The Metal Web - Trivium Interview

w/ COREY BEAULIEU

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: I noticed with your new release that the band used a lot of Japanese, Greek and Christian references as a basis for writing the album. Why such an eclectic mix?

Corey Beaulieu: Shit!

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: I’m a tough one!

Corey Beaulieu: Matt wrote the lyrics. I guess it was cool shit to write about and also, a lot of the stuff doesn’t really have the Greek references or anything like that. It’s not really like telling of a story that it comes from. It’s like I guess… fuck! Shit, I can’t fucking think of it!

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: I’m a tougher interviewer! (Laughs)

Corey Beaulieu: This is a better question for Matt. He can answer it better than I can.

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: Come on, you’re in the band. You’re supposed to be well-rounded. (Laughs)

Corey Beaulieu: I just woke up so, I get a get out of jail free card. (Laughs)

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: Alright, we’ll let you out of that one. But, there are a lot of Greek references about the Furies, Kharybdis and obviously, Japanese with the Gomen and the Shogun. See, you would think I’m in the band. I’m pretty good and do my homework. (Laughs) What did you want to accomplish with Shogun because the band has been quoted as saying that, previous releases were stepping stones to this album?

Corey Beaulieu: We wanted to make an album that really defined what the band is all about and I think we accomplished that. We just wanted to write the best album we could. We all started writing songs and they came out the way they did and incorporated everything that we’ve previously done that made us sound the way we do. We used all the ingredients and they all worked together and made a record and a sound that defines what the band is all about. I think it’s the best one we’ve done so far. We’re really stoked about it.

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: I like the other albums too. But, I did find that this album was a little bit different and good. (Laughs)

Corey Beaulieu: Our other records are a little different from this one. (Laughs)

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: What made the band decide to go with the track Into The Mouth Of Hell We March as the first single for the album as opposed to other tracks?

Corey Beaulieu: We actually put a song out before that. We put that song out because it was on a EA sports pick for the Madden ’09 soundtrack. We put it up when the game came out so people could hear it on there. The first song we put out was Kirisute Gomen. Then Into The Mouth Of Hell We March came out. The actual first real single for the record was, Down From The Sky, which we did the video for.

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: I thought it came after the fact of the other song. It came out before?

Corey Beaulieu: Yeah, it’s not really a single. It was just a track we put online for people to listen to. The first real single is Down From The Sky. We did a video for that and that’s what we used for promoting the record.

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: What was it like to work with producer Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Rush) as opposed to Jason Suecof, which is someone who you were accustomed to working with? From what I hear, he was a lot more forceful with you guys than Jason, taking no prisoners. (Laughs)

Corey Beaulieu: Working with Nick was great! Previously, we had done everything with Jason. Besides me, Matt and Travis have worked with him on a few other things before. So, pretty much almost every major big demo and album up until this one; has been done with Jason. It was just time to move on and try something different and work with someone that can bring you a different perspective of recording. For what we were striving for and doing, we needed a fresh guy to revamp the recording process and give it a different vibe. We met Nick and he came out to a show and we hung out. His personality and his whole vibe fit right in with the four of us and we knew this was the guy that we’d be able to work with and be able to do what we were looking to do. He definitely brought a lot of really cool things to the table that helped us out. He pushed us to be a better band and better players and think creatively outside the box and get out of our comfort zone. It was a lot of fun. He really worked our asses in the studio. It was an awesome time and I look forward to doing another record with him in the future.

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: Along with the standard edition of the album, you’ll also be releasing a CD/DVD special edition of Shogun that includes three bonus tracks, behind the scenes footage and an instructional video. Can you tell us a little bit about the bonus tracks?

Corey Beaulieu: The CD/DVD comes out the same day the record comes out so you have a choice. You can either spend more money, get bonus tracks and a DVD, or you can get the normal standard record. Its two versions and you can pick and choose which one you want. It’s pretty cool. It has some extra original tracks that we wrote for the record. There’s an Iron Maiden cover that we did and then the DVD is a “making of” of Shogun, which includes all the studio stuff and talking with the band. It’s very entertaining. You get a “behind the scenes” look that most people don’t get to see. You get our perspectives of what we’re looking to accomplish. I think people if they want the special edition, it’s a really cool thing because the DVD came out really awesome and they also get three extra songs. If you’re a big fan and you want as much as you can get, that’s it! (Laughs)

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: Just curious, what made the band decide to include the cover of Iron Maiden as opposed to other songs?

