Green Day, Korn and Alice in Chains will headline another strong Soundwave Music Festival in February and March next year.

Mercurcial promoter AJ Maddah, named the most powerful person in the Australian music industry last month, is believed to have been deep in negotiations until as late as this morning but has again shown his ability to secure top international bands.

Green Day set to return to Australia to headline the 2014 Soundwave Music Festival. Credit:Tessie Vanderwert

Maddah had said previously the 2014 line-up wouldn't match this year's, which when measured by record sales was arguably the strongest music festival line-up assembled in Australia - the headline acts had sold about 300 million records between them. The festival drew an estimated 270,000 fans across five venues in February. In March, Maddah tweeted: ''We're not going to top [the 2013 line-up]. It was our 10th anniversary, so a 1 off big show [sic].''

But next February's line-up has plenty of well-known and big-selling rock, punk and metal acts, with at least 240 million album sales between the main acts. It puts the pressure back on the Big Day Out to add to its line-up if it hopes to reclaim the crown as Australia's biggest and best music festival.