The guys from Trivium were asked by Metal Injection to single out their least favorite song in their own catalog. You can check out their replies below, along with a few other questions (transcribed by UG).
Paolo Gregoletto (bass): I’d probably go with ‘The Rising.’
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That was sort of like a last minute thing when we were doing [2006’s] ‘The Crusade,’ and what pisses me off about the song is that it kicked off another song that I liked way more – ‘Broken One.’
“We were in a weird point. I think when we had song ‘Anthem’ written for ‘The Crusade,’ I remember we were kinda talking and I was really excited about the song.
“And I think there was maybe a suggestion about, ‘Hey, try something like ‘Anthem,’ maybe get another song like that.’ It really wasn’t cohesive idea of what the record was gonna be. It was a follow-up to something that we never had to follow-up.”
Matt Heafy (guitar/vocals): “That record taught us a lot. It taught a lot of things things. We actually went through and realized, ‘Let’s not do that again.’
“Like writing during ‘writing time.’ Like having a set amount of time we’re allowed to write, and a set amount of time we had to go to the studio.
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“That’s what ‘The Crusade’ was, during a very dysfunctional point of our band. There are several songs that feel are kind of incomplete. I might go with ‘The Rising’ as well.”
Corey Beaulieu (guitar): “The ideas were there, but I think we didn’t have enough time to fully realize the songs. So listening to song was like, ‘Yeah, we shouldn’t have done that,’ or, ‘If we had more time it probably wouldn’t have ended up that way.'”
What’s your favorite song off the new album?
Matt Heafy: “For me right now it’s ‘Betrayer.’ If there’s a why, looking back at such a mixture of a broad range of influences of musical styles we love so much, from metal but also outside of metal, and I feel that we never had a song that’s as wide in scope of influence in one.”
Alex Bent (drums): “Probably ‘Beyond Oblivion’ because it’s fast, it’s brutal, and it’s just so meat and potatoes. It’s right to the point.”
Corey Beaulieu: “It’s just a really intense song, especially with Alex’s drumming being pretty teched out and crazy. It’s something people have never heard us with that element in a song before.”
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What’s the most difficult song you ever had to track?
Paolo: “Definitely ‘[Like] Callisto [to a Star in Heaven]’ on ‘Shogun’ – that was a tricky one.”
Corey: “I think any difficulties in the studio are from ‘Shogun.'”
Matt: “What was the song that I had to take a break on? ‘Callisto.'”
Paolo: “That was probably the hardest one to track and most frustrating.”
Matt: “It’s always a Corey riff. Corey writes some weird riffs sometimes. There’s at least a Corey or five on every record that’s really difficult to play.”
Paolo: “On the new record there’s definitely technical stuff that was tough to play, but we played it so much that we made sure everyone felt right to play, whereas on ‘Shogun’ we were still at that point where we’re kind of like…
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“We weren’t as mindful. ‘Oh we actually have to play this stuff.’ And sometimes you can alter things to make it a little bit more playable, and maybe even more musical and better.
“That riff was just really tricky because it moves in this werd pattern. I remember Matt and Nick [Raskulinecz], the producer, ave gotten into an argument about it. But it got done and it sounds great.”
Matt: “I kept trying ti and it just kept getting worse. It was like ‘Give me five minutes.’ And I left the studio and I came back and I came back and he was having Corey track it instead.”