LAMB OF GOD: We're Incredibly Confident In Our Abilities To Record And Perform Kick-Ass Music

Brian Giffin of Australia's Loud magazine recently conducted an interview with bassist John Campbell of Richmond, Virginia metallers LAMB OF GOD. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Loud: So what do you think the fans are going to take away from [the new LAMB OF GOD album, "Resolution"]?

Campbell: Hopefully they'll be picking their jaws up off the ground and they'll be coming out to see us when we come around and play live.

Loud: What do you think about the state of music in 2011? It just seems like there's a constant stream of great abums coming out.

Campbell: I think that's just a statement on the strength of music despite the record companies having their desperate situation. I think technology's at a point where, if you got a creative mind, the tools to create music are very easy to come by. And the ability to get that music heard is huge now. So I think that [the way] that the Internet has had [a] positive [effect on] music is that music, as artistic expression, is very easily transmitted.

Loud: So how it affect LAMB OF GOD with so much great music coming out around you? Does it push you on toward further excellence?

Campbell: To be honest, I've had my head so firmly in LAMB OF GOD for the past year, I haven't really poked around to see what music is out there. We tend to be unaffected by what's going on around us and when it comes to create and go make another collection of LAMB OF GOD songs, it's great that there's so much great music out there but we're incredibly confident in our abilities as a band to write, record and perform live kick-ass music.

Loud: Are fans going to be able to go into this album and find some new things, perhaps, that you haven't explored before?

Campbell: Well, we don't necessarily go in trying to... we're not going to do the KORN thing and get into dubstep or anything. We're writing a LAMB OF GOD record. But I definitely think there's influences in there. Like the track "Ghost Walking", with the acoustic intro, sounds a little SKYNYRD-ish to me. But, you know, we've got the usual suspects as our inspiration is heavy metal and those are those great heavy metal bands that we grew up with: SLAYER, MEGADETH, METALLICA. That sort of forms the backbone of what we write, what we take our cues from for our heavy metal.

Loud: Now you are at that stage yourself, where bands are taking inspiration of you. How does that make you guys feel?

Campbell: It's crazy, man. It's a bit much at times. When people come up and want your signature... your autograph, I guess you call it, it's an odd thing when people start to... they relate to this music, and there you are as a person. But who they relate you... there's a relationship there, but it's through a different medium. It can be an odd thing. And it's awesome that there's kids who are musically inspired by us, however we are definitely putting out music that we love. That we like. So I would say I'm glad these kids agree with us! (laughs) A friend of mine used to work at a music store, and he told me a few years ago, when "Laid To Rest" was the single, that kids were coming in trying to play the riff. They were coming in after music school and trying to play the LAMB OF GOD riffs. To me, that's cool, man. It's kinda odd, but it's cool.

Read the entire interview from Loud magazine.