TRIVIUM's MATT HEAFY: New Drummer ALEX BENT 'Is What We Were Looking For All Along'

TRIVIUM frontman Matt Heafy has told Inquisitr in a new interview that drummer Alex Bent has brought a new and different energy to the band dynamic.

"When we were first writing the music for [last year's] '[The] Sin [And The Sentence' album], it was still great, it was still a lot like the end result, but… when we first brought Alex into the band, and we heard what he was capable of, it really inspired us and it made the music get a lot more extreme because we knew what we were able to do," he said. "It's so cool this time too because people aren't asking, 'Oh, you have another drummer change — why is that?' Now it's more of, 'Oh, now I understand what you were looking for all along.' And Alex is the kind of guy we've been looking for all along, the kind of guy who can do everything. Whereas with our previous drummers, they've all had their strengths, but they've had their weaknesses. And it's because our band is difficult, we have things that are very simple that we've had some of our drummers crush — and then they can't play the tech stuff. And we've had guys that can play the tech stuff that have a difficult time being simplistic. So, Alex is what we were looking for all along."

Heafy also talked about the making of "The Sin And The Sentence", which has been has been widely acclaimed by critics and the TRIVIUM fanbase.

"We went into the structure and said we wanted to get back to the roots of making music in the same room together," he said. "We wanted to be back to that 'band' thing. And I know that sounds like a blatantly obvious thing to a lot of people, but it's really not.

"The way recording and writing has gone for a lot of bands, a lot of bands we see they write on their laptops — which is difficult and sometimes out of necessity. There are also bands that have other people write their songs for them — which I think is fine in pop music, and is called for in pop music — but in metal, ah… it's really weird.

"Metal and rock, it should be written by the band that it's played by, and you know, some guest people here and there helping is fine. What we want to do is really steer the ship ourselves, and take the control back, and take it all back to being ourselves. Just the four of us in a room together making the kind of music we wanted to hear as metal fans, the kind of music we felt was, either missing, or that we just wanted to listen to on our own.

"So, doing that and making sure we had everything down together before getting a producer I think is what really captured that energy. And what you hear on the record, and what's kind of obvious about what we love and what our fans love, is when we have everything. There have been records where we've kind-of homed in — they're still great records and I'm very proud of them — 'Silence In The Snow', 'Vengeance Falls', 'The Crusade' — we kind of homed in on a specific thing, and said 'let's not do these things' outside of the realm of what the song is."

TRIVIUM will continue its "The Sin And The Sentence" world tour with another leg of North American dates this fall. The band will hit the road on a headline run this October. The bill will feature very special guest AVATAR and LIGHT THE TORCH. The 25-date trek kicks off on October 3 in Tampa, Florida and runs through November 3 in Berkeley, California, with several stops in Canada.

"The Sin And The Sentence" was released last October via Roadrunner. The disc was recorded with producer Josh Wilbur (LAMB OF GOD, GOJIRA) at Santa Ana, California's Hybrid Studios. The LP features the band's first recordings with Bent, who joined the band in 2016.