Interviews: Talking Year 1 of Prepare the Ground and looking ahead to 2025 with KW Campol

On May 31-June 2, 2024 the streets of Toronto, Ontario were filled with heavy music aficionados going venue to venue to experience once-in-a-lifetime sets by legendary bands along with hearing some of the most exciting emerging voices within the genre as part of the inaugural Prepare the Ground festival. The festival is the brainchild of KW Campol (Vile Creature, Mythos Management, and Perpetual Flame Ministries) and Denholm Whale (Odonis Odonis and MODO-LIVE) who saw the need for a highly curated, multi-venue, community-focused celebration of heavy art and music in Toronto and filled that void. Taking inspiration from European festivals such as Roadburn, they have created a festival that is wholly unique in North America and is put together with an incredible amount of care. Year 1 was filled with amazing performances and an extraordinary amount of catharsis and Year 2 is shaping up to be even better. Prepare the Ground will take place from May 30 to June 1, 2025 across multiple venues in Toronto, Ontario.
Punknews editor Em Moore caught up with KW to talk about bringing the festival to life, what goes into curating the fest, learning from Year 1, working to make Year 2 the best it can be, and so much more. Read the interview below!

This interview between Em Moore and KW Campol took place on August 7, 2024, over Zoom. This is a transcription of their conversation and has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

You’ve said that you and Denholm had been talking about the concept for Prepare the Ground since 2020. How did the concept come about?

We’ve been friends for a long time and we’ve also been touring musicians for a long time. Denholm plays in the band Odonis Odonis who have toured countless times. I play in a band called Vile Creature and we tour all the time. It’s funny because both of our bands really seemed to kick it off in Europe and the UK, not necessarily more than in North America, but it’s not where we’re from. We’ve both been able to do the festival circuit in Europe a lot. The ethos and the vibe of festivals in Europe are so much different than they are in the United States. It's a whole culture over there.
In the festival culture in Europe there’s a subculture of more arts-focused festivals. Roadburn is the biggest example, it is one of the premier and best heavy music festivals around. Becky and Walter, the people who run that festival, do such an amazing job of curating a wide swath of bands from the heavy realm. It is not necessarily just like, “Here’s black metal! Here’s stoner metal! Here’s doom metal!", it’s very much like, “Here is a highly curated selection of music that we feel our fans either do love or will love if they come to see it”. That is also true for a fest like Amplifest in Porto, Portugal as well as Supersonic in Birmingham, England. There’s just so many amazing arts-focused festivals out in Europe. There are definitely some in the United States, but not at the scale of what they do in Europe.
When it comes to Roadburn, Vile Creature had the opportunity to play two years in a row and we also did a commissioned music piece for it. After our Roadburn show and doing a bunch of festivals in the States in 2019, it felt like we had the ability to bring that kind of festival and foster that type of community in North America in a way that we didn’t feel was necessarily being serviced as much as we would have liked for it to have been. We really took a lot of inspiration from Roadburn, Supersonic, and Amplifest and we related it towards Toronto and Ontario.
There was Heavy T.O., but that was more large-scale heavy music. Same with Riot Fest. It was great when it was here but that was an outdoor, big-style festival. Not Dead Yet doesn’t happen anymore but it was beautiful. New Friends Fest is great but it is a very specific genre and sub-genre of music. They do a phenomenal job with it. Probably not since the heyday of North By Northeast has there been a club-crawl festival that was curated but I wouldn’t call North By Northeast super curated. Toronto is the fourth largest metro market in North America and it’s a phenomenal city with great support for art. We felt like there was a place, a time, and a need for a festival like that and we felt it was something we could foster.

Did you have any challenges adapting a European-style festival for Toronto?

