by Alissa Ordabai
But this is only icing on the proverbial cake as I am enthralled by Trivium already, just like millions of their fans the world over, captivated by their phenomenal chops, their boldness, their transparent harmonies, and bitter-sweet melodies that you have to hear once to remember forever. All those things that over the last few years have turned this band from another metal act on Roadrunner’s roster into the heroes of the new generation of metalheads.
Initial praise for Trivium, apart from pointing out their stunning instrumental ability, their freshness, and their ability to write instantly memorable songs, has also, bizarrely, included comparing them to early Metallica. The comparison, no matter how flattering, in the end, however, turned out to be shallow. Where early Metallica were morose, Trivium are stylishly melancholy, where Metallica were ethereal and at times tentative, Trivium are transparent and deliberate, and, most importantly, where Metallica have finally decided to lighten up, Trivium have decided to diversify.
Six years on since the release of Trivium’s debut album, Ember To Inferno, they still write perfectly constructed harmonies, instantly recognisable melodies. But all the extra elements the band is now adding to the classic metal game—from pop to prog—on par with Heafy’s amazing guitar chops and his distinct voice, have now made them one of the most promising bands of this decade. Despite the enormous success of their two last records, 2006’s The Crusade and last year’s Shogun, the band still hasn’t delivered its magnum opus everyone to this day is waiting for. But Heafy tells me the next album, due to be released next year, will hit all the marks. The band will finally tap into its own unique sound and the material will be better than anything they’ve written before. In one word, it will be a “monumental” album, as Heafy puts it.
The task at hand must feel huge, as these days it’s a multi-layered, carefully balanced act that Heafy and his bandmates are presenting to their audience, with influences drawn from practically the entire spectrum of rock. Their fans, however, clearly love this approach, which Trivium’s performance just a few hours before our interview has proven so compellingly. The band’s set on the main stage on the third day of GMM became one of the most captivating shows of the day, matched only by headliner Marilyn Manson and fellow Roadrunner protégés Lamb of God.
It was not just about their fantastic instrumental ability, their overall message, and the sheer visual appeal of their set where the intensity of the music was matched by equally intense stage presence. The secret, perhaps, is in the fact that Trivium are one hundred per cent clued up to what makes not only a good performance, but a good song—something that listeners can take home with them and remember for the rest of their lives. It’s their innate knowingness and their shrewdness that allows them to integrate pop hooks into their songs to such a stunning result, and whatever anyone says, Trivium’s pop choruses work pure magic when sprawled over those space-rocking metal riffs.
A fine balance, of course, is necessary to keep the whole thing together, and Trivium are aware of their task at all times while mixing pop and metal. When done well and mixed in the right doses, both strengthen and enrich each other, but get the proportion wrong, and the whole thing can start sounding insincere—a death sentence which the metal audience is notorious for dispensing without a warning upon those who it decides to knock off the pedestal.
After all, pop has always been metal’s mortal enemy, and it’s precisely this antagonism, this polarity of the two genres that Trivium owe much of their success to, having learnt to exploit it to the max. I just wonder where it will all go from here. This, as well as the band’s plans for the next few years became main topics of my conversation with Matt this time around. But in the process I found out a hell of a lot more—including the inner workings of his writing process, his influences, and his views on religion, among other things.
ALISSA ORDABAI: I’ve
seen your set today and it was the first time I’ve seen you live.
I was amazed how you can still function because it was such and intense
physical workout.
MATT HEAFY: Yeah, we all run around and shit! We love it!
AO: So you are not putting any pressure on yourselves to do that, it just comes naturally?
MH: No, we know we are decent live so we are not really nervous about any of it.
AO: “Decent live”, ha-ha!
MH: Decent live, yeah. [Smiles] Seen Paolo [Gregoletto, Trivium’s bass player] jump into the mosh pit?
AO: Yeah, yeah! Amazing stuff. But what other elements, in general, do you think need to coincide for a really great live show to happen?
