LAMB OF GOD Bassist On Touring, OZZFEST Illegal Music Downloading

Jim Louvau of The Arizona Republic recently conducted an interview bassist John Campbell of Richmond, Virginia metallers LAMB OF GOD. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

The Arizona Republic: How does singer Randy Blythe take care of his voice on the road and does he still use the techniques from vocal coach Melissa Cross?

John Campbell: Yes, he warms up before we play. He puts on his iPod while we are warming up before the show. There are a million people out there that tell you how to play drums, guitar and bass but there aren't a lot of people out there that actually know what they are talking about when it comes to vocals and she is an expert in the field.

The Arizona Republic: What's your relationship like with Epic Records?

John Campbell: It's great. We just put out a record that debuted at No. 2 so I think they are pretty happy with us. I think that charting that well pretty much guarantees that they will pick us up for the next option, which basically means we can keep doing this as a job.

The Arizona Republic: Collectively, your catalog has sold close to 2 million records with little radio support. Are you surprised that metal is doing so well?

John Campbell: Metal is definitely back and it has been creeping back for some time now with bands like SLIPKNOT selling the crap out of some records. So we're not the first and only but we are definitely in a relatively small group of metal bands that are selling records.

The Arizona Republic: Do you think your headlining slot on the 2006 Ozzfest had a lot to do with your success?

John Campbell: Absolutely. I think that we have been very lucky to strategically pull off some tours that ended up helping us. We also did Ozzfest 2004 before that and I think that was great for us too.

The Arizona Republic: How big of a part do you feel the Internet played in exposing your music to fans in the beginning?

John Campbell: It was absolutely everything. We were five dudes who in 1994 decided to start a metal band because metal sucked at the time and there were only a handful of bands putting out anything that was worth a (expletive). Our music got attention on MP3.com, which caught the attention of Prosthetic Records in 2000.

The Arizona Republic: How do you feel about people illegally downloading your music?

John Campbell: There are some legalities to it but as an artist, having your art being spread around to as many people as possible is actually pretty beneficial. We are here to make records not sell them. That's the record company's job and the industry is changing dramatically from a time when I think maybe they were making a little bit too much money. Labels are scrambling to re-organize and figure out what it means to be a record label in the Internet age.

Read the entire interview from The Arizona Republic.