In just a few short years, Richmond, VA’s Lamb of God has risen from the far reaches of the underground to the forefront of the new breed of metal that is fixing to bust wide open. The band’s brand new third album, Ashes of the Wake, cracked the Top 30 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, selling 35,000-plus copies in the week following its Aug. 31 release. An impressive debut, to be sure, and one that would have been downright astonishing had not the band’s Terror & Hubris DVD opened at #32 on the Billboard video chart earlier this year, setting the stage for what was to come.
After two albums with Prosthetic/Metal Blade, Ashes was issued through the giant Epic Records, a label who’s track record with extreme bands is hardly stellar — as Kreator and Cradle of Filth can attest to — but which at least keeps trying. Looks like this time they have a winner. And thanks to another unlikely mainstream ally, MTV2 and the resurrected Headbangers Ball, Lamb of God — and a host of other heavyweights, from Killswitch Engage and Shadows Fall to Dimmu Borgir and even Deicide — are getting a chance to be seen and heard by a whole new audience, instead of merely preaching to the converted on the underground club circuit.
Not that the club circuit hasn’t helped Lamb of God immensely along the way. After swapping monikers from the Burn The Priest to the provocative, but less inflammatory, Lamb of God, the quintet of college buddies toured ceaselessly behind 2000’s New American Gospel and 2002’s As the Palaces Burn. And it was during tough slogs with everyone from Gwar and Amen to Cannibal Corpse and Six Feet Under that people began to take notice of Lamb of God’s quirky thrash metal histrionics.
With frontman Randy Blythe leading the charge with his attack dog presence, ominous lyrics and flame-throwing voice that is equal parts Cookie Monster growl and hardcore bellow, Lamb of God certainly was hard to ignore. And when matched with bandmates’ Willie and Chris Adler, Mark Morton and John Campbell’s equally ferocious performance and deft blend of dexterity and raw power, the band proved to be a most formidable and versatile act.
Lamb of God headlined MTV2’s ‘Headbangers Ball’ tour in 2003 and was invited to be a second stage act on this summer’s recently concluded Ozzfest. Despite having to hustle to finish Ashes before joining Ozzfest, Lamb of God was able to triumph on both accounts, producing what can honestly be described as a “hit” album and stealing a lot of the Ozzfest thunder from much more established acts.
Phoning in during the midst of Ozzfest from Buffalo, N.Y., Randy Blythe offered the following on his band’s emergence from Nowheresville, metal’s new champions and the infamous “The Wall of Death.”
KNAC.COM: Is this a show night in Buffalo, or a day off?
RANDY BLYTHE: There are no days off on this tour (laughs). The show we’re playing tonight is with [Ozzfest second stage mates] Every Time I Die, Unearth and Atreyu. It’s Every Time I Die’s hometown, so I think it’s going to be a pretty big show, I think.
KNAC.COM: How have the “Off-Fest” shows been going, have you been getting big crowds?
BLYTHE: Oh yeah, most of them are selling out. I think the smallest we played was like 600 to like 2,300 people.
KNAC.COM: Did you just get the record done and get out there?
BLYTHE: Yeah. The first night of the tour we did a show in [Richmond] Virginia at this place called Alley Katz with our friends RPG and Byzantine, it was like a warm up show. And right after than we left directly and hopped right on the tour.
It was really tight scheduling, but somehow it’s worked out okay. Things have been going really, really well, and when we get back I’m going to be home for two days and then I’m going to England with my girlfriend for like 10 days just to relax, be with her a little bit, then we’ll get back and we’ll hit the road again.
KNAC.COM: I keep reading about “The Wall of Death,” which seems to be the talk of Ozzfest.
BLYTHE: Well it was early on. But someone at Clear Channel or something, from insurance, saw it online and contacted Sharon Osbourne and said, “those guys are maniacs they can’t be doing that anymore (laughs).” They were saying it’s way too much of an insurance risk. We haven’t really been doing it that much at all because people have been getting severely injured.
It’s really cool and the kids yell for it every day, it’s like “Wall of Death! Wall of Death!” We like everyone to be rowdy, and a good violent crowd is always a good time at a metal show, but we don’t want anyone to get hurt. That’s not what we’re about, you know. So we kinda laid off on that.
KNAC.COM: I saw that same clip online, and I could see where they might be worried about the insurance risk. It looked like the crowd at the last Woodstock right before they started destroying everything.
