Interview Exclusive With Trivium's Corey Beaulieu

We (my friend Martin and I) got to the the venue (The National) in Richmond Virginia about an hour before my first interview of the event with Corey Beaulieu of Trivium. Nothing kills time like watching Robot Chicken on an iPod, so the time went by pretty quick. I made my phone call to the tour manager to let her know I was there, but she didn’t answer. About 20 minutes later and a little asking around, I found out that she had a mishap the night before with her computer and had to try to get it fixed or replaced before the show. So by the time I got to interview Corey it was about an hour and a half later than expected. I was also supposed to interview Phil Labonte from All That Remains, but that not only got delayed, but changed to in interview with Mike Martin and Oli Herbert. That will be up later in the week. It sucked that I didn’t get to interview Phil because I had interviewed him once before and he was a really cool guy to interview. Sometimes you have to adapt and roll with the changes. Interview after the fold…

When I finally got to interview Corey he was watching a college football game in one of the lounges of the venue. If you have never had a chance to see Corey or Matt from Trivium in person then you probably have no idea how tall these guys are and Corey is a big dude. He was really nice and offered quite a bit of insight into the band. Now keep in mind, when transcribing the recording to words, I make myself sound as if I’m a lot better at interviewing a band than I really am. In fact I kind of suck at asking the questions unless I write them down perfectly and read them off…perfectly. Oh well, I’ll learn as I go along. Here we go…

MM: How’s the tour been going so far? Any bumps in the road, besides Melissa’s (tour manager)obvious mishap?

Corey: Awesome, nothing really. It’s been a really smooth tour and the shows have been fuckin’ awesome. Great start off and we’re almost done, go home in 2 days so, for a short, brief time and back out again.

MM: Who are you going back out with this time?

Corey: Next Friday we’re going back out to tour with Slayer…

MM: That’s right, on the Unholy Alliance tour. That’s awesome. One of the big bands you’ve been wanting to get on tour with?

Corey: Yeah, it’s always awesome going out on tour with a band that you grew up listening to and stuff like that so it’s always fun. So we’re looking forward to that and there’s a lot of cool bands on the tour so it’s going to be fun.

MM: Shogun just came out a couple of weeks ago and sales have been pretty good so far, I’ve been looking at that. I don’t know how much you guys really care about that, but every cares about CD sales though right?

Corey: Eh, I don’t really pay much attention. It just came out so we’re just trying to get it out to as many people as possible. It’s a long tour cycle so I’ll start paying attention probably near the end and see where we got it to. Right now it’s a record that just really word of mouth and people hearing it and just talking about it and stuff like that because we’re really not a…especially in the states because we’re not a big mainstream media, like band so it’s just all about going out and playing show, letting people hear it and see us.

MM: Shogun. There is not a whole lot of simplicity in that album at all, or is that simplistic to you as far as guitar work goes.

Corey: Well it’s really not that difficult for us because we write it so it’s just what naturally comes out so everything we do is just pretty basic for us. Other people might think it;s really pretty whacked out but we get it.

MM: It’s not something that you can really just listen and learn to play. For most people it’s probably just reading tablature and hope you;re good enough to keep up.

So with the Crusade, you guys changed things up a little bit. You guys said that you were going to do what you wanted and didn’t care. I read an interview where Matt said something to the effect of “This time around we just said ‘fuck it’, we’re going to do it how we want an if people don’t like it too bad.” And it came over like that because a lot of people started saying a lot of that “Metallica Clone” B.S. after it was released. People love to hate Trivium, but for every hater there are like 5 others that love you guys.  But you know, I didn’t hear that until about 6 months after it came out, but I was thinking, you know, maybe the first or second song on the record might have a little Metallica feel to it, but as far as that I really didn’t see it. With that said and a lot of people saying that stuff, when you go to write a new album do you guys take in to consideration what people were saying about the last album or do you just get out there and start writing a new album?

Corey: ah, we just start writing and whatever comes out, comes out. When The Crusade came out, that album had to be made at that time to keep things interesting. If we wrote another album like Ascendancy we probably wouldn’t still be playing anymore because it’s not..with The Crusade we kept things interesting and try something new and make it exiting and fun by experimenting and showing people different sides of what we can do and not be pigeonholed to the same thing all the time. That record was a big stepping stone to being able to do what we did on this record. If we didn’t do the Crusade, this record probably wouldn’t sound the way it does. We just did it and we knew we had some changes in the dynamics of that record and people might wonder what the fuck happened because of the drastic difference from the previous record. The point was to make a record different than the one before, so we try not to repeat ourselves so we try to introduce something new to our next album. Some new shit so…

MM: I listened to Shogun a handful of times and I really like it and it;s a lot different from let’ say The Crusade because it kind of sounds like a mix of a lot of stuff from Ascendancy and The Crusade coming together because of all the fast breakdowns and slowdowns, clean vocals again mixed with screaming again and I like it a lot. Anyway, a lot of bands say that they write their songs for themselves and not necessarily for their fans. Is that like a half-truth or how much truth is there to that? Do you write your songs with the thought in mind “Is this catchy? Are the fans going to like it? Does it have good hooks?”

