TRIVIUM Frontman Talks About New Song 'Shattering The Skies Above'

Guitarist/vocalist Matt Heafy of Florida metallers TRIVIUM recently spoke to Decibel magazine about the inspiration for the band's new song "Shattering The Skies Above", which is featured on the six-song EP for "God of War 3" entitled "God Of War: Blood and Metal".

Commented Heafy: "The original idea came from our bassist, Paolo [Gregoletto], who had the verse riff for the song kicking around for a long time and every now and then he would play it in the dressing room or at rehearsals. We knew the riff was cool, we just needed an opportunity to put it to use; so when we were approached by the 'God of War' people, we knew we had the seed of a song idea that we could use to write a song to for the game."

He continued, "We wanted to keep it new because we have a new drummer (Nick Augusto) in the band and it was a good opportunity to see what we could collectively come up with now that there was a different approach to our drumming. And Nick's drumming and intensity in the rehearsal room lit a fire under our asses that feels like we haven't had in ages. So we started with just the riff and began jamming the riff as a group at rehearsals, sound checks, dressing rooms, etc. until the song pieced together. Once we had the basic song skeleton we kept revising, adding, and improving it as a group until we knew the song was ready. This was a bit of a different process for us because previously most of our material was written separately and then pieced together in rehearsals. Here, we wrote the song together as a group from the ground up."

As for the recording process, Heafy explained, "We rehearsed the song repeatedly until it could basically play itself and to test it we recorded it at soundcheck. The next step was recording drums in a local Orlando studio. Once the drums were fully tracked, we then recorded the rhythm guitars, bass, melodies, leads, and vocals all on a portable Pro Tools rig in the spare office of my loft. Who says you need a real studio? We tracked vocals in an open closet that was covered in blankets, rugs, and anything else we could find to deaden the sound a bit. It was a very down-home, back-to-basics way of recording but we loved it. At one point a neighbor below me didn't love Corey's [Beaulieu] vocals, screaming 'Shut the fuck up!' at hour 10 of a long day of tracking... it was only 8 p.m. mind you."

In conclusion, Heafy confessed, "We feel that 'Shattering' is a great snapshot of where we are as a band at the moment. But we're always trying to evolve so you'll have to tune into the next record when we have it to see where we're going."