MATT HEAFY: 'IN FLAMES Is As Influential On TRIVIUM As A Band Like METALLICA Is'

Vocalist/guitarist Matt Heafy of Florida metallers TRIVIUM was interviewed on this past weekend's (December 16-18) edition of Full Metal Jackie's nationally syndicated radio show. You can now listen to the chat using the audio player below.

To see a full list of stations carrying the program and when it airs, go to FullMetalJackieRadio.com.

Interview (audio):

Full Metal Jackie: TRIVIUM is out on the road right now overseas with IN FLAMES. I'm happy to be presenting the tour that's happening in the States starting January 12 with IN FLAMES, TRIVIUM, also VEIL OF MAYA and KYNG. Did you have a good time out on the road with IN FLAMES this time around?

Heafy: Oh, God, yeah. We toured together in 2005 on Ozzfest and Sounds Of The Underground in 2006 or 2007 on their headlining tour across North America. We supported them in Europe when they were bringing out like 9,000 people in Gothenburg, 7,500 to 8,000 in Stockholm, between 3,000 and 7,000 people a night in Germany, and now we're in the U.K. where we're headlining and IN FLAMES is direct support. We then go to North America where it's co-headlining, then Australia together on a big festival and then I think there's talk about doing a South American tour as well, so we've been touring a lot together.

Full Metal Jackie: Is there anywhere in the world you haven't been yet?

Heafy: There's still a lot of places. I haven't been to South America; I haven't been to Central America. I haven't been to Africa; I haven't been to the Middle East. I haven't been to Portugal, Greece or Turkey. There's still a lot of places to go, but we've been to a lot of places. The U.K. is obviously our biggest territory. I don't know why they picked us up first, but they picked us up first. We've got a couple of gold and silver records here, multiple sold-out tours here and they've just treated us well over the years in the U.K. We just did, I think it was a sold-out show in London two nights ago, the night before it was sold out in Manchester, another huge show, so it's been really good.

Full Metal Jackie: What are you looking forward to most about this upcoming tour in the States?

Heafy: Just to still be on tour with a band that, if I never got into them, I would not be here right now. So it's really cool that we've become buddies with these guys. IN FLAMES is as influential on TRIVIUM as a band like METALLICA is, the band that got me into metal. IN FLAMES shows me what else metal can be, specifically records like "The Jester Race", "Whoracle", "Colony", "Clayman", "Reroute To Remain". I love all their records, but particularly the ones I mentioned. Like I said, if I had not gotten into those, or into this band, I probably would have never developed the style that TRIVIUM started to come into.

Full Metal Jackie: It's been four months since "In Waves" was released and you spent that time touring with DREAM THEATER. How have the new tunes evolved on stage?

Heafy: Really great. What's interesting for us, having come [to the U.K.] once or twice a year, headlining here definitely once a year, there's a huge new chunk of audiences. Half of the crowd every night has never seen us before, even though the shows are completely packed. We're used to it being packed and people have been seeing us over the years, the same people who have seen us multiple times. Now it's been a lot of new fans. It seems like "In Waves" is getting a bigger reaction than all the other songs, which is great, because "Ascendancy " is the biggest album in the U.K. "Ascendancy" and the U.K., it's the only country, the only album that's ever gone gold for us, specifically just in the U.K., so it's cool to see that an album that hasn't gone gold yet is still getting a bigger reaction than a gold record here.

Full Metal Jackie: Peter Iwers and Björn Gelotte from IN FLAMES own a restaurant in Gothenburg and you're something of a food connoisseur yourself, so how much weight do you think you're going to gain over the next couple of months touring with these guys?

Heafy: You know, people keep asking me that — like, how come I haven't [gained weight] since I have a breakfast of blood pudding, haggis and beer? But as long as I keep doing yoga, I don't think I'll be putting on any weight, so as long as I keep up with that, I'll be okay. As soon as that stops, I'll probably be 600 pounds, the amount I eat. The food blog is doing really well, I think it's about to become something a lot simpler and it's going to be its own site, it won't be a Tumblr site anymore. It's been getting a lot of hits, a lot of demands. It's fun to be able to write about food, about food culture, about culture from around the world, so I'm going to be taking that to the next level pretty soon.

Full Metal Jackie: That's very cool. Anything you want to tell us about, your experiences this year or what's to come in 2012?

Heafy: In the middle of [the Rockstar Energy Drink] Mayhem [Festival tour], we played three release dates within five days around the world, we played our North American release date, we played our German release date, and our U.K. release date all in a span of five days, got about six hours of sleep in four, five days. In that time we played the biggest show of our lives which was Wacken Open Air in front of 80,000 people, we were direct support for JUDAS PRIEST. Thanks to that show, we are now bigger in Germany than we've ever been, which is amazing. Our record was in the Top 10, I think, in 15 or 20 countries around the world and that's "In Waves". It's been a good year but it's been such a blur; I don't know where I am or what's going on.

Full Metal Jackie: Sometimes it's not the case where an American band can get people behind them overseas as well and vice versa, sometimes it doesn't work out.

Heafy: Yeah, it seems like most of the American bands do well in the States, or they either happen really big in the States and nowhere else in the world or [it] happens internationally and hopefully spreads over. So with the U.K. first and then it became like a wildfire, went to Australia, now it's picking up in Europe, Japan and now it's starting to spread through the U.S., which is really good.