Infrastructure is a huge thing. It’s not like we’re doing Heavy T.O. or Riot Fest where we’re renting Fort York - for everybody who is not from Toronto, Fort York is this large field where people put up giant stages and can have 15, 000 people - we’re not building an outdoor festival. What we’re doing is very much using the existing infrastructure within Toronto to have multiple venues running at the same time as a festival. For our first year, we used The Garrison, The Baby G, and Lee’s Palace and one night we did a show at the Phoenix. All of those are more of a bike ride or an Uber apart as opposed to being walking distance apart, which was definitely something we wanted to do but realized wasn’t possible for Day 1. That’s something that we’ve actually rectified going forward into Year 2. We’ve confirmed our venues and I can say that our farthest walk from farthest points for Year 2 is gonna be about 10 minutes. We’re really excited. We’re gonna make mistakes, we’re first-time festival promoters, and we’re really open to learning from our mistakes. We’re really pushing forward a lot of things that we did well and really focusing on the things that we know didn’t do well in Year 1 in order to help make Year 2 way more friendly for attendees and for artists.
I would say that outside of infrastructure, it wasn’t too hard to adapt the ethos especially because - and this is a credit to a lot of the managers, agents, and artists themselves - we had a lot of buy-in from artists like Orchid and Emma Ruth Rundle, Liturgy, and even Burning Love - who unfortunately didn’t play because the guitarist broke his arm. They haven’t played a show in over 10 years and they were gonna reunite to do a final show at the festival.
They all bought into what we were doing and saw the point and the purpose from their experiences being over there and wanted to be a part of growing something like those types of European festivals in North America. Having that buy-in from most of the bands who were playing made it a lot easier as opposed to sending an offer to an agent, the agent tries to get the most money and we try to get the least amount of money, it doesn’t work out, we go away, and there’s a bitter taste. Everyone was like, “This is necessary. We should do this” and it made it a lot easier to put together. I would say that there was an appetite for that European mode immediately and it was on us to be able to provide that and follow through with it.

Way more of a focus on the community rather than the corporateness.

Everybody needs to get paid equitably, that’s a huge thing. There’s no unions in music and everybody needs to be paid for their time and for the work that they do. Our festival doesn’t have a merch cut. I’m very publicly against merch cuts, as most people are in the industry. [laughs] We didn’t do that type of big festival thing. We were able to pay equitably and not exorbitantly. Festivals for bands can be a huge payday, as it should be. We had a lot of bands buy into a more equitable pay scale in order to get something off the ground which, again, so much credit to artists, managers, and agents for all buying into what was going on and feeling like the bands would get something good out of it, the fans would get something good out of it, and also understanding that a first-year festival is not something that turns a profit and that’s not what we’re in it for. I feel like everybody had a really good buy-in together and that really showed itself over those four days in Toronto in May-June. There was a very rad vibe of people there in order to interact and enjoy.

What goes into curating the festival on your end?

For our delineation of duties Denholm is very much the infrastructure person. He’s a large-scale promoter in Toronto and he puts on shows all the time. He is very much on that side of things and my job with the festival is to figure out which bands I want to book and put them on. I spend a lot of time thinking about what I would want to see now, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, and 15 years ago, and how to build bills that would service all of those different versions of myself. Every few years we’re different people. I’ve loved heavy music and the things around it for a really long time, but my tastes change. 1998 me would only give a shit about Kittie and Slipknot, 2003 me would just dive into Converge and some of the metalcore going on, and 2008 only gave a shit about Southern metal - bands like Baroness and a lot of the post-metal that was going on. We evolve and change over time and I want to service that because there are people who like all of these different things.
It’s about building the best shows and showcases, finding who you want to feature, and how you want to curate around them to build a story for each individual venue on each individual day. All in all, I’m trying to build a festival that people will want to go to, 1500-1800 people a day will be thrilled to see these 5, 6, or 7 bands together in one room, and they’ll get bang for their buck. I’m a nerd about things and I wanna build and tell a story with each show that has a theme of catharsis around it and that people get something out of at the end. So if you didn’t leave your venue for the whole day, you would see different shades of different things that together paint a really beautiful picture.

Do you have one story-building day from this year that you’re proudest of?

