Metal in the US is at a crossroads. When we emerged, metal was on the rise, and now there are many fragmented heavy metal scenes

Paolo Gregoletto: Hello?

Wikimetal (Daniel Dystyler): Hello, Paolo, can you hear us?

PG: Yes, I can hear it now.

W (DD): I think we fixed the problem, it was on our end. How are you?

PG: I'm doing great, how are you?

W (DD): Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to talk. It's an honor to have Paolo here at Wikimetal. I'm here with Nando, who is another Wikimetal presenter.

W (Nando Machado): Everything alright, Paolo?

PG: How are you doing, man?

W (NM): Well, well. Just to start, what do you think of the metal scene in the US today? Is it fair to say that it's one of the best times ever for metal in the United States, with the huge commercial success of bands like Disturbed, Lamb of God, and Trivium?

PG: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think metal in the US is kind of at a crossroads. When we came out, in 2004, 2005, I think metal was kind of on the rise, there was a definite resurgence. And if you think about it nowadays, I think there are a lot of metal bands because of that, but I think there are a lot of fragmented heavy metal scenes now, it's a… It's another phase, I think. There's a lot of heavy metal, but I don't know, it's a mutation, for example, if you go to the Warped Tour now, you see… There's a kind of Warped Tour metal. And then if you go to Mayhem, there are bands like us, doing what we do. And then, besides that, there's a whole underground metal world, so it's kind of like, there's a lot going on, but there isn't a big unified metal scene like there was in 2005, 2006, and even in 2007, when, I don't know, there was a big resurgence of this New Wave of American Heavy Metal, I guess you could call it that.

W (NM): I was going to ask you about that, do you think there is a New Wave of American Heavy Metal?

PG: I don't know, I mean, it's not like… If it exists, there are a lot of bands that don't believe there's anything unified at the moment, and I think at the time we came out, there were so many bands emerging from the United States that were making their mark on the rest of the world, you know, so we're very lucky to be a part of that. I think, you know, bands like Killswitch, Lamb of God, and, you know, countless others that emerged at Ozzfest in 2004, 2005, on the secondary stage, it was kind of… It was that movement, which a lot of bands were participating in, and I think the interest in international metal was at its peak at that point, you know, a lot of people were definitely citing a lot of the Gothenburg bands, and a lot of, you know, international bands as their influences, and I think now there's kind of… There are so many bands, I don't think there's a group of bands that are doing the same thing, like what happened from 2004 to 2007.

 

The first guys who really sparked my interest in bass were Cliff Burton, Jason Newsted, and Steve Harris. Then came heavier music; Alex Webster, Steve DiGiorgio, DD from Overkill

W (DD): Great, Paolo. And what was the importance of having Colin Richardson producing "In Waves" and not just mixing it?

PG: I think it was, after all these years working with him, you know, I know he wanted to work with us on “Shogun,” but we stuck with Nick Raskulinecz at the time, and I think it was kind of a natural thing, it was meant to happen. He’s always been a fan of the band, and we’ve always been fans not only of his production work, but of his mixing as well. And it made sense for us to finally have him not only mixing our album, but producing it. And it was an incredible process for us, it was kind of… almost a fresh start for the band, because we brought Nick into the band, it was a new situation, and I think Colin’s technical skills, as well as the way he does production, along with Ginge, Ginge Ford, and Carl Bown, who also worked with us, it was the right team for us at that moment.

W (NM): Great. And is it true that Colin said you're probably the best bass player he's ever worked with?

PG: Yeah, he said that, that I… I was kind of surprised that he said that, I mean, he's worked with incredible bands, and the only guy that comes to mind, who I think far surpasses my technical ability, is Alex Webster from Cannibal Corpse, you know, he's worked with them, so… I mean, for him to say that is a great honor. I'm very prepared when it comes to recording my bass parts in the studio, I practice a lot beforehand, and when I'm there I like things to be natural, instead of, you know, being kind of nervous, not being sure if I'm going to be able to do a part. I like knowing that everything will be smooth. So when I went to the studio, things went very fast, and I don't think they had worked with anyone who works as fast as me.

W (DD): And speaking of that, back in the day, who were your all-time favorite bass players, the ones who inspired you to pursue this career?

