LAMB OF GOD Drummer: 'In The End, I'd Rather Be A Mid-Level Success Story'

Altsounds.com recently conducted an interview with drummer Chris Adler of Richmond, Virginia metallers LAMB OF GOD. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

Altsounds.com: It was surprising to see in another interview you said that "Wrath" proved that you can still play the way you used to. Could you explain that more?

Chris: What I was trying to say in that was that we're all aware that we're not getting any younger and doing this kind of music relies heavily on endurance and being able to do what you do for an extended period of time, and continue to grow, to evolve and get better at what you do. To be able to push yourself, and on this record I felt that I had captured some of what was on our earlier albums that was missing on the last two. On the last two, I felt like as a drummer I created a voice and created a style that was very unique. You'd listen to those records and know it was me playing it, which is what I always admired about great drummers like Stewart Copeland and Billy Cotton. I kind of fell into that style on those records, but I didn't want to just rely on that, I wanted to keep pushing and get some of that more raw emotion from the earlier albums back into my playing, so that's what I was going after for "Wrath" and when I'd done tracking I felt I'd accomplished that.

Altsounds.com: Did the longer gap since the last album affect "Wrath"?

Chris: Yeah, it definitely helped. When we first started getting together with the material, it ebbs and flows. We had a lot of stuff to start with but it wasn't the best stuff so the waiting process sort of rubs the rust off and the dust off and the songs kept getting better and better. We were writing literally until maybe three days before the drums started recording so it wasn't really a complete project until we were up against that deadline. We seem to work well under that kind of pressure. Some of the best songs are written last minute in "we need one more, now!" kind of moments. It doesn't hurt to have more time, but in the same breath, give yourself a couple of years and everybody gets kinda lazy about it. For us, for me anyway, it's better to have that something on the horizon to try and push yourself.

Altsounds.com: You're on tour until at least August, does it affect you knowing what you're doing so far in advance?

Chris: We're on tour until October actually. I think a lot of people would be lucky to have something to do until October, we're all fortunate that we still have this gig and that people still want to hear what we do and that we continue to travel and do it and not lose money. Does it bother me? Not at all. What bothers me is what happens when we're done with the touring, then I've got to sit at home. That isn't bad, I love my wife and my kids, I'm not trying to complain about that but I'm very motivated to be out here and playing, writing and doing that kind of thing. This is what I love about this job so it's hard to sit at home.

Altsounds.com: You're very accessible to your fans. Are you aware of how important the band is to young metal bands?

Chris: Not really. I guess I see a lot of young bands covering us on YouTube and it always makes me smile to think that somebody thought that much of us to cover our song. I hear it a lot in some of the younger bands that I speak with, like "ah man, you're the first metal band that I really go into." It's hard to really know that. While we're in it we're working to a model, trying to make things bigger and brighter for the band. It's hard to sit back and look at the whole big picture. Recently I have, I've been working with the younger bands and some of the guys were in middle school and just starting high school when they first started listening to us so now we've been around fifteen years we start to hear those kinds of stories. "I wasn't even born when your first album came out!" I mean, I guess we're getting old but it's nice to know, hearing those stories from people, that we've had a bit of an impact on metal music. Not that it was necessarily a goal, but I'm very glad.

Altsounds.com: The band's sound hasn't really softened at all. Is that important?

Chris: It's important to me. I don't know if it's important to the overall project but I think when I was growing up listening to metal and when a band got a little bit of success their next album was just never the same as the one you like. Not even just metal bands, a lot of bands follow that route, they have that one successful hit and then the next album all sounds like that. We never really chased the idea of that kinda thing. For me personally, I would rather go out with a really aggressive catalogue than to have softened up at some point along the way and regret it. In the end, I'd rather be a mid-level success story. I'd rather stay there than shoot for something else because we're good at what we do, the fans that like us like us because we stick to it. There's really nothing broken in that equation so I don't want to try and fix it.

Read the entire interview at Altsounds.com.