A Bradford band more used to playing intimate gigs in local bars and clubs will fly the flag for Yorkshire and help open one of the world’s biggest metal festivals next month

Punk metallers The Black Lanterns have been building up an underground following since they formed in 2010, wowing crowds at venues such as Bradford’s Gasworks.

But on June 13 they will play to their biggest-ever audience as one of the first bands on stage at Download Festival 2013.

Held at the ancestral home of heavy metal, Castle Donington near Derby, the event is in its 11th year and has become one of the biggest UK festivals, attracting up to 120,000 people a year.

To whet festival-goers’ appetites before the music starts on Friday, organisers have booked four bands to play the Doghouse Stage within the campsite on Thursday night, with the Black Lanterns being one of them.

Although the festival features UK metal giants Iron Maiden and Motorhead, the line-up is dominated by bands from abroad, from American Slipknot to German Rammstein.

Organisers wanted to bring in more home-grown, unsigned talent, and all the bands on the Doghouse Stage are from the UK, with Black Lanterns the only Yorkshire band to play Download this year.

Describing their music style as a “venomous twisted mess of punk rock, 90s hardcore, metal, industrial riff and dirty bluesy rock ‘n’ roll,” the band includes Scott Donny Rogers on vocals, drummer Matt Fortune, from Bradford, bassist Mark Midgley and guitarist Jonesy from Halifax.

The slot comes at the ideal time for the band, who release their second album Meet your Maker at the end of the month.

They were chosen through a vote on the festival’s online forum, and say they are “happy as a maggot in a dead bat” to have been picked over 700 other bands.

Mr Rogers said: “In a way it is better for us than playing one of the arena stages – people won’t be going to see any other band because nothing else is on then.

“We are used to playing places like Gasworks, so this will be much bigger. We’ll just go on stage and knock out some fat riffs. Hopefully it will go down well. We’ve been told that 70 per cent of the people going to the festival are camping, so it will be a big crowd.”

The band will play a warm-up show with support from Liverpool rockers Superfast Girlie Show on June 1 at the Puzzle Hall Inn in Sowerby Bridge.