"We're Building A Scene We Want To Be Part Of": RUST FEST Takes Over London This October
17 bands. No clashes. One weekend in London. I'm talking about Rust Fest, a new grassroots rock and metal festival happening at the Amersham Arms in London across the 3rd and 4th October. With a lineup including Bloodstock 2026 alumni Vampyra and Change Persona, it's a great chance to support a slew of upcoming alternative acts and help keep grassroots music alive.
When I catch up with festival organiser Alex Shaw over a quick Zoom call ahead of the festival, it's refreshing to hear the stance he has on the scene and community.
"We were wondering whether we were still actually going to be able to pull this off"
"This whole thing was born out of our own frustrations," Alex explains. "For me, the original thought behind it was, we joined a group called Band Up, which is essentially a network. It's effectively a very, very big WhatsApp group for musicians. There was a lot of complaining within that group about injustices, as it were, particularly kind of predatory promoters on the London circuit.
"I was like, well, why is no one utilising this group that's been just laid on my lap here to actually put on more shows? I'd literally been in the group for five minutes and I wanted to sink my teeth into something. So I put a call out."
Eventually, that call led to the the first Rust Fest happening last year. Taking over The Engine Rooms for a day, it saw 18 acts play across two stages ("We had like an acoustic stage and then a heavier stage inside").
"We built this thing so that we can be a part of a community, not so we can watch a community grow absently around us"
This year sees the acoustic stage phased out in favour of a focus on heavier, harder acts, and a change in location to better align with the festival's future.
"We were getting to the eleventh hour of our planning cycle and we still had no venue confirmed..." Alex reflects. "There was a touch-and-go point where we were wondering whether we were still actually going to be able to pull this off." With relief, Alex carries on, they found their venue - in South East London's The Amersham Arms.
"The Amersham Arms obviously has quite a reputation. I was playing there and I've been watching bands there like 10, 15 years ago, and it was very much a kind of staple of the punk scene when I was growing up. New Cross in general is one of those alternaitve little corners of London that people don't quite realise how much of a heritage [for heavy music] there is.
"This is an event that is almost in its own right, a small protest against predatory promoters"
"It's also 400 capacity...it gives us a much better scope for putting on all the vendors that we want to put on this year." Some vendors that have been confirmed so far are patch designer ToothxNail, artist and illustrator Rebecca Lightbody, and alternative clothing brand Debello Culture.
Across the two days, bands such as Della Nova, Halberd, and After Smoke Clears are playing, as well as Alex's own band, Ronin Veins. As Alex clarifies, "We're musicians first, and we are not promoters who are going to be sat in the background. It's obvious that we represent ourselves, use it as a promotional tool. So I think no matter what, we'll always play Rust Fest, but we make a real point that we want to play with bands that are bigger than us as well. The last thing we want is to turn this into a self fellatio Ronin Veins kind of festival."
With a bill so varied, Alex tells me, it was important to focus on the sense of community when curating it. "We've really been paying attention to the bands on the scene that really care about what they do. We built this thing so that we can be a part of a community, not so we can watch a community grow absently around us. There's also a lot of personal relationships there and a lot of bands that we know live for this.
"This is an event that is almost in its own right, a small protest against predatory promoters."
With the festival fast approaching, I ask if Alex and the team have plans for the future beyond this year's edition. By now, I'm also joined by Ronin Veins guitarist Dan, who has briefly logged on to the Zoom meeting. The answer: maintaining principles, keeping everything community driven, "from feeling like a community street party and into the realms of a business that is run under ethical means."
"We're musicians first, and we are not promoters who are going to be sat in the background"
"I see a lot of community," Dan answers. "Very do-it-yourself, small groups of friends and family. They're trying to put something interesting out there. The people are there. The songs are there. You just need to go find that little street, you know, that little alleyway."
"We could become a powerhouse in that grassroots music movement, really kind of collaborate with and pick and choose who we want to work with based on their ethos."
And that starts on New Cross Road, in a little grassroots venue called The Amersham Arms. It's a small drop in the ocean that is the music industry, but a chance to be part of something, a chance to be a part of that community atmosphere.
Rust Fest is happening at The Amersham Arms on the 3rd and 4th of October. Tickets are still available.
For a full list of bands and vendors, visit https://www.rustfest.co.uk/
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