Pitch Black MagazineによるCoreyへの電話インタビューです。
Trivium Back in the Driver’s Seat
Written by Pamela Porosky from Pitch Black Magazine/ 1 November 2009
“We’ve done a lot of support stuff, so it’s cool to go out and finally play our own tour, and to play longer,” says Trivium guitarist Corey Beaulieu during a recent phone interview.
“Not a lot of fans have had the chance to hear us play a full set, they’ve only seen the support tours where we perform for maybe 30 minutes.”
The thrash metallers from Orlando, Fla. were gearing up for a show in Portland, Ore. during the first leg of their headlining tour, the band’s first since 2006, and Beaulieu couldn’t be happier with how thing are going.
“All the fans seem to be pretty stoked for the shows and it’s been going good, and we’re enjoying ourselves,” he says.
Unfortunately, drummer Travis Smith will be unable to join the rest of the band on the part of the tour that rolls through Calgary, Alta. on Nov. 22 due to personal reasons. Filling in for Smith is south Florida’s Nick Augusto, a former Trivium drum tech and a member of the band Maruta.
Still, “into the mouth of hell” they tour, and Beaulieu reveals Trivium’s headlining slot allows them to unleash anywhere between an hour and 15 minutes and an hour and 20 minutes of pure, unadulterated heavy metal on those who come out to catch their set.
“It kind of varies, depending on how much in between song blabber there is, or if there’s something that needs to be fixed and whatnot. And depending on how fast we end up playing,” he laughs.
“This first part of the tour, the majority of the songs are from the new record (Shogun [Roadrunner, 2008] and Ascendancy [Roadrunner, 2005], and that’s pretty much the bulk of the set, then we play two songs from our first record (Ember to Inferno [Lifeforce, 2003]). We play the songs that are the old standards that people always want to hear, the big songs, and then, because we’re headlining and have a chance to play a lot more songs, we dusted off some songs we haven’t played for a few years. It’s fun for us, and keeps it interesting.”
Every ticket buyer on this tour gets a soundboard recording of the set, including those who head out to the Nov. 22 show in Calgary, Alta. How does that work?
A little while after the show is done, once we’ve had the chance to edit the stuff and get it uploaded to a server, they can download the recording of the show. There’s no editing or anything done to it either, so if something happens during the show where some equipment breaks or someone messes up, it’s all there!
Sound pretty raw. How are the recordings turning out?
It’s just a stereo recording, a house mix of what everyone hears at the show. It’s the same sound guy, and we bring our own boards and equipment to record on, but it still varies from show to show, depending on the venue and the acoustics. It’s definitely not like a live record or anything, it’s more or less like a bootleg. I’ve heard the recordings and some of them are pretty cool. They’re decent sounding and everything people heard, or saw live, they get it to keep, so I guess that adds to the memory of the show.
How do you guys typically prep for a gig?
A lot of us will work out just to get loosened up or get the energy flowing. And sometimes during the day we’ll just hang out, go to sound check, maybe have some interviews, maybe head out on the town and check out where we’re at. It depends on the schedule, but usually when the door opens or the first band goes on is when everyone starts preparing for the show, stretching or warming up on guitars or vocals.
And being on guitar, do you have any warm up techniques that you do?
I know Matt (Heafy, guitar/vocals) has got a strict regime of how he warms up, and he does the same thing every day. But for me, it kind of depends on how I feel. If my hands are really stiff, or I don’t feel that loose, I might warm them up a lot longer. Some days, I might play a lot during the day so I don’t have to warm up as heavy duty. But it’s more like trying to get myself pumped up and get the energy going so I can go out there and perform, because it’s not so much as the guitar playing I have to get pumped for, it’s mentally and physically being able to run around and do the physical performance part.
Don’t you guys have more than 800 shows to your credit or something like that…
It’s probably more than that now. We broke that a little while ago.
With all that experience, what has the road taught you as a band, or about yourself?
Traveling around the world, you get to see a lot of different perspectives and you get to embrace everything and enjoy it. We’ve been able to see and do a lot of things we wouldn’t have been able to do if we weren’t doing this. I know Matt likes – everywhere we go he has to go eat the traditional local food and all that kind of stuff. He’s always wanting to try the weird taboo kind of foods. But when he brings that up, I don’t go out and eat with him.
Do you ever tire of the road?
I think everyone has those moments, no matter how much you like being out on tour. It’s pretty demanding. You’re sleeping on a bus every day, even though that’s a lot better than some of the other touring situations we’ve been in, but after a while of being gone, everyone just wants to be home, be somewhere familiar; plus, some of the guys are married or have girlfriends, so you always want, at some point, to just go home and spend time with your family and the people you care about. And just a rest for your body, because performing and headbanging every night takes a lot out of you after a while, so it’s good though have a chance to go home and recharge your batteries. But it takes a long tour to get us to that point where we’re like, “F**k it, let’s go home!”
You recently posted a blog on your MySpace about Atreyu’s latest music, which was really kinda cool. How important do you think it is for bands to support each other these, even if it is something as simple as a shout out?
Everyone’s in it for the same thing reasons, and a lot of bands who tour together become friends, so it’s like helping your buddy out. You’re trying to sell records, but it’s not like you’re competing against each other. Everyone is doing their own thing. It’s like touring with other bands and playing in front of their crowds. And I think with the way the music industry is with records selling less and less and people not buying them as much as they used to you have to, anything you can do to help support each other and get the music out there is really important.
How about you – anyone stand out along the way that helped give you guys a push?
Luckily a lot of bands were nice enough to bring us out as a supporting band, let us play for their crowd and just give us a shot to show people what we’re all about. Usually, the bands that are headlining give the thumbs up for the support bands, so it’s nice the bands that brought us out gave us the okay.