Boston Calling is almost here, and Allston Pudding is doing a series of interviews and previews to whet your hopefully-already-whetted appetites. The first of these “printerviews” (pre-interviews, geddit?) comes to us via Brian Appel, the festival’s co-founder and co-enthusiast. Appel graciously answered some questions for us about the festival, his favorite parts, new developments and upcoming improvements. 

Allston Pudding: First of all, how are you?

Brian Appel: I’m doing great, thank you very much.

AP: Who are you excited to see most from this festival?

BA: I mean, we’re pretty excited about the whole lineup, you know? It’s the first Decemberists show in a couple years, so we’re really fortunate that they chose to come to Boston and be a part of Boston Calling. We love Death Cab and Modest Mouse, but from the top to the bottom it’s an interesting, diverse group of artists and we’re just looking forward to a nice three days.

AP: Definitely, especially considering  last year’s festival was successful enough not just to have you guys hold it again, but to add a second festival in September. Did you see it ever getting such a big response?

BA: I mean, we hoped for it, but you can’t really predict that. When we built the company, it was our intention to do [the festival] two times a year, but we didn’t want to make any mention of the September festival until after the May one had happened, because we thought it was a little presumptuous. We just wanted to make sure the first one went really well and that people were happy with it before we said, “There’s another one coming.” The response has been good, the city’s been phenomenal for us to work with and they’re working with us every step of the way to make sure that we have the resources that we need from police, fire and EMS all the way down from the mayor’s office so…it’s been a great experience for us so far.

AP: Yeah, it seems like you guys have had such a great response from everybody involved. One example: you guys are holding these block parties in Dewey Square now, which is new.

BA: Sorta new. New location, old concept. My partner Mike Snow and I, when we used to work at the Phoenix and WFNX radio, started running these block parties on Summer Street in Downtown Crossing about six years ago. We ran them all the way through last year, and then with all the construction going on in Downtown Crossing we talked to the Greenway about potentially moving to their beautiful outdoor green space, and we made it all happen over the last couple of months. So that’s how that got started.

AP: Do you think that’s been the biggest challenge with this year’s festival? Or have there been other large obstacles that you guys have had?

BA: I mean so far, we’re doing pretty well. There’s a big construction project I’m sure you’re aware of happening basically right in the center of our festival.

AP: Oh, I know it.

BA: (laughs) Just a little bit of maneuvering and uh, replacing some of the items and stages and such that we had in place for last September’s event, which we really liked and we’re not gonna be able to do this year. So we found new homes for staples of our events. Yeah, that’s been the biggest challenge, getting the site laid out the way we want. Other than that it’s been pretty good so far, knock on wood.

AP: I haven’t seen the site at all yet, are there any super-pressing construction changes?

BA: We had to move one of the stages. We knew we wanted to keep both stages up on that top level of City Hall which, because in the May festival we utilized a built-in stage, and we just saw that there was not enough space for the audience to get close to that stage, so we ended up building two stages in September, and we really liked that format so we just had to flip the site around a bit for this coming May to accommodate the two stages up top.

AP: What do you think will be better about the festival this year than last year? Biggest improvement?

BA: Well, there’s 50 percent more festival with a whole extra day, so…

AP: Fantastic, I was hoping you’d say that.

BA: Yeah, more time to come down and hang out, you know? We really tried with this festival to make the audience as comfortable as possible and be as hospitable as we can, so we really encourage people to bring their kids, and to leave and come back as often as they’d like throughout the weekend. Anything we can do to make the experience better for the people is what our focus is.

AP: One last thing: how do you see Boston Calling impacting the music scenes in Greater Boston going forward? I feel like this festival does a good job with evening out the bill between big headliners and local music. Is there anything in the works to bring in more of the local scene?

BA: That’s a great question, and that’s been asked of us basically since we announced the first festival. What about the local Boston bands, and how much of a presence will they have, and will they have more as the festival continues to grow? You’ll always see Boston bands on our bills. We’ve got two for the May festival, and then in September we’ve got three already, and then we always bring in a Sonicbid artist which typically comes from the Boston general area. So, we do as many Boston bands as we can for the festivals, and then the block parties that we run all summer long every Thursday are exclusively Boston-area local bands. So yeah, we try to incorporate the locals as best we can.

AP: Thank you! Anything else about the festival you’d like to throw in?

BA: Tickets are sold out Saturday and Sunday for the May show, there’s just a few Friday night tickets that remain, and that’s it! Come out, come early, and don’t forget to check out the local bands!

Check back for more festival previews and coverage up until May 23.