MH: Both the band and the crowd have to be feeding off each other. When we first started, a lot of crowds didn’t know who we were, so it was a matter of us showing who we are. And once we got into it, it was about creating a positive vibe. It’s never really about… With a lot of bands it’s about who can be the toughest, you see crowds beat the shit out of each other. With us, it’s not about that. If you look into our crowds when we are doing headlining shows and stuff, there are more smiles than anything. It’s all about having a good time.
AO: Do you write on the road?
MH: Yes, sometimes. We are writing now for a new record.
AO: Oh, are you?
MH: Yep. I’ve been writing on an acoustic guitar, I’ve been writing a lot with a program called Apple Logic which is kind of ProTools but an Apple version. Writing a lot of electronic stuff that will later be used for real instruments.
AO: When do you expect the new album to come out?
MH: We are thinking about… We’ve been writing and we’ve got about 13 or so songs written. We’ll start in January and go through April, then do some festivals, then record for three months, then have some extra couple of months, so it should be out by the end of next year, I guess.
AO: How long does it take you to go from an original snippet of an idea to the finished harmony and melody?
MH: Some things, if you look at a record like The Crusade, it was written in a couple of weeks, then we recorded for six weeks and it was done. Shogun was written over the course of a year, on and off. We recorded it during eight weeks. And this next record we are writing it now, so it will be written in a year and a half. It all depends. The first record was recorded in two weeks, our first CD. So every single thing is different. But the more time you have, the better.
AO: Does your own music ever surprise you? Do you ever listen back to a track or a vocal performance, or whatever, and go, “Wow, I didn’t know I had this in me. I didn’t know there was this aspect to my character.”
MH: For the stuff that’s old we are able to look at it more like that. Like our first CD. I still think that it was a really good CD. When we play this stuff now, it gets one of the best reactions from the entire set. So it’s pretty crazy that something that was written so long ago, our earliest material, still has a big impact, or a bigger impact than we thought it would.
AO: When you write, do you have to isolate yourself, lock yourself in a room?
MH: Sometimes. Last time it was a day off and we were in a hotel, and I wanted to write, trying to improvise, turning the lights off and sitting with one of my computer programs, seeing if there was a song in there. But with that song I don’t think it really worked, it was too much of a Depeche Mode set-up. [Smiles] So sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Depeche Mode were incredibly influential on me this time around. The whole thing obviously wouldn’t work for our band, but just in terms of songwriting it is the band I’m really getting into lately. The last CD was the Beatles CD, before that it was a Queen CD, before that it was Metallica. Now it is Depeche Mode and Mozart.
AO: So you do have an appreciation for a good pop melody?
MH: Oh, yeah. If it’s good music, it’s good music to us. No matter what it is—whether it’s pop, or rap, well, not actually rap, but there are rap songs I really appreciate without being into it. A lot of metal bands are just strictly into metal, that’s it. For us, I can listen to “Breakaway” by Kelly Clarkson, I have her songs on my iPod. I’m not the one who is going to shy away from what I have or what I listen to or what I’m getting into. For me, no matter what it is, good music is good music. Life is too short to cut something off just because of something it is or it isn’t.
AO: In terms of songwriting, is it difficult to walk this tightrope between metal and pop? Is it a practiced process, do you have to put a lot of thought into it, is it an intellectual thing or does it just come naturally?
MH: I’m sure it’s a natural thing. With this next record that’s coming up we have set a lot of goals for ourselves. We told ourselves that this next record needs to be monumental. Every record has been a jump, like from The Crusade to Shogun, but this next record needs to be monumental, it needs to be the size of twenty jumps, it needs to be the best thing we’ve ever written, songs that translate anywhere in the world no matter where you are. We are obviously becoming an established international band and in a lot of places that you play in needs to be a matter of connecting with people who don’t speak our language, with people who just know the music and it can work anywhere. It just means having incredible songs, it means not just being about riffs and notes and parts, but about doing things that translate for a crowd. There is definitely a very specific thing to that. If you look at a lot of metal bands nowadays, so many of them are becoming about the notes and what they are playing and it’s just crazy shit, there isn’t a song there anymore. And for us it’s always been about a song. We have definitely made a lot of progress on our last record, and with the next record, let’s see where we go with it.
