Lars Ulrich
Drummer, Metallica
What is it like soundtracking the world's biggest mosh pits?
When you're put in front of a crowd of 60,000 who have been partying and living in tents for three days, and generally been reduced to a more primal level of existence, there's very little rhyme and reason to what goes on both on and off stage. No matter how drilled you are as a band, or how prepared you are, you never feel like you're more than a second away from something insane happening. When you show up at these festivals there has to be a certain amount of rolling with the punches and going with the flow, whether you're opening or headlining, and that suits us great. We consider the festivals in Europe the highlight of the year. When you play in a band with as much energy as Metallica, performing in such an unhinged environment, the spirit of what we do really comes into its own. After 25 years of doing this crazy thing non-stop, we feel very privileged to be the last band on at a festival that spans so many genres.
· Metallica play Reading / Leeds on 22 and 24 August
Fatboy Slim
Superstar DJ
How does it feel to stand alone on stage in front of hundreds of thousands of people?
The first time you DJ in front of one of those mammoth crowds, it scares the living daylights out of you. When I first played one of the big stages at Glastonbury it was very intimidating toddling up there on my own with just a box of records for company. This year I won't have nearly so many nerves, because I know that at places like Rock Ness, while I may be playing to 35,000 people, they're all my friends and we're going to get one hell of a party started. To be honest, I prefer playing festivals as a DJ to being in a band. When I was with the Housemartins we used to get whacked on at ridiculous times like 2pm, without a soundcheck, and if something goes wrong technically you're screwed. Even if you're playing late, you have to spend all day in a trailer waiting to go on. Now I just roll up at midnight for a 2am slot, and there's a lot less that can go wrong with two decks and a mixer.
· Fatboy Slim plays Rock Ness, 7 June; Wireless Festival, 5 July
Brandon Flowers
Lead singer, the Killers
How does a band from the desert deal with the English summer weather?
Being from the Las Vegas, none of us were quite prepared for it. My first time at Glastonbury happened to be one of the muddy years, so arriving at an enormous expanse of brown, with the occasional patch of green, was very surreal. It was the first time my feet had ever been inside a pair of Wellington boots. The reception we got was the first proper rock star welcome that we ever received. It was like England had made up its mind about the Killers that day. It was a wonderful day to be in our band, and I'll always treasure that memory. There's a genuine feeling of freedom when performing at festivals. I've never felt so accepted and free to do what we do. Sometimes you get criticised for being over the top, but at a festival that seems to be encouraged.
· The Killers play Reading/Leeds on 23/24 August
Simon Jones
Bass guitar, the Verve
How does it feel to be headlining Glastonbury, 15 years after you first played there?
Magical. I can still vividly remember my first festival experience at Glastonbury as a punter. I'd just finished my GCSEs, so it was a real eye-opener. I just recall being bombarded by all these crazy styles and attitudes that I never even knew existed, and testing out drugs for the first time while watching Sinéad O'Connor. The Verve have always been a real festival band. I think it stems from the fact that we come from a jamming background, and that's where a lot of our songs are born. It means we're never afraid to just let the music take us away somewhere else and experiment a bit, even in front of 100,000 people. Our first Glastonbury performance in 1993 is something people still talk about, so hopefully this one will live up to people's expectations.
· The Verve play Glastonbury, 29 June; T in the Park, 11 July; V Festival, 16 August (Staffordshire) and 17 August (Chelmsford)
Shakin' Stevens
The Welsh Elvis
How does it feel to be asked to play Glastonbury at the age of 60?
I was delighted. We had spoken before about me playing, but it never happened, and Michael Eavis obviously thought that this was the year. I've never been to Glastonbury myself. I've always wanted to, but it's just one of those things that you never get round to. Strangely, I've played numerous festivals in Europe over the years, including some huge festivals - I played to 200,000 in Austria a few years ago - but I've never played one in England, so I'm really looking forward to it. I'm sure some of the crowd who haven't seen me live or heard my recent album, Now Listen, will have a preconceived idea of what they're going to see, based on Top of the Pops from the early Eighties, the poor things. They'll expect me to be wearing all the same gear as well, but I haven't worn those clothes for 15-20 years. I will be doing some of the old classics - I've had a lot of hits - but I'll also be doing some of the new songs, and I'm just really looking forward to it.
· Shakin' Stevens plays Glastonbury on 28 June
Toumani Diabate
Kora player
How do festivals in the UK differ from festivals in your home country of Mali?
Just like in the UK, each festival in Mali is completely different. We have the now very famous Festival in the Desert, which has people attending from all over the world. The Tuareg make that a unique event, recognising the turbulent recent past but celebrating how the various cultures of Mali have come together with dance, music and poetry. I think the concept of the festival is the same the world over, it's just that different people, setting and culture give each their own unique feel.
