LAMB OF GOD's MARK MORTON On Upcoming Tour With MEGADETH: 'That's A Dream Bill For A Metal Fan'

During an appearance on a recent episode of the "Making Waves: The ShipRocked Podcast", LAMB OF GOD guitarist Mark Morton discussed his band's upcoming tour with MEGADETH, TRIVIUM and IN FLAMES. "The Metal Tour Of The Year" was originally scheduled to take place last year, but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Mark said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It was gonna be summer of 2020, and, obviously, the lockdown happened, the COVID stuff happened. And that was a real drag — certainly for a lot of reasons bigger than missing a metal tour. But we were pretty jacked up about that. It's a big bill and it's an exciting bill and it's a great bill for heavy metal in general; it just brings a bunch of great bands together in big places. The fact that that still managed to stick together and can actually happen now is a thrill — it's exciting. It feels good to be able to realistically say we're doing this."

As for how "The Metal Tour Of The Year" came together, Mark said: "There's teams of people who are smarter and probably better paid than me that dream up these kinds of things. But, yeah, I'm all for it, man. That's a dream bill for a metal fan, for sure."

Produced by Live Nation, the rescheduled tour will now kick off on Friday, August 20 in Austin, Texas and hit a further 26 cities before wrapping in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada on Saturday, October 2.

Released last month via Nuclear Blast Records, LAMB OF GOD's "Live In Richmond, VA" includes a live version of the self-titled album with two bonus tracks, along with a DVD that features the first of LAMB OF GOD's two ultra-successful live stream events from September 2020, in which the band performed "Lamb Of God" in full, plus an encore of four songs including "Ruin", "Contractor", "512", and the debut live performance of "The Death Of Us", a newer song the band wrote and recorded in quarantine for the "Bill & Ted Face The Music" movie and soundtrack. The DVD includes a new director's cut with bonus material.

"Lamb Of God" was released in June 2020 via Epic Records in the U.S. and Nuclear Blast Records in Europe. The follow-up to "VII: Sturm Und Drang" marked LAMB OF GOD's first recordings with Art Cruz, who joined the band in July 2019 as the replacement for the group's founding drummer, Chris Adler.

"Lamb Of God" was recorded with longtime producer Josh Wilbur (KORN, MEGADETH, GOJIRA, TRIVIUM) and includes special guest appearances by Jamey Jasta (HATEBREED) and Chuck Billy (TESTAMENT).