"It's definitely time someone did something big scale in Ballarat", declared Desecrator frontman Riley Strong, talking about next years Blaze Festival. "I think that Ballarat's been historically known for being a pretty metal town. If you rewind yourself a little while and go back to bands like Damaged - back when death metal was coming up in Victoria - there's a fairly rich history in heavy metal. They used to have a lot of venues and have some pretty infamous gigs there. It's been a hard place for bands to travel to and pull crowds and get any awareness to which always seemed strange because it's a uni town, a young persons town, but it's good that Liz put something together. It's good that Blaze Festival has been able to get a big enough line up in a good enough venue down there that if most of the community get behind it then bands can get some more exposure and Ballarat can kind of be revived again".

In the full interview Riley talks more about the Blaze Festival and the benefits of playing local festivals with familiar bands, the current state of heavy metal in Australia, what Desecrator has been up to since the release of 'To The Gallows', the next album, the line between imitation and inspiration in music and where to draw that line, the importance of delivering a blistering live performance in the modern music industry and more.