LAMB OF GOD Guitarist On Touring With SLAYER: 'I'm Not Scared'

Bryan Sabella of The Record recently spoke to LAMB OF GOD guitarist Willie Adler about his band's participation in the SLAYER-headlined Unholy Alliance Tour, which is scheduled to kick off at the Tweeter Center in Camden, NJ next Thursday, June 15.

"I'm not scared," Adler said recently while prepping for the tour at home in Richmond, Va. "Our first national tour was with [theatrical gore merchants] GWAR, and we got used to just going 'bam, bam, bam' and not even giving the fans a chance."

LAMB OF GOD is putting the finishing touches on a new studio album. Tentatively titled "Sacrament" and set for a late summer release, it treads some different ground from the band's last album, 2004's "Ashes of the Wake", Adler said.

"It's more personal on a lot of levels," he said. "We're staying away from the political this time. It's kind of like, 'Been there, done that.' And it's got a real creepy and dark vibe."

Bands like LAMB OF GOD, MASTODON and CHILDREN OF BODOM are part of a growing movement returning traditional elements (like lead guitar) to the genre's sound after years of post-grunge, industrial, hip-hop and "nu-metal" experimentation.

Adler also is encouraged by metal's resurgence. "I just think it goes back to music having its trends. People are yearning for real music and raw music," he said. "Kids are yearning for that release again — what we're doing, what a lot of our peers are doing, and of course SLAYER's been doing it all along," he said.

Read the entire article — which includes a couple of short quotes from SLAYER frontman Tom Araya — at www.northjersey.com.