PG: Well, the first guys who really sparked my interest in bass in heavy metal were Cliff Burton, Jason Newsted, Steve Harris… Then I started to get into heavier music, Alex Webster, Steve DiGiorgio, a lot of guys, DD from Overkill… I mean, there are so many guys I could list for this… It just so happened that I was introduced to a lot of these old-school metal artists through the people who were teaching me to play bass at the time. And I also had some friends who were into the same thing as me, and back then nobody was listening to that kind of thing. Or at least, they didn't openly admit, "Yeah, I like this." It was more, I think, the peak of new metal in the United States at the time, so it was a coincidence that I met other open-minded people who kind of showed me, you know, what came before, what was popular in the '90s. And that kind of influenced how I played my bass, and I stuck to what I wanted to play. I mean, the first local band I was in, which was basically the only local band I was in for five or six years, played kind of… You know, it was somewhere in between classic metal, thrash, a little bit of death, and that's what I was into at the time. But a lot of people told me, “Oh, this will never work, because people don’t listen to this anymore, nobody likes this style, it’s not popular, it’s not what sells,” and I always disregarded that. And when I finally joined Trivium, it was insane. Not only were all these bands starting to play this style of music again, you know, obviously a little different, but I found three other guys who liked the same styles of music, and who even introduced me to new things that I had never heard before. And you know, it was by coincidence that I ended up liking these older things, I think, that created the basis of what we do today.

W (NM): And tell me… This is the first album that included the new drummer, Nick Augusto. How has this changed the band's sound, and how have Trivium fans accepted the new band member?

PG: Well, I think with “In Waves,” you know, it was such a great experience being in the studio with Nick. He’s a phenomenal drummer, very fast, he always has a lot of ideas, not only for his parts, but also ideas he suggests to us, you know, about parts of the songs. It’s great to have a fourth member who is proactive and really enjoys what he does. And I think what he improved most in Trivium was the live aspect; the band became much more cohesive. He’s always on top of that, and when people ask us, you know, “Do you play with a click track?” we say, “No, we don’t play with anything, we just plug everything in and play.” And that’s the biggest compliment to us, that people ask if we play with backing tracks, or you know, with a metronome. Because that really stems from Nick being a very solid drummer, and when you have someone behind you keeping the time well and playing their part well, it enhances the rest of the band, and it becomes much easier to play better live. And regarding the music with Nick, I think we're still evolving with him. I mean, we've written about 10 or 12 demos, and I can already say that Nick has a much better idea of ​​what he wants to do with his parts and what he wants to put on the album, whereas with "In Waves," it was still kind of a discovery of, you know, having a new member in the band, and also for us, a rediscovery of, not only do we have this guy doing so much, but where do we go from here? What elements will we add to our band that we've never been able to do before? It was kind of an experiment. Now I think we really figured out what Trivium's sound is in 2012. So we're moving forward with new things, and I'm really excited to go rehearse and hear these demos come to life.

“Master of Puppets” is my all-time favorite song, my all-time favorite album, it’s perfect.”

W (NM): And I imagine you played a significant role in inviting him to join the band. You probably had a personal relationship with him before, because he was the drum tech, but you, especially, you played with him in a band before Trivium, right?

PG: Yeah, I mean, I've known Nick since I was six years old, and we played together in our first real band when we were 13. And I knew Nick was a phenomenal drummer, and I asked everyone to give him a chance, to give a chance to someone they didn't know to play with us, I mean, it definitely… It could have gone very wrong, because he had to learn the songs in 12 days, and come on tour with us, but, you know, he was very reliable, and we'll always be grateful that he could do that for us, and it really… It saved the band. We needed something like that to happen to us, to move Trivium forward, and to get us out of the rut we were in, not just as a band, but as friends, musically, everything around us was in a strange place at that moment, and Nick really helped save the day.

W (DD): Hey Paolo, we have a classic question on our show that we ask everyone we interview: imagine you're listening to your iPod on shuffle, or listening to a rock station on the radio in your car, and suddenly a song starts playing that you can't contain yourself, you can't control yourself, you need to headbang immediately, wherever you are, you can't stop. What song is that, so we can listen to it on our show now?

PG: Ah, that song would definitely be “Master of Puppets.” That’s my all-time favorite song, my all-time favorite album, it’s perfect. I don’t know how… I don’t know, any time that song starts playing at a club, or at a show, I mean, it has this special thing that made that album a classic. And that song is epic. You know, even though it’s eight minutes long, it feels like the song flies by when it starts, and it has incredible riffs, so that’s definitely the song that I would say I can’t control myself from, I start headbanging immediately.

W (DD): So that was “Master of Puppets” by Metallica, and if I'm not mistaken, you guys have already done a live cover of that song, right?

PG: Yes, actually we did a cover… It was on a tribute album for…

W (DD): Yes, that's right.

PG: It was for Kerrang!, and, you know, when we had the chance to do it, we said, “We’re definitely going to do Master of Puppets,” it’s such a special song for all of us. And you know, we didn’t want to deviate from the structure of the song, so what we did was try to replicate the song as closely as possible. And that was our tribute to it, it’s such a perfect song, there’s no way to deviate from what was done to make it better. It’s a perfect song, and we did our best to pay tribute to it, and it was an honor to do that. And, you know, the fact that the guys got to hear the song and were genuinely impressed with it is the biggest compliment, you know. That’s something few people can say they’ve experienced, doing a cover of their favorite band, and, you know, hearing feedback from them.