Corey Beaulieu: Near the end of our recording process, the record label called us up and said, we need extra songs for bonus tracks. We were like, oh, shit! We had two original songs that we had in our back pocket that we didn’t decide to record because we didn’t think they totally fit with the overall vibe of the rest of the songs. So, we said, fuck it, we won’t record them. But, the label wanted more songs. So, we scraped those together and did some touch up work and tracked them. The label wanted three songs and we didn’t have time to go through the process of trying to do an original song. Way back Kerrang had asked us to do the Maiden Heaven tribute album for Iron Maiden and we initially wanted to do it, but, we said no because we were still in the process of doing pre-production for the record and we didn’t have time to go into the studio to record a song and take time out of our schedule. So, we kind of put that off. When we needed extra songs, we were like, fuck, let’s do a cover song and we had talked about that song previously. That’s the song we had originally wanted to do in the first place. We through it together, rehearsed it, tracked it and then eventually the final product was included on the Maiden Heaven soundtrack thing they had. With the response from the song, we decided to throw it on the record.

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: Musically, it was done flawless. I listen for everything. I’m very analytical with things. I pick things apart and you guys did it well. (Laughs)

Corey Beaulieu: We definitely try to do the song justice. We don’t fuck around with much. We don’t change much. We might add some things here or there because it’s our little touch to it. But, we try to do an accurate representation of the song. Do it justice, but, also make it sound like us at the same time. We were listening to that song and making sure we had all the stuff that was in the song and then we threw in some layers and cool little extra stuff to beef the song up because the original recording quality of that song is not that great. We’ve heard the song so many times live from touring with them and how powerful and rocking the tune is, that we wanted to make it so when people heard it they say, holy shit, I didn’t realize how bad ass that tune was. They’ll get the modern day sound quality of it. We were stoked when we heard the final product of it. It’s a great song.

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: We spoke earlier about Into The Mouth Of Hell We March being a featured track on EA Sports' Madden NFL 09, which is pretty exciting. How did that come to be?

Corey Beaulieu: They got a hold us. They have people at their game that deal with the music for all their sports games. There’s been other Roadrunner bands that have been on the previous games. I’m a big Madden fan and every year I buy it. So, it’s pretty cool. We heard about it from our manager. I’m not sure how it really came about. The manager told us that EA Sports wanted to put one of our new songs on the game. So, we were like, yeah, dude, go for it. We were totally down with that because I’m a huge fan of the game and it’s one of the highest selling video games out there. So, it’s great promotion to get your music out to a lot of people. It’s football, so, it’s not just Metal fans, it’s all different types of people play that game and you might reach some people that normally wouldn’t have come cross your music from anything else. It’s the first major game that we’ve had the chance to be on, so, it’s pretty awesome. It’s fun to play the game and hear one of our songs.

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: What’s the significance behind your first latest video Down FromThe Sky, as there was a lot of war related material shown?

Corey Beaulieu: It’s the first video that we’ve ever done that takes the lyrics literally. The guy that produced our new video and also did our last video, Becoming The Dragon is also the guy who was in the studio with us who documented the whole thing for the DVD that comes with the CD. So, we’ve had a lot of time to hang out with him. He heard the songs in the studio coming together and he and Matt were talking and he had an idea from hearing the songs being recorded. He had an idea of taking old war stock footage and incorporating it into an apocalyptic destruction, crazy chaos kind of thing and it really fits the song because it’s what the songs really about. It’s very dark, cool video. He put all the footage and stuff together and it came out crazy. It’s the best video we’ve done to date.

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: Where did you guys shoot it?

Corey Beaulieu: I believe it was a film school in Florida, a really small place. We shot it in two rooms. One where Matt was in a shower room and the other room where there was a big stage that they had built that we played on. We morphed the room into two different scenes. It was a pretty simple plain setup. What our guy Ramone did with the camera and lighting work made the visual aspect of it really cool. He used some old school simple techniques of throwing stuff and fans. Compared to all of our other videos that we’ve done where it’s been big old Hollywood, big production, big producers and all this crazy dumb shit going on, it never came out this good and this was such a simple, straight to the point way of going about it. Ramone knew what he was doing and he was able to capture the idea of the video and bring it all together and make it really fucking awesome.

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: Well, sometimes simples the best. When you put in the bells and whistles sometimes it gets oversaturated with it.

Corey Beaulieu: Hell yeah. Especially, when you’re sitting around for a video shoot for twelve hours, it sucks. (Laughs)

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: You’re currently on tour with All That Remains, 36 CrazyFists and The Human Abstract. Though, it’s still early, what has the fan reaction been to Shogun thus far?

