TRIVIUM Frontman Talks U.S. Politics, Band's Next Studio Album (Video)

On November 7, guitarist/vocalist Matt Heafy of Florida metallers TRIVIUM joined PitCam.TV for a visit to Curry 36, one of the most famous restaurants/currywurst stalls in Berlin, Germany. Check out chat below.

On whether he voted for Barack Obama in the most recent presidential election and his view on the current political situation in the U.S.:

Heafy: "The big thing with voting in the U.S. is that so many people don't vote. I don't know what the situation in Germany is, but I know that the situation in the U.K., there's even less voters than in America.

"One of the main outlooks I always hear from young kids is, 'What's my one vote gonna matter?' Well, when five hundred thousand to a million-plus people have that same attitude of, 'Oh, my one vote doesn't count,' then that's a million votes lost. So people really need to rally up, because the people that are gonna complain and bitch about policies or bitch about who's elected or who's doing what that didn't state their opinion and didn't vote and didn't make an effort to make something happen, then they're gonna lose out.

"The main thing with our country, regardless of who was coming into the office next, the big thing for our current president [is] how do you clean up eight years of the past president's…. And I'm not talking about Barack; I'm talking about Bush's campaign. How do you clean up eight years of that? Eight years of the deficit and eight years of this war and all this [stuff] that happened. How do you clean it up in four years?

"The main thing people need to do is stop attaching themselves to a party. I think that's what's very difficult about America. People love to call themselves something: 'I'm a vegan,' 'I'm a Republican,' 'I'm a Democrat,' 'I'm a this,' 'I'm a that.' … People are so obsessed with titles that the class system of the human beings kind of made people just wanna immediately attach themselves to this without ever looking further past into a person. So when the two parties are running, they don't really see, 'What is this guy saying?' 'What's this guy gonna do for me and my economic situation?' All they see is, 'Oh, that's what I am; I am one of those, so I need to go with them.' Almost kind of creating this class system to be as if it were a race — something that you call yourself. So, for me, today [November 7, the day after the U.S. presidential election] is a good day."

On whether he feels American or Japanese:

Heafy: "That's a hard thing. I wonder that for everyone that's mixed, 'cause our country… America was founded on people escaping the tyranny of monotony, and I feel that sometimes… I'm not saying the whole country; I'm saying that maybe our country is divided in thirds — a third is very 'You need to believe what I believe or get out,' a third has no opinion, and a third is progressive and accepting of all walks of life. I consider myself accepting of… I'm not a religious person, I'm not a political person, but I am accepting of all views. Even if you have a completely opposite view of mine, if you can have a rational conversation with me to help me understand where you are coming from, and I can help you understand where I'm coming from, then I'm all for it.

"The big thing with our band is acceptance of all — not tolerance, but acceptance of all, unless it's hurting something else.

"I guess the idea of being an American is being mixed and coming from multiple backgrounds. Me being half Japanese, quarter Irish and quarter German and never really spending my time in my own home country — I'm always in someone else's home country — I feel like I'm just a person, just a human being. I don't mean to sound all existential there, but that kind of relates to, 'Do I feel this kind of person or that kind of person? This kind of political structure or this kind of religious person?' I feel like I'm just a dude floating around; I'm a nomad. A nomad, and I get to share the same home countries of everyone else in the world."

On TRIVIUM's next album:

Heafy: "I can tell you we do have a title, we do have songtitles, we do have 20 to 25 songs demoed, we do have a producer, we do have a location, we do have an artist. Everything is set up — all the visuals and everything — but it's all secret. Hopefully it comes out the third quarter of next year. We're recording in January, February and March in Austin, Texas; that's all I can say [about] that. It's gonna be great; it's gonna be really, really great. It's too difficult to describe in metal adjectives, like 'heavy,' 'brutal,' melodic,' all this stuff, like every band does. Also, the classic phrase: 'our best album ever.' I can say that with 'In Waves', it was finally an album that all the fans of the previous four… We've got very divided fans: 'I just like 'Ember'.' 'I just like 'Crusade'.' 'I just like 'Ascendancy'.' 'I just like 'Shogun'.' Everyone could agree on 'In Waves'. And simultaneously, everywhere in the world, 'In Waves' received the biggest reaction. With the next record, people can expect the best parts of everything we've ever done across all five records on one."