Atreyu

Wed 14th May, 2008 in Features

Since emerging onto the Orange County metal scene in 1998, Atreyu has battled uncooperative clubs, unsupportive labels and a music scene they never really fit in with…and they’ve come out victorious.

Atreyu released their debut EP, Fractures In The Facade Of Your Porcelain Beauty in 2001 and were immediately signed to Victory Records. A year later they released their full-length, Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses, featuring seven new tracks. The mix of crushing noise and soaring melody attracted a solid fan base. Releasing two more albums with Victory, the band earned even more success, reaching #9 on the US Billboard album charts.

The band’s loyal fan base that had become accustomed to the outfits metalcore roots are now caught off guard by the band’s musical growth, the determination and depth of the new albums, Lead Sails Paper Anchor. A major shift in sound is apparent as vocalist Alex Varkatzas explores a new level of melodicism, while the band uses a genre-shattering range of instrumentation including a Turkish saz, trumpets, strings, piano and pedal steel guitar. Lyrically, the album is harsh and sobering. A reflection of its time; Varkatzas had a year filled with family trauma and personal struggle.

“We wanted to push everything about the band further than ever,” explains the band’s bassist Marc McKnight sitting in the lobby of his Sydney hotel, prior to his Sydney show alongside Bullet for my Valentine and Avenged Sevenfold. “For this album, we wanted the heavy parts to be as heavy as anything we’ve done, and at the same time we wanted to go full force with ideas we’ve never even approached.” McKnight adds. “It’s totally us, but it comes from a musically more mature place. You can really hear us pushing ourselves to make everything as good as we possibly could.”

Atreyu named the album Lead Sails Paper Anchor after a ballad Varkatzas wrote about feeling homesick on the road, comparing it to sailors being adrift at sea. “The album reflects the band in so many ways. Alex captured the time, mood & feeling that was surrounding us,” he says. “With lead sails, a ship wouldn’t be able to move and then a paper anchor would be completely useless. And sometimes that’s how we feel on tour until we get onstage – completely useless.”

Lead Sails Paper Anchor resounds with the band’s most triumphant melodies to date; born from a year of family trauma, personal struggle and a desperate yearning to cope with anxiety, depression and pain. “This record took place at an even more turbulent time in our lives than the last one, but it’s a different kind of turbulence,” McKnight explains. “There is no sign of teenage ridden angst here. This is about real shit. So it’s a much more grown-up record in that sense.”

Atreyu frontman Alex Varkatzas used to deal with severe anxiety by taking antidepressant and anti-anxiety medication including Lexapro and Klonopin, which helped him work and tour without suffering from panic attacks. However, for the writing and recording of Atreyu’s new album, Varkatzas went cold turkey and let his emotional upheaval inform the band’s songs even more directly. Of course, as any psychiatric worker will tell you, being off your meds can have its drawbacks as well.

“Alex had no lyrics at all when the music was written. He came to the table with some ideas – but most of this album is very direct and very much in real time,” McKnight explains. “In a way, it forced Alex to deal with his emotions instead of hiding behind them, and that’s something that this record captures more than anything else.”

One of Varkatzas’ main coping methods in the recording process was writing lyrics, which is partially why new tracks like Honor, Can’t Happen Here and first single Becoming the Bull are so fraught with tension and aggression. But while Varkatzas is raging as hard as ever, he’s no longer ranting about getting dumped or betrayed. Instead, he’s addressing larger issues such as war, self-empowerment and the importance of family.

“We are all growing up – we can’t write the songs that we used to, because we are not the same people that we were five years ago,” he said. “We have had fans that time and time again asked us to return to our earlier, much more aggressive days – at the time; those songs reflected us as people. Five years on, we are still the same band, but have evolved as people as well as musicians.”

In addition to maturing as a lyricist, Varkatzas has branched out as a singer. With the help of vocal coach Ron Anderson and an awful lot of persistence, Varkatzas is no longer leaving all the melodic parts up to drummer Brandon Saller. Sure, drummer Brandon Saller’s honey-sweet voice washes through many of the choruses, but Varkatzas has learned to carry a tune as well, and now offers a variety of voices including a more powerful roar ( Can’t Happen Here ), pained croon ( Lead Sails [And a Paper Anchor] ) and Vince Neil-style yowl ( Blow ).

“Truth be told, I was nervous before the album dropped for the reason that change can catch people off guard,” McKnight admitted. “As a band, we wanted to do something different and to live up to our potential, so we worked really hard to write the best songs of our career. My nervousness of this album went away as soon as I realised that these songs are a collection of the best songs Atreyu have ever done.”

“This album isn’t just about guitars, bass, drums and vocals,” McKnight said. “There are strings, opera vocals, hand claps, mandolins, Turkish saz – anything we could think of that seemed cool at the time.”

Contributing to the diversity of the album was producer John Feldmann ( Goldfinger, the Used ), who encouraged Atreyu to push their boundaries and take chances. “He really helped us with our structuring, and figuring out what works and what didn’t, and bringing a different set of ideas to our band than we would normally have,” McKnight said. “But we put in a lot of really long and hard days. He’d make me come up with lyrics on the spot and push me so hard. I would work my ass off and try as hard as I could, and then John would go, ‘You know, that’s good, but you can do better.’ But that pushing helped us all get to new levels on this record.”

In the end, Atreyu created their most diverse and ambitious album to date — a disc that should shatter the metalcore box they’ve been forced into and help earn them a new following that appreciates good, challenging music. At the same time, many of the elements on Lead Sails Paper Anchor are more radio friendly than past excursions.

Although the band is grateful for all the success, it’s the future they’re most looking forward to. “This really feels like a new beginning for us,” states McKnight. “We’re actually at a label that believes in our band and trusts our instincts. So we didn’t hold back anything this time. We wanted to give it everything we had. This is 100 percent Atreyu and that’s what we’ll always be.”

Lead Sails Paper Anchor is out now on RoadRunner Records.