W (NM): Speaking about your cover of Sepultura's "Slave New World," what do you think of Sepultura, and how important do you think these Brazilians are to metal in general?

PG: Honestly, Sepultura is one of my favorite bands, and the thing I love about them, and one of the things I think is missing in music today is, you know… Sepultura really reached their musical peak with “Chaos AD,” and they really infused their thrash sound with a groove behind it. I think that’s something I miss now, when I sometimes listen to some modern metal albums. You don’t feel… I mean, nowadays, obviously, things are incredible, probably some of the best musicians who ever lived are playing in heavy metal bands now. But there's this groove and this attitude in their music that's not the same thing, you know, there's this thing that this band had at that specific moment, and I think "Chaos AD" is an album I always go back to, you know, kind of… You know, when I'm writing music, if I listen to this, it deletes what I'm thinking, it takes away all the technique that sometimes, as a musician, you overwrite sometimes, you're writing riffs, and it all gets so technical, and the parts get so fast, and if you listen to an album like this, it almost brings you back, you think "Wow," this is… Some of these riffs are very simple, but it's not that they were playing them to appeal to a larger audience, it's that there's space and there's groove behind them, and that made things sound much heavier and much bigger. I love Sepultura's early albums, and I know that Corey and Nick, particularly I think, prefer their more thrash albums, but for me it's always been, you know, "Chaos AD," "Roots"... They have this special quality that few bands have had since then.

We know when to stop a show. If you see someone getting hurt, it's better to stop the show and restart the music when everyone is okay, than to let someone get hurt.”

W (DD): And let me tell you this, which is kind of funny, we have a young couple of listeners who are big fans of yours. And they both got the same tattoo, which is the number 8, as the infinity symbol, the number 8 representing the day Trivium will play here in Brazil, and they wrote “In Waves” inside it.

PG: That's fantastic.

W (DD): So I'm going to ask you, how is it for you at Trivium to deal with the responsibility of influencing people around the world, especially young people, the younger generation?

PG: You know, it's a huge responsibility, because we deal with so many things being part of a band, I mean… You know, first of all, you always want to stay true to the music, but there are always these things like, you know, getting bigger, or starting to make money, that kind of get in the way of that artistic purity, I think, where you're not affected by it. Especially in the beginning, that's what, I think, makes some bands great right away, when they make their first two albums. And we realized that, you know, what we do matters for the future. If you make an album to make quick money, you know, maybe that's good for the moment, but in the long run, it's not going to help, you know, those young people who admire you, you know, it's almost a disappointment. And I'd rather not disappoint a lot of young people who are playing music now, or disappoint them by making an album that's purely about getting bigger and making a lot of money. There's so much more to it than that. You always have to maintain that balance, you know, when your band gets bigger, there are other things that come into play besides the music. But in terms of playing music, you know, I've always preferred heavy metal, you know, I didn't get involved with pop music because… You know, I don't see music for its monetary value. If I wanted to play music to, you know, make easy money, then maybe I'd write a Nashville song, but I wouldn't feel satisfied with that, I never wanted to make music for that reason. So there's a responsibility you have to maintain, you have to write good riffs, you have to write songs that mean something, you know, sometimes you have to do what feels right to you, and not what will look best so you get radio play, or, I don't know, sell to the masses. I mean, I think if you make amazing music, all those things will come, and I've always said that about great artists. You know, many of the best bands that have survived, regardless of genre, did so because they were true to their musical abilities and their lyrics, and that's a very important thing for Trivium.

W (DD): I was listening to another heavy metal program that airs in the United States and Canada, and they were telling a story that I'd like to ask you about, because it's really good. They said that at one show, people were pushing each other in the front rows, and there was a girl who, I don't know if she was pushed or if she got hurt, and you stopped playing, you took your bass and jumped off the stage to try to help, to see what was happening. Do you remember that, and can you share that memory of that show?

PG: I can't remember the specific show, but I know it's happened before, not just me, you know, whether it's me, or Matt, or someone else in the band, you know, we definitely know when to stop a show. You know, you don't want to miss the moment, but sometimes it's your responsibility, since you're kind of controlling the audience at that moment, to calm things down, and if someone is hurt, or if you see someone getting hurt, it's better to stop the show and restart the song when everyone is okay, than to let someone get hurt.

W (NM): Thank you very much, Paolo, it was a true honor to speak with you, and we look forward to seeing you here in Brazil.

PG: Yes, man, thank you.

W (DD): Thank you very much, Paolo, and count on Wikimetal to promote everything you or Trivium do in the future, we will always be there promoting the excellent work you do defending metal.

PG: Thanks, man. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

W (DD): Thank you, bye!

PG: Take care!

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