TRIVIUM Guitarist Is 'Hopeful' MEGADETH + LAMB OF GOD Tour Will Still Happen This Summer

TRIVIUM guitarist Corey Beaulieu says that his band's previously announced North American tour with MEGADETH, LAMB OF GOD and IN FLAMES is "up in the air" at the moment.

The 55-date trek is currently scheduled to be split into two legs. The first leg of the tour kicks off June 12 at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Virginia, and wraps August 1 at the Concord Pavilion in Concord, California. The second run launches October 2 at iTHINK Financial Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, Florida, and runs through November 13 at the Reno Events Center in Reno, Nevada.

As coronavirus continues to spread, live event organizers have been canceling or postponing large gatherings from technology conferences to major concerts. Asked in a new interview with Anne Erickson of Audio Ink Radio if he thinks the MEGADETH/LAMB OF GOD tour will suffer the same fate, Corey said (hear audio below): "It's supposed to start at the end of June, and it's just all up in the air with government regulations and city regulations… Management is keeping eyes on everything and talking to government people, and I know certain cities [are not allowing] mass gatherings until a certain date. Sometimes that can conflict with, 'Well, we're supposed to be in this city before that.' So who knows? As of right now, the tour is still as is, but there's always a possibility that it could get moved, just because it's coming up to the tour pretty soon, and the fact that no one's been working and able to buy tickets, [and] that could cause an issue with a lot of different things. So, we're hopeful. Either way, if, for some reason, it gets moved, we're still gonna play those shows; they're just gonna come at a different time. So people don't have to worry about the show being completely taken away, [but] they might have to wait if it does get changed. We're kind of in the same boat — just taking it day by day, seeing how everything unfolds and how everything gets handled. Especially here in the States, it looks like it's probably gonna get worse before it gets better, so who knows what to expect? It's kind of out of our hands at the moment. Fingers crossed, and wish for the best."

Corey went on to say that he hopes the coronavirus crisis will serve as a reminder of how lucky many people are to have so many entertainment choices available to them on any given day.

"With music, sports or even being able to just go out whenever you want to go do something, even go to the movies or the mall, everything's closed down and there's nothing really to do," he said. "I hope when things get back to normal and there's no restrictions on being in a large crowd or going somewhere public or whatever, I just hope there's a newfound appreciation for live entertainment and live music — just being able to go out and socialize with people. Hopefully there's an appreciation for when you have something taken away that maybe you've taken for granted… Hopefullly [people will] appreciate the options [they] have for entertainment and appreciate the people that are out there every day, putting the show on and getting ready to hopefully entertain you with the best show they possibly can."

Beaulieu also touched upon how the pandemic is affecting the music business, particularly the touring industry. He said: "It definitely hurts bands, especially smaller bands that were relying on the tour income to keep the band going. Definitely for a band like us, we hadn't really been touring too much for the last year, so we really didn't have a lot of stuff we had to cancel. So, luckily for us, it didn't really put a huge storm in our world. But I feel really bad for all the bands, and especially their crew. 'Cause the crew people that work for bands, their whole income is off touring and going from working for a band and then jumping on with another band to tour. When you take all the touring out of the equation, every genre across the world, there's definitely a lot of people that are out of work. And a lot of the dudes I know that work for our band, if we're not touring, they work at clubs in their hometowns, and all that stuff's closed. I feel bad, 'cause, basically, no matter where you turn for that industry, there's really no other option for work for what you do. It's definitely a bummer."

TRIVIUM's ninth full-length album, "What The Dead Men Say", was released on April 24 through Roadrunner Records. The LP, which was produced by TRIVIUM and Josh Wilbur, is the follow-up to 2017's "The Sin And The Sentence". That effort marked the band's first release with drummer Alex Bent, who joined TRIVIUM in 2016.