I’m proud of them all. I think they were all really great. I think the Baby G on Friday from beginning to end was a wonderful thing. I’ve kind of jetted 2024 out of my mind because I’m so deep into 2025 that I actually have to look at the list. [laughs] The Baby G on the Friday started out with a band called Hellish Rebuke who were playing their second-ever show and were made up of people from around Ontario - specifically this guy named Tyler, who I think is a really wonderful human and who on his own has helped prop up a lot of Niagara heavy music. I don’t think he gets the credit that he deserves. They kicked the festival off and they did it with a bang. From there we went into Bleeding Out and Extinction A.D. and then we got to Dismal Aura. They are a black metal band from Ottawa who blew me away. I probably got 200 bands in my email last year asking to play and I listened to every single band, but we don’t generally accept submissions. They are the only band that I booked off of a submission. The way that we phrased that show is they ended up playing right before Orchid - the headliner of the festival - played a secret set at this tiny 175-cap venue. They only announced the secret show a couple hours before, so Dismal Aura ended up playing to a full, over-capacity Baby G, and blew everyone away. They were such a highlight and I was so thrilled for them!
Then Orchid came and played the smallest venue they’d played since they were a band in the early 2000s. They’re playing big, 1000-cap shows now but they came for fun, they didn’t have to. They decided they wanted to do a secret set so people got an opportunity on the Friday to see Orchid in a tiny room. Then Sunrot played, who are one of the more important heavy sludge metal bands with something to say right now. Then Thantifaxath, a legendary Toronto black metal band, played their first record, Sacred White Noise, in full. From starting out with a band playing their second show, going through to a curated band who was put in a place to succeed, to the massive headliner playing the smallest venue, and then ending with a band who has been around for a while giving tribute to their first record felt like a full story. It felt very complete. That’s stuff that I generally will only care about but it was a great show and I think that every band had a really great audience and it was super fun to be around.

This year you experienced the festival in a multitude of ways: as a co-founder, as the curator, as an artist playing the festival with Vile Creature, and as an audience member. What was it like experiencing the festival through all of these different perspectives?

I think I got to see maybe 30 minutes of music the whole weekend. We don’t have a giant crew. It’s Denholm and I and we’ve got a lovely person named RJ who is our volunteer coordinator and who did so much work on the weekend. We had a really lovely group of volunteers who were helping out with things and venue staff. But basically, it came down to Denholm and I fully running the festival. We didn’t really get an opportunity to see a lot so the audience side was hard to be a part of.
Some people will have a bad time - that always happens - but seeing 98% of the people who were there having a great time or having a wonderful moment or walking by a cafe and seeing a bunch of people from out of town who were very clearly there for the festival and who didn’t know each other having a meal together was great. It’s not a community as in a hippie vibe. Heavy music in and of itself is a niche of a niche community and seeing people from all walks of life who like heavy music enjoying it together throughout the city of Toronto felt great. It was really, really wonderful to be a part of.
Credit to the bands - they were attentive and everybody started and ended on time, which is phenomenal. The only band that didn’t do that was co-founder Denholm's band Odonis Odonis, they started and ended late. [laughs] I think from all walks we’re really proud of Year 1. You’re always going to fuck up something in Year 1 and we’re really excited to course-correct for Year 2 and push forward more things that we know we did well.

Aside from walkability, what’s the biggest thing you learned going into Year 2?