AO: Does it mean that you will be trying to cover as much stylistic ground as possible on the new record?
MH: We are not sure we exactly want to… Shogun sounds like Trivium, whereas our previous record made us sound like our influences. Shogun sounds like Shogun, but I think it’s not where we are yet. Even though it’s so close to where our sound is. I think we’ll find what our sound is and use that style to make the best songs possible.
AO: Let me ask you something else. Do you ever play for yourself? Not for practice, not for anybody else but purely for yourself? Do you get time to do that?
MH: I do. When I’m at home I get to. But what ends up happening is that I’ll start jamming on it and writing something for Trivium, just naturally. I’ve been writing something that has a very cool classical tinge to it lately. But not like the sweepy crazy solo-y shit, but more like an arithmetic simplistic thing that sounds like it’s classically influenced but works as a rhythm guitar part—something that you don’t hear much. So I like to write riffs that I want to hear as a fan. That’s what I try to do.
AO: Are you classically trained?
MH: No. I actually thought about it lately because I’ve been writing on this digital writing program where it would help to know theory and I don’t know any theory. So sometimes it’s frustrating where I don’t know which note I’m trying to play. Like, “Where the fuck is D sharp?!” Corey (Beaulieu, co-lead guitarist) knows a lot of theory, a lot of classical music, but I don’t. But I’m learning by ear. I like listening to classical music and learning by ear like I did with anything else. I like not knowing what I’m doing sometimes. I like just playing what sounds right.
AO: Do you think being a musician has changed in any fundamental way since the time when you were growing up? Not in terms of distribution or technology, but in terms of craft, what’s expected of a musician?
MH: Well, if you look at the late ‘90s and early 2000’s… Like I said, I don’t know a lot of theory but I can play, and a lot of bands don’t know how to play. And that was so when a lot of nu-metal was around, people hardly knew how to play guitar and became the biggest bands in the world. But I guess they had the songs, so that’s the excuse. With us, at least we know how to play our instruments and it’s a matter of making songs better. There are some bands out there who can do anything anyone else can do, but they hold back. And it’s cool because you know they can do it, but they just make fucking amazing songs and they show their ability when they have to, or when they feel like it, or when it’s needed. And that’s an ability in itself—to know when it’s too much or when it’s the right amount.
AO: I have one last question. It’s a bit goofy, but I hope you don’t mind.
MH: I don’t mind. I’ve been asked everything. Everything from gross shit to good shit.
AO: OK, let’s have a go. If you were granted an answer to any question in the universe, what would you ask?
MH: True answer?
AO: True answer to any question at all.
MH: It could change from day to day, but the first thing that comes into my head… [Long pause] What is there at the end of life? It sounds existentialist, but what would happen after we die? I am not a religious person, but I’m not against religion. I’m fully supportive of good religions, about being a good person, the fundamentals of any religion—being good to one another, don’t be a dick. But I would like to know what the purpose of it all is. You work very hard every day five days a week or seven days a week to have all those things that you don’t even get the time to enjoy because you’re working the whole time, so what happens after that and what was the purpose of it all?
AO: What do you think is the purpose of it all?
MH: I don’t
know. One part of the thing is that when it’s over, it’s over.
But then I wonder if we get to be something else and we will not even
remember being anything else before that. Like in South Park, when they
are in heaven, or, actually, in hell, and people say, “But I was
a devout Christian!”, “And I was Jewish!”, and “I
was this”, “I was that”, “I was a Buddhist”,
and they want to know what was the right answer. I’d like to know
if there is the right answer or what was the right answer. So what happens
after the whole thing is over and if there is a religion that’s
right, and what is the right answer.
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