LAMB OF GOD Frontman: 'We Just Don't Want To Write The Same Album Again And Again'

Mark Hensch of Trashpit.com recently conducted an interview with LAMB OF GOD frontman Randy Blythe. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Thrashpit: You guys just released "Sacrament: Deluxe Producer Edition". What made your guys decide to let your fans mess with the "Sacrament" audio tracks in any way they want?

Randy Blythe: Our drummer, Chris Adler, actually came up with that idea one day. To our knowledge, no one had done it before. He felt it would be a really neat way to give something to the fans. Also, these days there's a lot of declining record sales. What with downloading and the laziness of the record industry, you sometimes have to do something special to get kids to even buy an album these days rather than download it. He came up with this idea then, and I thought it was pretty genius. The way things are with technology these days, people are going to take things and twist them and mold them anyways. There's so many computer editing tools, we were just like "f*ck it man, give it to them and let 'em have it!" We think it's a very good idea.

Thrashpit: Having not heard the fan-produced version of the album yet, what kind of surprises can we expect with the tracks fans turned in?

Randy: I actually haven't heard it yet either what with the tour and all. Our sound guy Dougie was in charge of the process and says we have a nice, broad catalog of music now. He told me about one song we got in where the person had put some effects on my vocals, and made me sing a song as if I was breathing in helium. I supposedly sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks! It is honestly f*cking ridiculous! For all I know, there's a techno remix on there! I might not like that kind of music personally, but I do think it would be kind of funny. Let people take it, I don't care. Do whatever you want with it, we find it entertaining and funny.

Thrashpit: Speaking of "Sacrament", I'd like to ask you a question or two about that. It seems like the lyrics on this album are much more personally confrontational than on previous LAMB OF GOD records. What kind of headspace were you in when you were writing the lyrics for the album?

Randy: We had two highly political records we wrote with "As the Palaces Burn" and "Ashes of the Wake". With "Palaces" we'd been having a hard time over in the Middle East and with the Bush Administration of course. With this one, Mark and I were like "well, we might want to step back from politics on this one." I'm a political science major and I'm a punk rock kid, and punk rock and politics generally go hand-in-hand, so we were worried after "Palaces" we'd get branded as a political band. After "Palaces" we wanted to write something not as political but the climates at the time were still pissing us off enough that we again wrote it politically. We generally write about issues that anger, sadden, or depress us. Again, when "Sacrament" came around, we wanted to move away from the political thing. We aren't a political party and we conscientiously wanted to try something a little more personal and a little more accessible. We wanted fans to be able to take a song and give it their own meaning, maybe put their own personal experiences to it. That's just how our music goes though — we just don't want to write the same album again and again!

Thrashpit: What bands do you think have influenced LAMB OF GOD the most?

Randy: Growing up, the thing that really turned me off all the pop bullsh*t was the SEX PISTOLS' "Nevermind the Bollocks". I was like "wow, this sh*t is smart man — they're actually saying something." They might not have been the most talented musicians in the world, but they were passionate and saying something relevant whereas on the radio, it's the same thing you've heard for 20-40 years now. Basically, boy meets girl and who gives an f*ck? Let's talk about something relevant. Anybody can fall in love and live together in happiness. It takes something with a socially-conscious cranium to create something relevant at the time. I liked a lot of punk rock when I was younger. The SEX PISTOLS, BLACK FLAG, the MISFITS, The BAD BRAINS, IGGY POP & THE STOOGES, all of them were very political and yet I loved their sound.

Thrashpit: LAMB OF GOD has often been associated with political themes. With this in mind, how do you feel about the state of things in our world right now?

Randy: Things are fucking worse since "Ashes" came out! There's just apathy. I'm not saying we'll never write another political song; it's just after two albums full of big "f*ck yous" to the Bush Administration and big money corporate interests controlling our governmental policy we just feel it would be a little boring now. Sadly, this is how it's been since the beginning of time. Who has the money controls everything. It just seems to be getting worse. I've been around the world three times in the last year-and-a-half and you see people in other countries who seem much more aware of what's going on than Americans do. Americans have cable TV and their niceties and are comfortable. They've never really been bothered to step outside the box. Only 20% of Americans have a passport! You've got to go out and open your mind! But really I love our country. I just think it's getting boring with our music. We said what we had to say, and we decided to look at ourselves a little bit for "Sacrament". Maybe the next album will be a mix of both.

Read the entire interview at this location.