choose because a lot of the bands on the fest are bands I work with. A lot of these bands I haven’t had the pleasure to see live. Some bands are coming way out like Oxygen Destroyer based out of Portland, that’s a big one for me, otherwise it may be hard to catch them. Sentient Horror is one of the bands I had on the label the longest who just released an album, I never saw them live so that would be really, really great to catch them. There are bands from Ohio like Mutilation that I’ve also worked with. I’ve seen them a bunch but they are incredible live! One of those bands you just can’t miss. But all of them man! Macabre, it’s been years since I’ve seen them. Deceased is always fun, Imperial Triumphant I‘ve actually never caught even though they’ve played my area a few times, I’ve always missed them. I know I’m going to get pulled into a lot of directions but I hope I get to see at least a little bit of everybody’s set. That’s my goal for the 2 days; I wanna see at least a piece of everybody.
TK: Anything else that you would like to add?
TH: Don’t be afraid to get in the car and take the trip to Youngstown!
Head over to Into the Darkness Fest and secure your tickets now!