INTERVIEW: Corey Beaulieu – Trivium

TRIVIUM have been a pivotal band for metal in the 21st century. Since exploding onto the scene through 2005’s Ascendancy they have been steadily climbing up the ladder, and despite recent albums not quite hitting the same level as their earlier discography, TRIVIUM are still very much a crucial band in modern metal. Arguably one of their finest records to date, last year’s The Sin and the Sentence, encapsulated everything about the sound of the band have worked so hard to forge and elevated the band to unimaginable new heights. Recharged and reignited, there seems to be genuine excitement surrounding TRIVIUM in 2018. Not only that, but their adoration and commitment towards championing new and emerging bands demonstrates that they are accepting their responsibility for bringing heavy music to unheard ears. On a massive headlining tour across the UK, with three of the most exciting young bands (CODE ORANGE, POWER TRIP and VENOM PRISON), we caught up with guitarist Corey Beaulieu before their show in Manchester (read our review here) to reflect on The Sin and the Sentence‘s impact alongside discussing TRIVIUM‘s responsibility for supporting new bands.

So we’re approaching the end of this big European tour, how has it been for TRIVIUM?

Corey: It’s been awesome! Headlining Europe, it’s probably been our biggest tour we’ve ever done, especially in places like Germany and France. Spain was amazing, everywhere! We toured a lot of the same places a year ago and all the places we either sold them out again or we’ve done more tickets a year later than we did on the last tour. Even after touring in the UK after 13 years now, this is the biggest UK tour we’ve ever done as far as ticket sales so it’s great to see that everything is still growing and people keep coming out to see the shows. We’ve been having a blast! Ever since the new record came out the intensity level of the crowd and the energy level they bring and enthusiasm about the band just seems to have grown. The new record seems to have triggered a button in people, they seem to be more rabid when they come out to these shows so we’ve been having a blast since we’ve got back onto the touring scene.

You’re playing a fair few new songs from The Sin and the Sentence on this tour. How have they gone down with the crowd compared to your back catalogue?

Corey: In a lot of places the new stuff probably had bigger reactions than the old stuff. It’s really cool having so many records and people are still excited about what the band can bring moving forward. In the States we started off by playing three songs and it’s been the first time, probably ever, that we put out a record and instantly people were requesting to hear more new stuff! We’ve always been a bit slow, we see how things go and slowly add stuff in, but there was such an overwhelming response to the new record with fans requesting songs. So, coming into this tour we are playing like over half the album and people seem to fucking love it! Playing stuff like Betrayer and The Heart From Your Hate has been a really big song in Europe so yeah, the new songs are really connecting with people. I’m really happy with how everything is going.

Is it too early to tell but are these new songs going to become a staple of your live sets for many years to come?

Corey: Oh for sure. Just from the reactions that we’ve seen on the tour and people really digging the record. We always rotate songs around and there are big songs from our past records that we aren’t even playing just so we could fit in a lot of the new stuff and also that we could give a song a break. Like last night, there were some people that we recognised and that was their 57th TRIVIUM show, so all the fans that keep coming out to every show, we try to not play the obvious songs. We like to play some stuff from the back catalogue that we don’t normally play just so the die hard fans can hear some stuff they probably haven’t heard in years or have never seen live before. There’s definitely a lot of that in the set compared to the last time we played the UK. I think like minus three songs, it’s a completely different set of songs so we always like to do that. Seeing bands that always play the same shit no matter what, it’s so predictable. It doesn’t make you feel excited as a fan and when I go and see IRON MAIDEN or METALLICA, I’m like “I wonder if they are going to play something I’m not expecting?” so we like to do that as much as we can possibly fit in without taking away too many songs that people want to hear. But yeah, people seem really stoked as we’ve loaded the set with probably the heaviest set we’ve ever done so fans have definitely been getting their moshing done!

This tour boats three great young bands in CODE ORANGE, POWER TRIP and VENOM PRISON. Was it always a conscious decision to have upcoming bands as support for this TRIVIUM tour?

