THE SWORD Drummer On Touring With METALLICA

Miami New Times recently conducted an interview with drummer Trivett C. Wingo of the Austin, Texas quartet THE SWORD. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Miami New Times: How did you get on the METALLICA tour?

Wingo: We got on that pretty much because METALLICA, especially Lars, are big SWORD fans, and they like to take out their personal favorites for their own entertainment. We've kind of been befriended by Lars, so I'm sure he was instrumental in booking us on all these dates. We just did Europe with them, a couple weeks ago.

Miami New Times: How did you first hear that Lars Ulrich was a fan of your band? What was it like to learn that?

Wingo: Actually, you hear rumors, but everything is taken with a grain of salt. But that was an interesting rumor. And then we finally met Lars, and it was all confirmed that it was, in fact, true. It's very flattering. He came out to a show in San Francisco, and he came out and watched the set and wanted to hang out and chit-chat. And told us that METALLICA wanted us to come on tour with them.

Miami New Times: What was it like playing for rabid METALLICA fans?

Wingo: It was awesome, because METALLICA fans are people of taste, so they like THE SWORD. Those were the biggest shows we've played.

Miami New Times: Was it hard to adjust to playing such huge venues?

Wingo: You know as with anything, everything becomes normal. After a day or two of playing shows like that, you really come to expect there to be at least 20,000 people there if you're supposed to be going on.

Miami New Times: Your latest album got leaked two months before its release date. How did you guys feel about that?

Wingo: Well, A),we're not stoked. I don’t think any band is really excited when their album is leaked, because it's plainly rude. I don’t want to incur any legal liabilities, so I won't suggest specific tortures for people, but they need to be dealt with. They watermark these things, so people who put these up are usually total idiots, who somehow don't read the warnings on the CD. It was a press copy, and it was traced to a journalist who had received it for review. We found that person and there were some punitive measures taken. You put some watermarked material on the Internet, we know who it is.

Miami New Times: On the other hand, it seems like heavy music is getting really popular again, and your band is always name-checked with a bunch of other similar-minded bands. Do you feel like you're part of a particular movement or scene?

Wingo: People talk about this "metal resurgence," but I don’t really ever recall when a period of time when people stopped liking heavy metal. What they're talking about is the press arbitrarily deciding that metal is cool and they wanted to start covering it again.

Metal has really not made a comeback. That's just something to write about, like the press is always trying to sensationalize something that is not even real. There are these bands that are part of this movement, but we don't have any overarching strategy. We're some bands who got together to kick out the jams. People liked our jams, so they started requesting our presence all over the world. We go lay out the jams, we come home, and go to sleep.

Read the entire interview from Miami New Times.

THE SWORD's video for the song "Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians" can be viewed below.