TRIVIUM Guitarist: 'The Bigger You Get, The More Haters You Get'

Steven K. of Swigged! recently conducted an interview with guitarist Corey Beaulieu of Florida-based metallers TRIVIUM. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Swigged!: You've been asked about the polarizing effect of your band in the past — how metal fans either love you or hate you. I've given it some thought and believe the issue comes from the notion of authenticity. Fans believe what you provide is real metal whereas your opponents feel your brand of metal is not. What do you say to this?

Corey: I don't give a shit. People can question our "metalness" all they want. The first genre of music I got into was metal — I know just as much about it as the next fucking person who talks shit. That's all we love, though. We grew up on old-school metal and play the kind of music we listen to and enjoy. You can't get any more real than that — just playing music that comes from the heart. With every band, there are always people that talk shit. But the bigger you get, the more haters you get. People always try to knock down those who are doing well. SLIPKNOT has a shitload haters. We have ours. COHEED AND CAMBRIA has theirs. It just comes with the territory.

Swigged!: Do you think this issue has come up because you're signed to what is essentially a major label, rather than a reputable "underground" label such as Nuclear Blast, Earache, or Relapse?

Corey: Maybe — I don't know. There are a lot of bands that are still in the underground that you never hear people shit on, but when they get bigger, people think they're not cool anymore. They lose that "That's my band" deal. I think a lot of people need to get over that shit. If nobody listens to a band, they're not making money and can't afford to keep making music. We're better off with them becoming more popular because we know they won't stop because they can't pay their bills. [Laughs] Everyone — even the people who shit on the bands — if they had the opportunity to do what we or other bands are doing, they would want to reach as many people as possible and try to be successful. At the end of the day, music is awesome and fun, but if you do it 24 hours a day, it's also your job. Nobody wants to go to McDonald's and flip burgers for free. We definitely have the coolest jobs, but it's also known as the music business for a reason. There is work to it.

Swigged!: Were there any regrets with the way "Shogun" turned out?

Corey: The only record where I had some after-thought was with "The Crusade", but we didn't have too much time to do that album, so we've all had ideas come to us too late. Recording that record was very spur of the moment. With this one, we worked on the songs for so long that we would change parts, demo them, listen to it for a while and try more shit. When Nick [Raskulinecz, producer] came into the picture, he had some ideas that would help let the songs flow better and in the studio we would add little things. Given the time, we could try all the different ideas and possibilities. By the time we finished the new record, there's nothing I would change. We just ran into Nick the other day, he came out to a show in Nashville. He's stoked to do the next album with us. We have a bunch of ideas where we could take things on the next record, tone wise and guitar. With "Shogun", everything turned out the way it was supposed to. The next one will have new ideas. Maybe the guitars will sound more crushing. It's whatever hits you that moment. "Shogun" is the best record we've done so far — it has the most energy. It was the record we had to make at that moment to show everybody what we got.

Swigged!: Where do you see the next album going? Has writing for the next album started already?

Corey: It's hard to tell. We're always writing riffs and stuff — but we won't have a good grasp of where it'll be going until we're a few songs in and see the overall vibe. I really liked the flow and the balance of different kinds of vocals on "Shogun", so I hope we can branch off and do new things with that. Maybe songs with all screaming or all singing. We won't be doing that for years. By then, we'll have lots of ideas written and see where it goes We don't force anything, it's very natural. If something sounds cool, we use it and build off it. If we like the song, we use it regardless of if it's super heavy or melodic. If we dig it, we feel our fans will too.

Read the entire interview from Swigged!