TRIVIUM Bassist Says Having New Album Produced By DAVID DRAIMAN Worked Out Perfectly

Brian Giffin of Australia's Loud magazine recently conducted an interview with bassist Paolo Gregoletto of Florida metallers TRIVIUM. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On having TRIVIUM's new album, "Vengeance Falls", produced by DISTURBED frontman David Draiman:

Paolo: "I think people were shocked when we announced it. Obviously, they never saw it coming. We did 'In Waves' and gave him the CD and he was really blown away with it and really loved what we were doing. Having been a fan for such a long time, it's cool the way it worked out, to be able to work with someone that no one's really worked with before. We've had the privilege of working with so many name producers, especially within metal, to work with someone new can give us a new perspective on our music and give us some new ideas. It was awesome. We approach every record like that. It's not about sticking to a given formula."

On recording "Vengeance Falls" at Draiman's home studio in Austin, Texas:

Paolo: "Recording this album was the closest thing to being on tour that you can get. That's one thing we're going for, that element of being out of your comfort zone that really helped with the music. Not being able to go home when you stopped recording for the day, you were fully immersed in the music all day long 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. pretty much for a month and a half while we were there."

On Draiman's approach to producing "Vengeance Falls":

Paolo: "David, as a producer, was very strict with the timeline and how we were going to do everything. He was very structured and we're a band that likes that sort of stuff, so it worked out perfect. We got up there and he worked on pre-production for two weeks, and he was really intense. He had a really thought-out plan. It wasn't like, 'OK, we'll see how it goes.' It was like, 'Well, we're gonna do pre-production for two weeks, and then if we're done, we're gonna do this, this and this...' It flowed really smoothly and it allowed us to work in ways we hadn't before."

"Matt [Heafy, guitar/vocals] was recording vocals throughout the process. It wasn't just a five-day thing. It was spread out. As a vocalist, David was mindful of making sure that Matt wasn't overdoing it in the studio. There's problems we've had in the past where we've had all the singing in the last week of recording. The vocal cords go in a few days, and then you're sitting there thinking, 'What are we going to do now?' It was totally opposite this time."

"Usually when we do a new record, we'll rehearse for two months straight and have everything 100% set in stone. On 'In Waves', we didn't really have a pre-production because we worked on the music for so long, by the time Colin [Richardson] and Martyn [Ford] got there, we were just machine-gun tight: this is how we needed it to sound. It was kind of the opposite this time. We left things open so when we worked with him we could add in riffs or change riffs around. His big thing for us was that he didn't want us to commit to every song. Meaning, 'Don't get too attached to how the song is now, because when we work together, it could change — for the better. I want you guys to be open to changes. At least to try it.' And that was something we had never done before."

Read the entire interview at Loud magazine.