I came to the UK 20 years ago and became involved in the early incarnations of Womad. Both the festival and what we call world music in general has changed a great deal. Back then it was something for a small number of die-hard fans (travellers, academics, real music buffs), but now the festival has flourished into the amazing international spectacle it is today. Back then we all thought that this was a fantastic opportunity and possibly the start of something great that we should do our best to make the most of. Little did we know that in 2008 we'd still be here doing even bigger and better things.
· Toumani Diabate plays Womad, 25-27 July
Bert Jansch
Pentangle
How do folk festivals differ from other such events?
I have a sort of love-hate relationship with festivals. While I very much enjoy attending them and listening to the music, I've had very few enjoyable experiences of actually playing them. As soon as we get up on stage, things seem to magically start going wrong. I remember at one of the first folk festivals we did, sometime in the late Sixties, when within seconds of starting, the haystacks around us caught fire and fire engines had to come whizzing to the rescue.
Folk festivals tend to be far more intimate affairs - there's a definite sense of community. When you need a huge screen at a festival to see exactly what is happening onstage, then that's hardly conducive to building an atmosphere, is it? Folk festivals also have all kinds of different elements in addition to the music, such as the real ale drinking, the arts and crafts and, of course, the Morris dancing.
It all lends itself to this sense of community that ensures it feels much more than just a run-of-the-mill gig.
· Pentangle play the Green Man Festival on 17 August
Tom Rowlands
Chemical Brothers
Is the setting of a festival an important factor?
Some festivals you play are in car parks, meaning that there's nothing about the environment that is special. But last year we played the Rock Ness festival on the shores of Loch Ness, and it was beautiful. There was a mist that hung over the loch, which made it look like God had this big dry ice machine that he was cranking up as we played. Luckily, we've got a really bright screen that works in daylight and at night. It's interesting when it goes from light to dark; people change and they become much less inhibited.
We've always enjoyed playing in Scotland, where the people take insanity to another level, and that's the kind of reaction we're looking for. From playing at Barrowlands to Rock Ness, we've found that people want to get involved. Audience participation is always encouraged.
The other aspect of Rock Ness that made the evening especially memorable was the mad journey home along the area's tiny little roads. It reminded me in that respect of the Fuji Rock festival in Japan, which takes place in a ski resort. You have to make a pilgrimage to get there, but when you're there you know all about it.
· The Chemical Brothers play the Gatecrasher Summer Soundsystem Festival, 25 May; T in the Park, 11 July; Oxegen, 13 July; V Festival, 16-17 August
Andy Cato
Groove Armada
How does it feel to curate your own festival?
It has taken a long time to sink in, really. Our Lovebox festival started off with us gaining a licence to do a Groove Armada gig in Clapham Common, but has rapidly expanded as we've tried to add a bit of Glastonbury madness to London. It didn't fully hit home until last year when I found myself sat backstage with Debbie Harry doing her make-up to my left and the B52's getting ready to my right. To have found myself at the helm of a scene of that nature was pretty special. With summer so flooded with festivals now, it is getting harder to put together a big-name bill that's unique. But that's something I've very proud of with Lovebox; it's not all the same acts, and it's not just a smattering of gold dust at the top - there are must-see performers all the way down the bill. After two days watching a load of your favourite bands, taking the stage to headline is quite overwhelming.
· Groove Armada play Wakestock, 27 June; Lovebox, 19 July, Live at Loch Lomond, 2 August; Rip Curl Boardmasters Unleashed, Newquay 8 August
Billy Bragg
Singer-songwriter
You address quite serious subjects. Is it all too much for a festival crowd to cope with?
It's interesting to see the varying receptions that different festival crowds have to all my stuff addressing Englishness. I tried a load at Womad last year and it met with a decidedly spiky response. We were met by some real resistance to ideas of Englishness - which served to stimulate a lot of argument.
When you start talking about national identity to committed internationalists then you're bound to get a rise, but then when you take the same things to somewhere like Cambridge Folk Festival, for instance, or even Glastonbury, you find that everyone has a much clearer understanding about their own sense of Englishness.
I think the festival season in this country really brings out that classic stoical Brit. There's nothing more fun than seeing that famous stiff upper-lip covered in mud. I've played at festivals all over the world - the Europeans do them particularly well, I think, and they have some amazingly beautiful settings in Canada - but nowhere is the festival circuit as central a part of the national culture as it is here in England - and I think that definitely shows.
· Billy Bragg plays Wychwood Festival, Cheltenham Racecourse (with Imagined Village), 1 June; Camp Bestival, 19 July (with Imagined Village) and 20 July (solo); Cambridge Folk Festival, 1 (solo) and 2 August (with Imagined Village)