Lamb Of God

Thu 12th Feb, 2009 in Features

Metal powerhouse Lamb Of God is getting ready to unleash its Wrath on Soundwave Festival. Vocalist Randy Blythe chats to FL about the forthcoming album, his love affair with Australia and why being an arsehole gets you nowhere.

Your new album Wrath is out 24 February, and John Campbell [bassist for Lamb of God] said that the album is “thematically” similar to Sacrament, and that it’s more melodic. Listening to Contractor and Set To Fail; it has some similarities to previous Lamb of God albums. Is that what you were aiming for?
To be completely contrary, I don’t think it’s thematically similar. But of course, I’m coming from the point of view of the guy who writes the lyrics. He’s talking about the music. Of course it’s similar, ‘cause it’s Lamb Of God. But I don’t think that really thematically it’s that similar at all. Musically or lyrically I definitely wasn’t aiming to do the same things. I like doing different things every time.

Lyrically, on Sacrament you’ve said you struggled with it; coming up with new material. How was the writing process for Wrath?
It was a lot easier. This record, there’s personal stuff but there’s more social commentary, more political stuff. It was a lot easier on me, much more methodic and focused writing. I had my man cave actually built out in the backyard. And every day I came out here and worked very methodically and meticulously on the lyrics, instead of kind of gutting them out as I did on the last record.

You know, when we were doing Sacrament I was under a lot of stress with personal shit in my life. Also that record we made a very conscious decision to make a very personal record. So everything was coming from within; we never write happy music, I guess. It was all looking at the negative aspects of my own personality at times. Not all the songs are about me, but there was a lot of introspection on the record and that can be hard.

I think it’s good, not just for dudes with bands, but I think it’s good for everyone to think about their fault, their character defects and to try and work on them; it improves you as a person. I get psychically very immersed in what I’m writing, so if I’m writing about bad shit that’s within my life, that’s what I think about for months on end.

When you begin the Wrath tour, what countries are you looking forward to coming back to most?
I’ve had a good time in every country I’ve toured at, but there are a few that I’m not looking forward to going back to. Even though it’s kinda sooner than I thought we’d be touring, I’m really looking forward to it ‘cause we’re going to a bunch of my favourite countries – Scotland, Ireland [and] Japan (which I fucking love). Our favourite country to tour, no shit, besides the States is Australia. That’s not bullshit; you can ask anyone in the band. We fucking love Australia. We got some great mates, the crowds are nuts – I don’t know what’s wrong with you people! It’s fucking awesome. You have beautiful women, everybody’s cool, everybody likes to party. It’s like being at the beach all the time. When we left the first time, we actually said, “Can we move here?”

You’re coming Australia to headline the metal stage at Soundwave. Will we be hearing some tracks from Wrath? What do you think about the other bands that you’re playing alongside, like Devildriver and Nine Inch Nails?
Yes, definitely [there’ll be songs from Wrath. I’ve never been a Nine Inch Nails fan. I don’t know, As far as industrial music goes, I like older shit. But I am pissed that I’m not going to see [the NIN] show; they’re on the same time as us. I heard they put on an incredible show. Devildriver of course are great mates; we’ve toured around the world with them before. We’re looking forward to chilling with our boys Unearth and also looking forward to Maylene and the Sons of Disaster. Also, seeing a band called Face To Face. I’ve never seen them so I’m pretty psyched – œbout it.

In the DVD Walk With Me In Hell you were told you run around the block to get you fired up and angry, and it had a big effect on some vocals. Did you have any another crazy techniques that you used during the making of Wrath?
Not this time! The difference between Sacrament and this record is that I learnt a lot from working with Machine. He taught me a lot about the recording process, and how to and get into a certain mind state and get certain things out of yourself. So I took that over to recording this time and captured that knowledge of what I would do more naturally this time. But I let our producer know: there will be no calisthenics!

How does a band that’s been around for 18 or so years stop from selling out, from becoming another generic, repetitive, metal band and stay at the top?
I don’t know if we are on the top, whatever. We try not to think about that too much, about our status. But we try to think what we thought about when we started the band. Ultimately we play music that the five dudes from Lamb of God want to hear. We love our fans, we love touring – it’s great. But we really do this for five dudes.

Another thing to keep in mind is, watch the other people around you. [Some people who] start getting a bit of notoriety turn into arseholes, and they think they’re hot shit. I mean maybe we were already arseholes, but we try not to add any more arsehole-ish-ness to ourselves. Everybody’s just a person, doesn’t matter. Everybody gets up and takes a shit; everyone goes to sleep at night.

After all your achievements, what else do you hope is in store for Lamb of God?
Really, we just wanna make good music. I hope that we continue on the path we’re on. As far as the band goals, I want to tour every country I’ve never been too. I’d be happy if we played at every single country on the planet. I love travelling. Some of the guys prefer the studio. I fucking hate the studio – I’d rather be out there rocking – œn rolling in Australia or wherever. For me really it’s about making good music and going places I’ve never been, meeting cool people and learning about other cultures.

Lamb Of God headline Soundwave Festival around the country. They’ll also play sideshows in Sydney and Melbourne.

Sat 21 Feb – RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
Sun 22 Feb – Eastern Creek Raceway, Sydney
Monday 23 Feb – The Forum, Sydney
Tuesday 24 Feb – Billboard, Melbourne
Fri 27 Feb – Melbourne Showgrounds, Melbourne
Sat 28 Feb – Bonython Park, Adelaide
Mon 2 March – Steel Blue Oval, Bassendean, Perth