LAMB OF GOD Drummer: 'The MySpace Generation Isn't Interested In Going To Arena Shows'

John Benson of Vindy.com recently conducted an interview with LAMB OF GOD drummer Chris Adler. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On writing the follow-up to 2006's "Sacrament":

"It was certainly the goal to not soften up or go for the cash grab or for the commercial moment that a lot of bands seem to do. I love 'Sacrament'; that record did more for our career than any other record that we put out, but I think in that record we fooled around with some things in the studio. The songs themselves are really well-written and very heavy tunes, but I think some of the production and some of the steps we took to make this perfect record really sterilized it a little bit and took some of the life and the aggression out of it. So I don't call that a mistake necessarily but more of a learning curve."

"We started as a heavy-metal band and we'll end as a heavy-metal band. Our goal is to walk away at the end of the day and feel proud of the project. That's the most important thing for us."

On playing for the largest audiences of the band's career as opener on METALLICA's worldwide tour:

"I think for us, we've been working very hard, and so I don't want to say it's undeserved or we haven't paid our dues to get where we are, but these are things that we kind of can't really pay that much attention to. At the end of this tour, we'll be playing two sold-out nights with METALLICA at Madison Square Garden. It's like 'how do we top ourselves?' The record debuted at No. 2. If we get caught up with the idea that we have to do bigger and better things all of the time, those bigger and better things will kind of stop happening.

"We never thought we'd play Madison Square Garden. So what do we say, 'Next is Giants Stadium?' It's just ridiculous to even contemplate that. So I think the goal for us is to keep working hard and to maintain the integrity and fan base we have, and not have any kind of weak material or missteps in our work ethic, and hopefully bigger and better things will come to us."

On whether LAMB OF GOD has any plans on releasing a "Black Album," which in many ways was the coming out to the mainstream CD for Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield and company.

"I think the days of METALLICA and U2 are just gone. The attention span of fans today is so much shorter, and the MySpace generation isn't interested in going to 30,000-seat arena shows. They want to have the band up in their face at the local club, so I think it would hurt us to take that step in hopes of something that would never happen. We're happy where we are; we're very happy with the music that we make, and to think that if maybe we would change things up a little bit we'd get more fans, I think would be a terrible mistake."

Read more from Vindy.com.