TRIVIUM

They've had coins, bottles, and piss thrown at them, but these Floridian thrashers remain undeterred—and deeply inspired

By Jon Wiederhorn
Photo by Jen Cray

When it comes to motivation and efficiency, Trivium could give Oprah Winfrey a run for her money. Since 2004, the Florida quartet have written and recorded two albums—2005’s Ascendancy and 2006’s The Crusade—and played more than 600 shows around the world. With about 20 songs planned to record, they’re entering the studio in the spring and plan to release their new album in August or September. And it’s hardly cookie-cutter, color-by-numbers stuff: The new material combines elements of thrash, metalcore, and anthemic metal into a musically adept and propulsive sound that’s both infectious and hard as granite.

The Crusade featured ambitious, multitextured arrangements and growly-melodic vocals that burst the band—vocalist-guitarist Matt Heafy, guitarist Corey Beaulieu, bassist Paulo Gregoletto and drummer Travis Smith—out of the metalcore containment camp. Unlike many contemporary bands who express inner turmoil through torrents of blazing noise, Trivium focus on musicality, sprinkling their songs with ripping solos, complex riffs, and beats as heavy as the hooves of a charging steed. Along with a devoted fan base, their dedication has earned respect and accolades from many they admire in the music world, including Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, drummer Vinnie Paul, and the wife of late Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell.

Having completed Family Values and a run of festivals in Europe, Trivium were certainly entitled to a few weeks off before heading to Australia and Japan to tour with Heaven & Hell, Machine Head, and Arch Enemy. But just days after putting away his guitar, Heafy started thinking about the riffs he had written on tour and, almost immediately, new ideas swarmed through his brain.

“It had been my intention not to play guitar whatsoever during that period,” Heafy explains. “But somehow all these songs started taking form. They didn’t literally write themselves, but it felt that way. I went upstairs and started jamming, and the next thing I knew, I had a bunch of songs. And it turns out the other guys had been writing at the same time.”

In no time, Trivium had 10 fully composed tunes, so instead of going on vacation or lounging by the pool, the band members got together in October to record a 10-song demo. As if that wasn’t enough, they plan to demo 10 more by the end of February. A few days before Trivium boarded a plane to start the European leg of the Black Crusade tour, Revolver checked in with Heafy and Beaulieu to discuss the direction of their next record, their rock-star status overseas, the backlash against The Crusade and getting bathed in a shower of urine.

REVOLVER Why demo 10 new songs a year before your next album is due?
MATT HEAFY We wanted to get a feel for how the songs would sound as a full band. Also, we contacted some producers about the next record and everyone said, “Well, we need to hear something before we can commit.” We recorded the drums at this warehouse studio 30 minutes from where we live. And then we did guitars, vocals, and bass at my house. We basically just set a microphone in the middle of the room and played.

Did demoing give you a good indication of where you were headed?
COREY BEAULIEU That, and it gave us some breathing room. It looks like we’ll have six or seven months to do the next album, which is great because we’ve never had that kind of time before. We did 2006’s The Crusade in six weeks, so it’ll be nice to be able sit down to fine-tune everything.

What musical direction are you taking with this new material?
BEAULIEU We want to capture the best ingredients of everything we’ve done. Each song has a little bit of everything, going between something heavy and then melodic, and then back to something heavy. So it has a really interesting balance. On The Crusade Matt did almost all singing, so this time we’re bringing back some of the screaming that’s on Ascendancy.
HEAFY I’m also trying new things vocally. Live, I’ve been able to really push the high vocal part of my range in the style of Rob Halford. So maybe I’ll put some of that on the album.

Who’s going to produce?
HEAFY We’ve talked a little bit with Colin Richardson (DevilDriver, Bullet for My Valentine) and Dave Fortman (Mudvayne, Evanescence), who is incredible with vocals. I would love to treat the vocals on this album in the way Boston’s first album or Queen’s Night at the Opera were treated—massively multi-layered. But the tones have to be massive also. We’re also thinking of Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Shadows Fall), but I haven’t gotten to speak to him yet. Whoever we pick, there has to be excitement from both sides.

Why not work with Jason Suecof again?
BEAULIEU We’ve done three albums with Jason, and with this album and how important it is, we wanna go with someone else who might have different ideas.

Are there new influences at play?
BEAULIEU Watching different metal bands in our peer groups going in a more rock-oriented, mainstream direction has inspired me to write straight-out, blazing heavy metal.

Has all the touring you’ve done improved your writing?
HEAFY Well, it’s definitely improved our playing, and it’s given me ideas. We’ve been on the road since 2004 and we’ve done around 650 shows. I think this album is going to capture, not exactly what happened, but I think it will show everything that we’ve learned through touring.

There was a bit of a backlash against The Crusade in the U.S. Did that surprise you?
BEAULIEU Not really. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t even if you write the same record twice. We knew that changing the vocal style would upset some people, but we didn’t care. And a lot of people who originally didn’t like the album listened to it a few times and really got into it.

There seem to be lots of vocal Trivium haters lurking on chat boards.
HEAFY What’s fun about this band is people either really love us or totally hate us. Trivium fans know all the words, learn our songs on guitar, have Trivium tattoos. And people who don’t like us think about it pretty much 24-7, which is crazy. But what’s great is people are talking and keeping our name out there. But it took a lot of years for me to learn how to cope with the fact that people would dislike a person so much when they’re just doing what they love.

What’s the most hostile reaction you’ve encountered?
HEAFY I’ve had coins thrown at me and been hit with bottles and doused with piss.

Doused with piss?
HEAFY Yeah, and that wasn’t even the States. It was at the Download festival in England last year. Before the show, someone throws this open water bottle full of piss at me. Before I started touring, I used to be massively OCD germaphobic, but I got over that shit.

Do you prefer to play overseas where you’re generally more appreciated?
BEAULIEU We like to play everywhere. But metal’s really big in Japan, Australia, and Europe and you can sell a lot of records there without having mainstream radio play. In the States, if you really want to sell a lot, you have to be on radio. And we don’t really write radio songs. So, if you want to be big without radio in the States, you really have to tour a lot. And we didn’t do that on The Crusade. If we did, maybe it would have sold better here.

Would you like to take long break after this next album cycle is done?
BEAULIEU I don’t know. I mean, I really don’t have much to do when I come off the tours. I’m just kind of lost. I always love to play guitar, play videogames, watch movies. Everything I do at home is what I do on tour. And if I have too much free time at home I get that itch to do something.

You don’t get sick of each other?
HEAFY We argue sometimes, but we’ve been together for a long time, and we know each other’s personalities and we function perfectly.

You two seem like very different people.
BEAULIEU I guess. He’s kind of mellow. He could stay home all day and not care. I like to wake up and know I have something to do. I like to go out and socialize. I go to the bar a lot when I’m home just to be around people. And then I sit around and play guitar and drink and watch TV.
HEAFY All four of us are very different from each other, but I think that’s what makes us interesting. And we all share common goals as a band. I guess I’m the dorkiest, least rock-and-roll person. I’m just about videogames, cartoons, and collecting fantasy stuff and being healthy and not partying on show days. And Corey can drink a bottle of vodka around show time and still be completely coherent and play perfectly. I don’t know how the fuck he does that, but if I did it, I’d be dead.

Do you feel a lot of pressure going into this record?
BEAULIEU It’s not really pressure. We know it’s an important record. But we have a vision of what we want to do and where we want the band to go. We know this could be a really big record if we do it right, but that doesn’t freak us out or anything. It’s just business as usual.