LAMB OF GOD Frontman Comments On PANTERA Comparisons

Tony Belcher of Tartarean Desire recently conducted an interview with LAMB OF GOD frontman Randy Blythe. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Tartarean Desire: Who, if anyone, would you consider to be your true peers in metal?

Randy: Right now?

Tartarean Desire: Yeah, right now.

Randy: I mean, there's the guys in all the bands we came up with, like the dudes in SHADOWS FALL, GOD FORBID, UNEARTH, all those cats, y'know. We all came up playin' shows around the same time, and have done many tours together. The dudes in KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, all those guys....

Tartarean Desire: Right.

Randy: And everybody's doin' something of a little bit of a different thing, y'know?

Tartarean Desire: Right.

Randy: I guess all those cats because, y'know, they started all around the same time and came up around the same time as us.

Tartarean Desire: Cool. Well, how do you feel about this so-called New Wave of American Heavy Metal, as it's been called?

Randy: It's a label that some journalist came up with. We don't walk around surfing any new wave of any metal or anything, hahaha....

Tartarean Desire: Okay.

Randy: Y'know? It's just something some journalist came up with, y'know. We don't really care. You know people gotta compartmentalize. People just have to put everything into a little box. They have to compartmentalize. They have to put it in a little cubby hole so they can put their finger on it and that's something that some journalist came up with. Whatever. Y'know, you can call us whatever you want. Who cares?

Tartarean Desire: What do you guys call it? Is it just plain metal, thrash, anything?

Randy: Metal. That's it. We're a metal band.

Tartarean Desire: Cool.

Randy: Sure, there's a lot of thrash in it, y'know, [but] there's a lot of other stuff, too, so. I don't know. I don't waste time trying to label us.

Tartarean Desire: Right. You just make the music.

Randy: [We're] just too busy making the music and touring.

Tartarean Desire: So what are your thoughts on comparisons of LAMB OF GOD to PANTERA and specifically you to Phil Anselmo?

Randy: Uh.... I don't really care. Y'know, PANTERA were a great band. Phil is a great singer. Everybody has influences, but, specifically speaking, he was not a huge influence on me directly. I think a lot of the PANTERA comparisons are, y'know — you got some groove and there's a lot of aggression to it [in both bands' sound], and, uh, it is what it is. Of course, we're all PANTERA fans, but we didn't go out and say "Hey, we're gonna be the next PANTERA" or whatever.

Tartarean Desire: Right.

Randy: And, once again, don't really care. Don't really pay attention, y'know?

Tartarean Desire: You guys just do what you do.

Randy: Yeah, y'know, and if people like it, they like it. If they want to say this about it [or] that about it, it doesn't fuckin' matter because we're here to do what we do regardless.

Tartarean Desire: what do you think are metal's greatest strengths and weaknesses? How do you avoid the weaknesses and focus on the strengths in terms of LAMB OF GOD and doing what you do?

Randy: Metal's strengths and weaknesses.... I mean, uh, I guess the strengths are the technicality of the playing and y'know, also it conveys just brutal aggression. It's a technical way to convey aggression. Y'know, I think that's a really high strong point on it.

Tartarean Desire: Plus no one gets hurt.

Randy: Yeah. Weaknesses, I mean, it's, uh, I don't know. There's a lot of people that do the same thing over and over and over again. I guess that's with any sort of music, though, so that's not really a fair statement [about metal]. Uhhh, I don't know. I guess, some of the weakness is the mentality — a lot of people that are really elitist, y'know?

Tartarean Desire: Absolutely.

Randy: And they don't have an open mind to different types of music. Metal, as it stands today, is an amalgamation of a lot of different types of music. There's a lot of different influences and stuff that comes through and there's a lot of different types of metal being made, y'know?

Tartarean Desire: Definitely.

Randy: But you've got people that are super duper cliquey, like they only listen to black metal or death metal.

Tartarean Desire: Right. Or the power metal fans....

Randy: Y'know, only this or that, not the other. I think that's one of the weaknesses. How we avoid that is — I don't know if we do, haha, y'know — but we just do our own thing.

Read the entire interview at www.tartareandesire.com.