LAMB OF GOD Drummer: 'We've Realized How Fragile What We Do Is'

LAMB OF GOD drummer Chris Adler was interviewed on the November 30 - December 2 edition of Full Metal Jackie's nationally syndicated radio show. You can now listen to the chat using the audio player below.

To see a full list of stations carrying the program and when it airs, go to FullMetalJackieRadio.com.

Interview (audio):

Full Metal Jackie: I had the chance to see you guys at the start of this tour. [I'm] happy to have you guys back and finally doing a tour for "Resolution".

Adler: Yeah, it feels good. We did a pre-release week of small shows in January and then the plan was to do the longer summer tour but things got derailed a little bit, but we're very happy to get on the road here and work the new record.

Full Metal Jackie: Has the chain of events from the last few months [LAMB OF GOD vocalist Randy Blythe was officially indicted on charges of manslaughter by the State Attorney's Office in Prague, the Czech Republic stemming from an incident in 2010 in which a fan died nearly a month after he sustained a head injury following an apparent stage fall while attending a LAMB OF GOD concert. — Ed.] created a frustration that's resulting now in greater aggression onstage?

Adler: I think we've come to a point where we've realized how fragile what we do is. Not that we were taking any of it for granted before, but it does become a bit routine after 16, 17 years of playing these shows. To have something like this happen, you get shocked by it and it definitely was a wakeup call to us all — especially for this tour, because with the situation not resolved and Randy having to go back to trial sometime next year, they said somewhere between January and April, so we can't make any plans after this tour. Right now, we're looking at every night as the first and last so it's really exciting and putting a lot more positive energy into the show. Before you get on tour and you start to turn gray and drink too much and everybody is sleeping all day and now everybody's up and laughing and we're having a good time and getting along. The shows have been really good and very energetic.

Full Metal Jackie: In what ways has the situation in Prague changed your appreciation for each other as bandmates and also individuals?

Adler: Yeah, I think we've all come through some periods with the band that not a lot of bands are able to get through. Obviously, we start as friends and things go awry and end up in fistfights and people leave and somehow we made it through that — knowing that together we are much greater than the individual parts. It's taken a long time but I think we've come to the conclusion that we do have a lot of respect for each other and what we're able to do together. Having this situation go down and having to lose a family member — to us, the band is family, so to have this happen was just shocking. We've all come together as much as we can to support Randy and try to do the right thing. It's a complicated situation, but we're certainly hoping for the best.

Full Metal Jackie: Randy has stated that he'll return to the Czech Republic to stand trial, if necessary. Should that happen what's the LAMB OF GOD contingency plan for the down time while he's in Prague?

Adler: Right now we're being told that the trial will be between January and April, so we can't really make any plans, we can't tour. What we may do is begin some sort of preliminary writing process and hopefully the result that we're hoping for this trial, we're able to get back out on the road. I think the plan is assuming all is going to go well — which may not be the case, but we certainly hope it is — we're going to do two more world tours on "Resolution" so the idea would really be to go into about the middle of 2014 on this record and then begin writing. If we can get a head start on that — that would be great. All summer long, we spent at home and I was lucky to spend the time with my daughter and wife but I know that Willie [Adler, guitar] and Mark [Morton, guitar] have already spent some time writing some new material and Randy while he was doing nothing but time, writing some stuff. I think we've got the element there to begin this creative process. I'm just not sure how quickly we'll be able to get to it.

Full Metal Jackie: Do you think there's going to be any kind of a different direction of the music being as what has happened or in terms of anything that you've heard or lyrics of anything that you've seen?

Adler: As you mentioned earlier, there certainly is a continuing sense of frustration about this scenario and what happened and obviously the important part of this is that somebody lost their life and we're not going to glance over that we have to try and do the right thing — so in that, there are certainly a lot of deep thoughts on what we do and how we do it and what it is we're doing with this music. I think what it has in what I've heard from the guys and what Randy has explained to me in his time there, I think it is going to be a bit darker. I think it is going to go in some directions that maybe a band like us, at this point — maybe we just kind of lighten up and in the distance rest on our laurels kind of thing, but I think this particular circumstance is going to push us even further in a dark direction.