Corey: Ever since we started, before we even had fans we write songs and if it sound cool, if it something you dig then that’s what you go with. And then eventually the stuff that you like that you write and fans like you just got to…If you enjoy what you write, you hope the fans feels the same way because that’s what you start off doing in the first place. You don;t have fans when you first start jamming with a few people in your garage, writing songs so. If the four of us back it and we dig what we wrote then we feel it’s strong enough to put it out. Before a record comes out, no one hears it but us, so we have to feel good about it and if you feel good about it you put it out, and hopefully the fans do too. Every record we’ve done we’ve just written songs that we enjoyed playing and we’d listen to it because we’re fans ourselves.

MM: How many songs did you originally write for Shogun? Did you have like 15 or 20 songs and then have to cut it down too…?

Corey: The original guitar demos was just like song ideas of 20 some songs and whittle it down to the strongest ones and focus on those we got it down to like 14 songs or some shit like that for the album.

MM: Now is it different going in to record…like back when you did your first album and you had the demos and then you get in and record in the studio. Is it a bit different now where you might go in to the studio with a bunch of bits and pieces and get in to the studio and put it all together?

Corey: Well wee all wrote some riffs and “Click-tracks” and kind of pass them along to each other and jam them. By the time we go in to the studio, the songs are already put together but we might change some riffs around here and there, but with how expensive studio time is, we make sure everything is set and ready to go when we get there.

MM: So you guys to a lot of pre-production?

Corey: Yeah, we do a lot in our rehearsal space and our producer will come down and kind of iron out stuff in songs and change up drum parts. Maybe experiment a little in different directions, a change of the drum pattern here or there might change up the dynamics and make it sound cool and more interesting. We do all that stuff in the rehearsal space and fuck around with the songs till we feel it’s the best it’s going to be and then we go in to the studio bust out all the songs.

MM: Now 4 records and 4 different producers? (Obviously I’m clueless about their producers at this point)

Corey: Um actually all of our first 3 records were done with the same guy and with new record we worked with this new guy….

MM: Have you guys thought about keeping him for the next record or look in to someone new?

Corey: Um, same guy we did this record with, we definitely really want to work with on the next  record. He brought something new to the table. We really only recorded one way with the last records and he brought a lot of experience and different way to capture what we were looking for and his personality fit really well and had a great time in the studio and had a really good working vibe and stuff. So, definitely the next record. We learned a lot about recording now and it was a learning experience, so definitely the next one.

MM: So you’re heading out on the Unholy Alliance tour with Slayer and you opened for Iron Maiden earlier this year, right?

Corey: That was like 2006.

MM: Really? I thought you guys opened for them recently?

Corey: Well we opened for one show.

MM: Looking back there was something on the Internet where Avenged Sevenfold opened for them and they were not received all that well.The people there absolutely hated them. How were you guys received by the fans?

Corey:  We toured with them over in Europe and it was awesome. We had great crowd responses. We just went out there and fuckin rocked everybody and they fuckin’…we enjoyed it. There were a lot of shows where it was pretty amazing how the Iron Maiden crowd got really in to it. You just got to…Hopefully with those kind of bands you just go to go out there and fuckin’ hammer them. You can’t go out  and sit there and expect them to respond to you immediately, you got to go out there and fuckin be aggressive and berate them. Yell at them and be aggressive.

MM: Well Avenged Sevenfold is a totally different band so I can understand why they didn’t take to them kindly.

What are some of the tour essentials, besides the obvious macbook. (everyone seemed to have a macbook on that tour. I don’t know if Mac was a sponsor or what) What are some “Must haves”?

Corey: Laptop, iPod, phone, a big bag of bathroom stuff and DVD, video games, but no video games on this tour. Whatever things you can bring from home to make it comfortable. Make it livable on tour and being away.

MM: How about drama? Is there any head butting? Any Arguments?

Corey: Not really, we all get along pretty well.

MM: Ok, cool. Last questions and these are just kind of fun type questions. First one…Who would win a fist fight, Rob Halford or Bruce Dickinson?

Corey: Dickinson.

MM: Guitar duel, Dave Mustain or Kirk Hammet?

Corey: Mustaine.

MM: Death Metal Karaoke, Chris Barnes or Glen Benton?

Corey: (Pause) Glen Benton.

MM: More evil, Glenn Danzig or Kerry King?

Corey: Um, I don;t think either are evil at all…I’d have to go with Kerry King though because he’s got “God Hates Us All” Tattooed on his arm.

MM: And last one…who can drink more Matt Heafy or Corey?

Corey: ME!

MM: How do you pronounce your last name?

Corey:  Beaulieu (Bowl-yur)

MM: that’s not how it looks, but shit, I might have spelled it wrong anyway. Can you spell it for me?

Corey: B-e-a-u-l-i-e-u

MM: I’m just curious, man cause every time I… (Laughing)..ok. I really appreciate your time and we’ll see you out there.

Corey: Thanks.

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