MATTHEW HEAFY: 'Our Crusade Is To Make TRIVIUM Something Enormous In The World'

Caustic Truths magazine recently conducted an interview with TRIVIUM frontman Matthew Heafy. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On being chosen as team captain for the "Roadrunner United: The All Star Sessions", an album that was created to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Roadrunner Records:

"It was one of those things where someone really believed in me and they believed that I would really be able to represent the label well. I got to work with a lot of people I grew up listening to, I got to write songs for a new genre that I don't usually get to do and I got to work with people I don't usually get to work with. It was a great experience for me. I think there were five songs that sounded nothing like the regular TRIVIUM stuff and it was a good chance for me to see different styles."

On TRIVIUM's third album, entitled "The Crusade":

"If 'Ember to Inferno' is five steps behind 'Ascendancy', then 'Ascendancy' is about twenty steps behind 'The Crusade'. 'The Crusade' is such a huge evolutionary step for this band in terms of sound, songwriting and the musicianship. This was just the next step; it still sounds like TRIVIUM, it's just much fucking better."

On ditching the screaming in favor of a clean singing style that makes the material more accessible to a wider audience:

"If anyone is wondering why the screaming is gone it's because the four of us were never into bands that scream and we don't like any of the current bands that scream, so we asked ourselves why we're doing it. The only reason I started screaming in the first place is because I sucked at singing and wanted to be the frontman of a band. This time around I wanted to be a better singer because that's what we wanted to hear, so we dropped the screaming and did a lot of vocal training and vocal work. I think everyone will be really happy with it and those that aren't can go listen to any of those dime a dozen bands that are all doing the same thing. I have this quote that I've been randomly throwing out and that is ‘evolve or be eaten' and we evolved.'

On the band's approach with "The Crusade":

"Our crusade is to make TRIVIUM something enormous in the world. We weren't trying to sound like anyone or anything with 'The Crusade', we just wrote music that we wanted to hear. Every album title has been a statement about where we were at that period in time. 'Ember to Inferno' was like we went a small spark to a huge fire, 'Ascendancy' was the dream of domination and the gradual rise and 'The Crusade' is literally what we've been doing, just crusading around the planet in our own way."

On being pigeonholed by critics:

"It just so happens that our band was coming up when a lot of those bands were coming up, along with the new wave of American Heavy Metal and we got lumped in. We're not really influenced by any of the current trendy bands out there right now. It just seems like everyone wants to write breakdowns so people can do spin kicks to this part, but we've never written to be part of any movement or trend. I think that's good because if you're writing timelessly, undefined and unrestricted by genre then it will have that timeless feel to it."

On what he hopes to achieve with the release of "The Crusade":

"I hope it brings us closer and closer to world domination as we always hoped for ever since we started this band. I just hope that people recognize 'The Crusade' as a classic metal album or a classic rock album and they connect and have as good of a time with it as we did."

Read the entire interview at this CausticTruths.com.