Corey: Yeah. We’re always looking out for new bands that are doing something cool and interesting. We were always hearing about POWER TRIP, CODE ORANGE are on our label. Being in a band you obviously know all the industry people and you always hear a lot of buzz stuff like “this band is a new band that no one has really heard” but within the industry they are getting a buzz that can hopefully translate over to the fans. We just wanted to have a really cool bill that can excite fans and hopefully introduce fans to new bands! We’d always be the opening bands trying to jump on tours and try to get in front of a large audience so we just want to pay it back to the new bands and give them the opportunity to play in front of a large audience. We try to bring bands that we think our fans will appreciate and possibly show them something a little bit different and the bands seem to be going over really well! We’re always on the lookout for cool new bands and there seems to be a lot of really cool stuff happening in the UK right now! Every time someone asks about a new band it seems like all the new bands that are coming out are from the UK and I’m like “oh crap!” There seems to be this awesome new metal wave of interesting bands from some really heavy stuff to stuff that is more experimental. CONJURER and then there is this band called DYSCARNATE and then there is ABHORRENT DECIMATION. There’s a bunch of those bands coming out to our London show so there’s a really cool fresh scene here in the UK. Those are a lot of the bands that we’ve been talking about and hopefully whenever we do another headline tour we’d like to bring out with us. Those kind of bands that are really exciting and we want our bill to be really exciting, not just touring with the same old bands that people have seen us play with before.

For a lot of people, TRIVIUM are a gateway band into metal so by having these upcoming bands on your tour, do you feel like you are accepting a responsibility to introduce new bands to as many people as possible?

Corey: It’s weird because we see a lot of new bands and then you see all these people in bigger bands, even bigger than us, talking about how cool these bands are but then those bands never fucking take them out. It’s like if you think this band is cool then why don’t you fucking bring them out on tour? And that is exactly what we did. Okay maybe these bands haven’t been touring over here as much or maybe haven’t toured enough or have a ticket history but it’s like these bands are cool and people have been talking about them so it’s like just bring out cool stuff! We wanted a cool bill, we don’t want to have people that book the tours throw us a band because they are worth x amount of tickets that will help benefit the tour. We learnt that our fans come out when we have something cool. A cool tour bill, you get your moneys worth as there is multiple bands that you can enjoy watching, not just having a band there because the higher ups say it is good for business. I think having a cool bill does even more to help out and seeing how the crowd reacts to all the bands, POWER TRIP have been killing it on this tour and they are definitely a band people need to be checking out. We did that in the US, we brought out WHILE SHE SLEEPS and FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY was a band that when we heard the new record we were like “dude we have to have these guys out on tour with us.” If I was a TRIVIUM fan into our stuff so if we are into it, then we have the feeling that our fans will appreciate it as well because it is how we approach writing our music. From the beginning we write music that we think is cool and that we enjoy so the fans kind of attach that to that. So we always want to bring out bands that we think our fans will appreciate and it seems to work!

And I guess that is the best way. With streaming and how accessible music is now, having band out on tour where people can experience them live is the best way to introduce new bands to people…

Corey: Yeah, I’ve had bands where I have heard them, maybe heard a song or something back when you had CD compilations or whatever, I’ll hear a song and think this is cool but then if I see them live it will be like “fuck yeah! This is awesome!” I’ve had bands where their live show made me want to go buy their records so hopefully people will see the tour bill and maybe like from Metal Hammer or Kerrang! will recognise one of the names but haven’t really dove into what they are about. Then they will come out to the show because they are curious, yes to see us, but to also to see what the whole tour bill is and hopefully they will walk away from it being like “went to see TRIVIUM, fucking loved it, but also I became a fan of this band.” That’s the whole reasoning for touring, to make new fans and we want to bring out bands who will hopefully benefit from playing with us.

Definitely, it’s a great thing to have. And with this tour coming off the back of The Sin and the Sentence, now that record has been out for a fair few months, how have you found the reception?

Corey: We definitely love the record. We feel that it has really helped ignite our fanbase. Maybe with the last couple where we tried a couple of different stuff, where different circumstances had to push us a certain way, that maybe looking back with hindsight we would have done something different but at the time certain circumstances altered the plan of how we we were going to make the record or what we were able to do. But with this one we took everything out of the equation that put a wrench in the system back on the last two records. We just got in a room, the four of us, and just wrote whatever we fucking wanted to. We wanted to bring back tons of cool riffs, have heavy stuff, melodic stuff and just be who we are and not let another person like a producer or a label try to push you in a certain way. Doing it in that approach has pumped everyone up and fans have just been talking about how awesome the record is and how it is their favourite album. We wanted to make a record that from start to finish had a vision, that each song had a purpose, so when you listen to it track to track they stand out from each other and offer something that the other songs don’t. It’s a complete musical story and I think because of that it’s connected with a lot of people. We’re really happy with how it is going.

Well thank you very much for talking to me Corey!

Corey: No problem, thanks man.

The Sin and the Sentence is out now via Roadrunner Records.

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