Trivium: Raising The Bar, Defending The Faith

Since the release of 2003’s Ember To Inferno, TRIVIUM have continued to mature and evolve into one of the most consistent metal bands on the planet. The pandemic has severely hindered the usual routine of full time musicians, robbing them of one of their key sources of exposure and income, touring. TRIVIUM have taken this obstacle in their stride by writing not one, but two albums during the course of the last couple of years. What The Dead Men Say was very well received but their most recent and tenth full-length In The Court Of The Dragon is poised to smash all expectations.

“It’s been pretty spectacular, I feel very surprised by just how positive each release has been for us,” admits bassist Paolo Gregoletto. “This one definitely seems to have taken it up a notch, we might even chart pretty high in the UK. I think the last time we charted this high was with The Crusade. We’ve come a long way since then! It’s been quite a journey. With this record coming so soon, on the heels of the last record we had to make sure we topped it and live up to expectations. I think us having so much time to work on it with no touring we were really able to just dive into the details of each song and take our time.”

In The Court Of The Dragon feels like a natural progression in the sound of the band, combining established styles like their powerful riffs, commanding vocal performances, melodic choruses and incendiary drum work but still feeling like they are pushing their creativity to new and exciting places as well as acquiring a lot of new listeners along the way. “It’s important that you keep searching for new people to get into your band and kind of replenish your fan base. I think you can get caught in a trap of just relying on nostalgia all the time and we’ve consciously stayed away from that,” discusses Paolo. “Our back catalogue is part of our DNA but we don’t want to use that as a sales pitch. We want people to get excited about new releases coming out and for me, it’s a challenge to go up against old records and people’s expectations. I think we’re pretty good about knowing when we’re onto something good and when the four of us get excited about a song we know we’re in a good spot as you can imagine playing it live and how it will come across.”

This kind of mentality has also cascaded into the stunning artwork. “It usually helps me if we go into an album with a kind of mission statement and we agreed that because this was album ten we needed it to be a special album and it had to rise to the occasion and that meant the artwork too. In previous releases we’ve had photography-based images and Matt [Heafy]‘s wife has designed some of the artwork with the symbols so we wanted to do something very epic which would fit the music we were writing. We started talking about an actual painting and being able to find someone to actually pull it off. Matt was doing some internet sleuthing and he came across Mathieu Nozieres in France. We looked at his work and were like ‘this is exactly the guy we need!’ I can say for sure this is our best album cover and he is such a master of his craft. I can’t wait to see the real thing in person as it’s still over in the UK!”

TRIVIUM have also been one of the lucky bands to hit the stage again and savour the atmosphere of playing in front of a live audience after many months of playing live streams. An experience they haven’t taken for granted. “I was kind of scared it wasn’t going to happen as it started to get really bad again here in the States, especially in Florida. Getting to play Knotfest was incredible and that was probably the best show overall,” declares Paolo.

“So many people turned out for the tour and it was really a big success. Just to be able to play some of this new material felt like a sense of relief. We’ve been waiting on that moment for a long time. We really wanted to hit that tour like nothing had happened and even still I would have liked another week or two of rehearsals but we were waiting for the hangar to be done and be able to move in so we didn’t get that full amount of time but we practised a lot before the crew got here and then we just needed to work out the schedule and the fancier stuff to the point where it was just muscle memory every night and make our performance super tight.”

Whilst the core of the band has stood strongly for the vast majority of their catalogue TRIVIUM have not been without a few bumps in the road along the way. After the departure of longstanding drummer Travis Smith it was quite an arduous transitional process in the years that followed. They seem to have found their perfect fit with Alex Bent. “It was never something we wanted to happen as going through changes really does tinker with your sound and your consistency. There are so many things you begin to worry about, especially if you’re going into a new album cycle or getting someone up to speed for a headline set,” explains Paolo. “It’s almost like losing all your songs on Apple Music or Spotify and having to rebuild your catalogue again. I hope people don’t think we made those changes on a whim as it was a really tough task. We couldn’t have picked a better fit than Alex. He fit’s in so well and he is one of the main reasons why the music over the last few albums has been of very consistent quality. The performance of the entire band has risen because of him and his creativity.”

TRIVIUM have been actively writing, touring and having an impressive level of interaction with their fans for multiple decades and there is very little that they haven’t achieved in their illustrious career. This doesn’t stop them being just as hungry and as motivated to add to their achievements. “We still feel like the best is yet to come for us. I think that is a real driving factor for us. There is really no reason that you should be slacking off writing stuff. I don’t view headlining a festival as the be all and end all, if the music is good enough and it resonates with enough people then everything else will follow,” states Paolo.

“I would love a million dollars but that’s not going to contribute to making good music. You just have to kind of tune that stuff out. You kind of worry that if you make the wrong decision or the wrong album then that could be it but I feel like we’re in a really good spot now. We’re all enjoying it too which is the main thing. We want to go out there, get on stage, have a good time and a few beers. A lot of bands don’t have the bond that we have and that is something I view as something much greater than any kind of money or headlining status.”

“We have a real respect and appreciation for each other. We kind of took those early knocks but that has made our perspective on things a lot different. We’re here now and that’s all that matters. The fans make you and they can see through the BS and I think they know that we are in this for good reasons. We’re just big fans of metal and we want to make sure that we are contributing to furthering the genre and not making it some kind of old stale being. We always want to support and bring out up and coming bands on tour with us. We love that and having the opportunity to lift other people up and give them a platform and people to play in front of. I know how it feels when you get shout outs from bands. When you find out Kirk Hammett likes your band and is wearing your shirt at one of their shows, that is an incredible feeling and is very humbling. Not that I’m putting us on the same level as METALLICA! Some bands are kind of happy to just become a fossil, like they’re frozen in time. Just because you’re getting old doesn’t mean you have to stop liking new music or supporting new bands. It was cool to be able to bring out GHOST on tour when they were just starting out and seeing the reaction from the crowd. They didn’t really know what the hell was happening! Now they have a huge fan base and people are loving it. We need to keep defending the faith as JUDAS PRIEST said!”

In The Court Of The Dragon is out now via Roadrunner Records.

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