Corey Beaulieu: It’s been great. We started off playing just the three songs that we had on our Myspace and that were available online for people to get on ITunes or whatever. Kirisute Gomen came out in July, Into The Mouth Of Hell We March came out in August and Down From The Sky came out in the beginning of September. So, by the time we started the tour, at least a couple of the tracks had a month or two to really digest and get in their system and know what the songs are about. All the songs have been going over great. The fans are into the new material. The record got leaked a week or so ago. We said, fuck it, people probably heard the whole record by now anyway, so, we have it streaming on our Myspace so people have a chance to listen to every song on the record. We through another tune in on the record and we only played it twice live so far and that songs been going over really well. The songs really come to life live and they have a really aggressive energy and gets people excited. It’s a lot of fun to play.

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: Speaking of touring, if you had to choose a best and worst to have shared stage with, whom would that be and why? And don’t tell me, they’re all great because there’s always a pain in the ass somewhere in there! (Laughs)

Corey Beaulieu: Like, a band? I don’t talk shit about bands. (Laughs) There’s bands that weren’t that great to tour with, but, I’m not naming anybody. I’m not a prick like that. We’ve toured with so many bands. Some bands we had a great time touring with and there might be like one person in the band that’s kind of like, eh. (Laughs) There’s the band Machine Head who’ve we toured with a couple times and they would have to be one of the best. We get along with them great and we’ve done a lot of tours and we’re good friends. Touring with them is a lot of fun and they’re a great live band. Awesome to watch and we’re all really big fans of the music. It’s awesome that we’re very friendly with them. It’s very personable. Touring with Maiden was great because we got to play arenas. It’s a legendary band that we grew up listening to. There’s a ton of bands, so, it’s hard to pick and choose as favorites.

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: Along with our standard interview, we actually did a “ask Corey” where fans were able to email their questions in for the band. But, due to time, we picked two of the best submitted. The first question is from Ben in Minnesota and he wants to know, what is to come for Trivium after Shogun? What can we expect in the album after this one, which is a pretty good question being that the band has said this is the make or break album for Trivium?

Corey Beaulieu: We haven’t written anything yet. The goal is to just write the best album we can and write a better record than what we put out before. We’re going to take what we did on Shogun, expand and bring everything to the next level. Keep evolving our sound and incorporating new stuff, new ideas and different sounds to make it unique and a fresh sound instead of doing the same album over and over again. It’s going to be what Shogun is, just progressed to another level and god knows what else. We’re not writing anything, so, it’s hard to tell. But, I know we want it to have a lot more aggressive, heavier elements into the sound. We want to have a heavier record, but, also have all the melodies. So, it’s taking out all of the elements and making them better, more defined and kick your ass. (Laughs)

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: The next question is from Ceas in NJ and he wants to know, how did you meet Matt and Travis because you were not in the original line-up? He also wanted me to include that he will be attending the NY and PA shows.

Corey Beaulieu: I lived in Maine and when I graduated high school I moved to Florida to go to school. I went to a local club that had a Metal show and there was a band that was playing there that I knew. So, I said, fuck, let me go check it out. They were one of the local opening acts there. I was into their stuff and they played the same kind of stuff that I was into. They were a three piece at the time. They were tight and kicked ass. I ended up talking to Matt’s dad at the show, which I didn’t know at the time and he let me know that they were playing a free show at Full Sail, which was the school I was going to, so, I was like, cool, I’ll come check it out. I went there and I got introduced to Matt and we talked for almost a year. We’d go meet up at Metal shows, email and talk about guitars. I knew Matt for awhile and never met Travis until I actually auditioned for the band. In August of ’03, right after they got done recording Ember To Inferno, they had a posting on their website that said Trivium is looking for a second guitar player, email or call if interested in trying out. I called up and said I’d like to try out. They knew who I was. So, it wasn’t like this random dude. I went over to Matt’s house and he and I jammed on two or three tunes that were on the demo that they had out and I already had. So, I was really familiar with the material. They asked me to come and jam with the full band. We jammed on most of Ember To Inferno record. Travis was the one that asked me if I wanted to be in the band, which is weird because I never actually talked to him before that. (Laughs) That’s pretty much how it happened, pretty simple.

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: Well, I bet you’re glad that you didn’t say no. (Laughs)

Corey Beaulieu: Yeah, that would have been a bummer. (Laughs)

Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: Well, Corey, that’s all I got. It’s been a pleasure. Great album! With that said, do you have any final words for The Metal Web!?

Corey Beaulieu: Thank you very much. Shogun comes out on the 30th. Pick up a copy. Come out to a show. We’re doing a lot of touring for this record. Keep up to date on the website. Buy the record because it kicks ass. If you’re into Metal, you should buy it. (Laughs)

OFFICIAL SITE "TRIVIUM": http://www.myspace.com/trivium

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