Probably having a few less bands. We did 65 bands in Year 1 and scheduling was a whole thing. We were going to do 4 venues every day but we lost Bar Orwell which was really unfortunate. It was also unfortunate for Toronto’s community. But it did give us the ability to go back and look at our schedule and revamp it. When you’re releasing a schedule for a festival, you’re always going to make some people unhappy and we understand that. Nobody’s going to be very stoked about everything especially when it’s a festival where there are shows running against one another. There’s always going to be competition and people are always going to be really upset about things like, “I have to choose between this band and this band!” I get that and I’ve been there. But there were some constructive comments through that that we were able to take in and redo our schedule. Nothing’s ever unanimous but when we relaunched our schedule without Bar Orwell we really got a lot more positive feedback on it. For us, it was like, “We’re here to learn and we’re here to make sure we’re servicing people properly”. Scheduling a big festival is a learning experience for us and I think we learned a lot from Year 1 for Year 2 with how to better facilitate that. We’re gonna have a bit less bands so we can give people a bit more time to breathe and play.
Our secret sets were a big hit this year and we’re going to be doing more of that as well. That’s going to be a staple for the festival. You never know what we’re going to throw in. Last year we had The World Is A Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die play and they weren’t even announced for the festival, they just showed up and played. Again, there's a big thing with bands buying in because they want to do something creative and cool. We’re going to continue to go and do that type of stuff in a really great way. There’s going to be more side programming next year specifically for weekend pass holders. Our original intention was to have an arts market in Year 1 but we weren’t able to get it together in time. We’re putting a big priority on making sure the arts market is there for Year 2 that involves both local makers as well as some traveling artists bringing their stuff which is gonna be really great.

The festival is named after YOB’s song of the same name and the full band is headlining next year. What do you find so inspirational about that song in particular? What does it mean to you to have the full band headlining?

YOB is one of the most innovative bands in doom metal and in metal in general. They’re creative, they’ve been doing it a long time, and they do it with their whole heart and chest. The record Atma, which they’re playing in full, has always been a huge inspiration for me as far as music goes. The first song on that record is “Prepare the Ground” so having them do that at the festival means a lot to me. Cathartic inspiration is how I would describe that band.
We tried to get YOB for Year 1 and it didn’t work out time-wise but Mike was really excited to play. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to spend a bunch of time with him over the weekend. At that point, we already had them confirmed for Year 2 and we announced that the day after the festival this year. It was great to see him, have him experience the festival, and feel more comfortable and confident with him giving us this full album set and then a second set and taking a chance on us. It was phenomenal to have him for Year 1 and for Year 2 it means everything. When YOB plays Atma at Prepare the Ground, that is a set I will be there for.

Hell or high water.

Yeah, that’s something that I will be front row and center for. I’m so thrilled!

Early bird tickets sold out in under 24 hours. What was it like to see that response?

It was heartening! They sold out in a few hours. We put 150 on sale at this year’s price and it was really heartening to see. The feedback was really wonderful. We’re really stoked that a year ahead of time 150 people committed over $100 to coming back. That felt really good and it was really motivating. I think the next day I had already contacted a couple of people about coming for next year. It was really motivating to not take time off and to start working a year ahead of time on the next festival. We don’t take any of that for granted and our goal is always to make sure that people who are paying to attend are getting the best value and the best time and they’re having the best experience possible. We’ll never stop fighting for that.

On Twitter you said that you’re going back and forth between Preppers and Groundlings as names for festival goers. Have you settled on one?

I think the fest goers have to decide on that. I like Preppers a lot, I think it’s phenomenal, but I feel like some version of Groundlings is probably going to win. I just think that Preppers is truly just so good. I love Preppers! I’m part of Prepper Nation. I hope that one sticks. We put up a poll and I think Groundlings won by a wide margin but we’ll see.

There could be a mix of the two.

I’d love it!

The Prepping Groundlings would probably be too long.

Yeah, that’s too long. Roadburn has Roadburners which I really love. We’ve just gotta get a name in there.

What are you most excited about for 2025?

I’m excited about the walkability. I love that YOB is playing two shows and I’m excited about so many things that I cannot say out loud right now. 2024 was a phenomenal proof of concept and we’re really thrilled at the trust that people lent us by coming to the festival, giving us their money for the festival, and being so rad in attending. We’re really not gonna take advantage of that and we’re gonna do our best to make sure that for 2025 we’re learning from mistakes and we’re catapulting everything that we did well way further. We don’t have aspirations for this to be the biggest metal festival in North America, we’re not that, we just want this to be sustainable and worthwhile every year. I think if Year 1 was the proving ground for the festival, 2025 is gonna be the blueprint for years to come. If we pull it off right, I think it’s gonna be the one that people are like, “I was at the first one but the second one I went ‘Holy shit!!’” That’s the goal and we’re burning the midnight oil to make it happen.