As the summer comes to a close, so does long-running music festival Vans Warped Tour. The festival’s nine-week long run wrapped up earlier this month in Pomona, California.

Warped Tour’s bands more than outdid themselves this year. 15-year-old thrash metal band Municipal Waste, one of the festival’s headliners, hadn’t done a long-running tour like Warped in quite some time.

“It’s definitely different,” Municipal Waste vocalist Tony Foresta said. “It’s been a long summer, and it’s almost like an insane summer camp for degenerates, but so far it’s been great and all of the bands have been getting along.” Foresta also fronts the band Iron Reagan.

Despite not releasing a new album since 2008, Municipal Waste has shown that they still have what it takes by keeping up with the pace of Warped Tour.

Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman has made a point to feature bands from a broad spectrum of experience in the festival, and has molded the tour into a place for newer bands to learn from veterans and gain exposure. Municipal Waste has reveled in the opportunity to give advice to up-and-comers on being a musician and what to expect from it all.

“If you go into it thinking you’re gonna make a lot of money, it won’t happen that way,” Foresta said. “It’s like winning the lottery making millions of dollars doing this. You should be doing it just for the love of music. We probably would have taken our time with production, and putting stuff out definitely. But that’s part of being a musician you know? It’s all just trial and error.”

Municipal Waste’s latest album, “Slime and Punishment” is now available for download, and there could be more tours promoting this album in the future.

“It’s definitely our best sounding record and has some of the best songs we’ve written,” Foresta said. “With the addition of (guitarist Nick Poulos), I think this is the best record we’ve ever put out. At first, we weren’t sure since people tend to forget about bands after a while of not putting stuff out, but so far the response has been great.” The party thrash band has more upcoming projects to come, as well as Foresta’s continuous work with Iron Reagan.

Bands old or new have always brought a certain flavor to Warped Tour, and it will need that diversity to continue its successful run. To tide you over until next summer, Lyman and the Warped team will be hosting a Warped “Rewind at Sea” cruise in the fall featuring Good Charlotte, The Starting Line, Simple Plan, Reel Big Fish and more. The cruise departs from New Orleans on October 28, and runs through November 1.