THE ROAD RUIN

Jacob explains how he ended up curating the Netherlands’ Roadburn festival – and why it’s like no other music event on Earth

HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED?

“I met Walter [Hoeijmakers, Roadburn promoter] a few years a go through Nate [Newton, Converge bassist]. We became friends and stayed in contact. We played Roadburn in 2016 and Wear Your Wounds played this year, I was part of the art exhibit, and he thought I’d be a good fit. We talked about the kind of bands I want to bring there and he loved some of my ideas – now we’re just trying to build an incredible festival.”

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE PUTTING TOGETHER YOUR OWN LINE-UP?

“It’s incredible. It’s such a cool experience, because you don’t get that opportunity that much. I like this festival a lot, because it’s musically pure. There are little-to-no sponsors; there’s no corporate interest paying bands exorbitant amounts of money to be there. You have this environment where bands play special sets, or unique sets, or just their appearance at the festival is incredible because they don’t play that much. It’s not your typical metal festival. You’ve got bands doing full records, acoustic sets, artists coming out the woodwork after decades that cross genres.”

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO PLAY 2004’S You Fail Me IN FULL?

“Walter asked us to do something special the first year we did it with the Blood Moon set, which was really exciting for us, and we did the Jane… record. But I find You Fail Me to be more exciting, because it was the beginning of the modern era of our band. That’s when we started really functioning well as a four-piece unit. People hold Jane Doe in high regard, but as an artist I can’t separate myself from all of the complications and things that were going on with the release. Doing You Fail Me will be more of a celebration of a legitimate new chapter that we went through.”