When we sat down with Download Festival promoter and all-round head honcho, Andy Copping, we’ll admit that we were expecting to gleam some fairly unique behind-the-scenes information about how the biggest rock festival in the UK is run. What we weren’t expecting, however, was quite so much gossip as he was prepared to divulge – resulting in the longest Thrash Hits TV interview do date.

We also find out who he would Snog, Marry and Avoid out of his three main stage headliners this year, but that’s somewhat beside the point.

Our video encoder program has been playing silly buggers with us this week, which is why we’ve not gotten this to you sooner, but if you’ve not set out to Download Festival yet, take a few moments to see what Andy had to say about the troubles dealing with AC/DC, what the emergence of Sonisphere and High Voltage mean for the future of Download, and the potential for a Def Leppard / Danzig punch up at the festival this year. Nice.

Of course, if you’re keen for even more insight into what goes on behind the scenes at Download Festival, we’ve got an extended cut of this interview (i.e., one which Hugh couldn’t be bothered to edit) up on our YouTube Channel as well. Be warned though, with an extra 10 minutes of footage, this one’s pushing the 30 minute mark. Click here and check it out – if you dare.

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If you’re not going to Download Festival 2011, you can still check out photos, reviews and interviews LIVE from the festival on Thrash Hits over the weekend. Yeah. We’re fucking on it.