LAMB OF GOD Frontman: Why I Deleted My Twitter Account

On Friday, May 25, Richmond, Virginia metallers LAMB OF GOD took part in a press conference in Bangalore, India ahead of the band's concert the next day at the city's Clarks Exotica. Video footage of the question-and-answer session can be seen below (courtesy of What's The Scene).

When asked why he deleted his Twitter account, LAMB OF GOD frontman Randy Blythe replied, "Why did I delete my Twitter? Because it's full of idiots. Social networking can be used for good things. And I used my Twitter account for several good things — I raised money for cancer research on it; I live-tweeted advice during a hurricane in New York City. So I used that, and at first it was fun to communicate with the fans. Like, I would answer questions from the fans. I think something 35,000 people were reading the dumb stuff I was putting up there. And some of it was just fun. It got too big. I couldn't communicate anymore. And everything I said got misunderstood. And I'm a pretty brutally honest person on there, because I think people have two different personas online; I think they have the person that they are in their day-to-day life, and then they'll be online and they'll be someone else — rude, entitled… They say things to you online that they would never say to your face. I'll say exactly the same thing online that I'll say to your face. People don't like that. They don't like being told, 'You're being an asshole.' So I'll still do that, you know what I mean?! And it bummed a lot of people out. And I just got tired of arguing with all these people.

"Someone was asking about meeting the fans earlier… My whole deal with music sis this: I don't see the difference between us and the fans so much. I still at times am confused as to how many people… I'm like, 'I can't believe all these people are here to see my dumb ass jumping around on stage.' So I don't like the separation, mentally, between the fans and the band a lot of the time. Because people expect you to be something that you're not. And you see that, conversely, in a lot of musicians who get really big heads. They're like, 'Oh, I'm something special because I'm up here playing in a band.' It's like, 'Dude, you aren't a doctor, you aren't a scientist, you aren't curing cancer. You're a in a fucking heavy metal band. That's it. Get over yourself.'

"The thing with Twitter that I thought was neat was that I could communicate one-on-one with people and kind of remove some of that barrier. Like, I'm just a person, too. And then people got rude. And I got bored. So I erased it. Plus, I wasted far too much time on that."

LAMB OF GOD's seventh album, "Resolution", sold around 52,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 3 on The Billboard 200 chart. The band's previous CD, "Wrath", opened with around 68,000 units back in March 2009 to enter the chart at No. 2. This figure was roughly in line with the first-week tally registered by 2006's "Sacrament", which shifted around 63,000 units to debut at No. 8. It also represented almost double the amount of records sold by its predecessor, "Ashes Of The Wake", which premiered with 35,000 copies in September 2004.

"Resolution" was released in the U.S. via Epic and internationally through Roadrunner Records. The CD was recorded at various studios in Virginia and New York with producer Josh Wilbur, who worked on the band's last effort, 2009's "Wrath".