BLYTHE: It’s pretty intense when you do that and you’re standing there in front of 6,000 people and you look out and see them just destroying each other. You’re like, ‘Holy crap, I made that happen.’ (Laughs)
KNAC.COM: Has the Ozzfest experience been worth it for you?
BLYTHE: It’s been really awesome, it’s done great things for our record sales. And the whole thing is we already knew all of the bands on the second stage. We had either toured with them or played shows with them and we were already all friends, everyone knew everyone and the people we didn’t know — and there were only two or three bands we didn’t really know — we’ve all become really good friends. So it’s like a big, retarded, beer-soaked summer camp for the family. It’s a lot of fun.
KNAC.COM: The new record’s coming out at the perfect time, right when Ozzfest is wrapping up.
BLYTHE: Right. I believe the last Ozzfest date is the 4th of September and our record comes out the 31st of August. It’ll be a good time. The new Revolver just came out and we got the cover of that, big article in there. We’re getting a lot of press right now, so hopefully it’ll help pay the bills (laughs).
KNAC.COM: Have you been playing any new material?
BLYTHE: On the Ozzfest dates we only have 30 minutes, so we play like seven or eight songs and power through them. We play one new song called “Laid To Rest,” the video of that just premiered last Saturday on Headbangers Ball. On the Off-fest dates we’re playing “Laid to Rest” and another one called “The Faded Line.” Then, in the fall, since the record will be out, we’ll throw in a lot more new material.
KNAC.COM: I just saw something about a tour with you guys and Fear Factory?
BLYTHE: Yeah, that’s what I hear. I heard it’s Fear Factory, Children of Bodom, Throwdown and us. It’s pretty much confirmed, but I can’t say 100 percent. But that will start in October.
KNAC.COM: With the rush to get the album out and go on tour, was there enough time to do the album the way you wanted to do it? Are you happy with the way it turned out?
BLYTHE: You know every band always says, ‘Oh, our record is the best record we’ve done so far.’ Because they don’t wanna say ‘Oh, well our last record’s better than our new one.’ But we are all extremely happy with it. Really, it’s the only Lamb of God record I want to listen to at all, I actually enjoy listening to it.
I don’t like listening to our music because I hate hearing my own voice in my head and we play these songs so much, it’s like, ‘God I want to go chill out and listen to some Barry White or something.’ The production on it is really awesome, the producer, Machine, did an awesome job. He’s the best guy I’ve ever worked with vocally, definitely, he got some really good stuff out of me.
KNAC.COM: What his effect on the rest of the band, the musical side of it?
BLYTHE: I think the big difference on this record, one that I’m very, very pleased about, is you can actually hear the bass. This record is really, really thick. As soon as you put it on, you’ll know it. I think that all of our other records, especially the last one [As The Palaces Burn], sounded kind of thin, there wasn’t enough low end of it, not enough clarity in the bass. I think that is the major musical difference.
He [Machine] didn’t take and twist the riffs or anything, he just got us in there, threw some little quirks of his own into it, but mostly he just let my dudes do their thing and got the best performances out them as he could.
KNAC.COM: Were you working with a dramatically larger budget, or not much more than you had before?
BLYTHE: No, it was a larger budget (laughs). We don’t have to work right now. We all quit our jobs, except for our drummer Chris [Adler], who’s insane and who likes to do a million things at once.
KNAC.COM: What does he do?
BLYTHE: He’s a computer dude. He runs a computer system for the university that we all attended. He started doing computers there at school and eventually started getting paid very well for it. And every time he leaves, he’s like ‘Okay, I’m not gonna leave for a tour again for a while, I promise,’ then he’ll turn around when he gets back and tell him he’s going. And they keep on giving him raises (laughs). It’s like, ‘What’s going on, I need a job like that.’
I think this tour and coming back just for a short amount of time, is going to be the last nail in his working coffin, as it were. He’s going to have to kick back and just do Lamb of God.
KNAC.COM: You guys tour a lot as it is, are you going to be doing more this time?
BLYTHE: I’m pretty much saying goodbye to this year. We recorded the record at home, except for the drums that were recorded in Jersey, it was nice to be at home with our women and families and stuff. And then we hit Ozzfest and stuff keeps on rolling in and rolling in and rolling in, so I’ve pretty much resigned myself to living on the road for the next year or so.
KNAC.COM: How were you guys able to literally come from out of nowhere to be where you are right now?
BLYTHE: The music scene in Richmond is incredible, there’s incredible bands there and they’re all hugely diverse. And it’s influenced us a lot, the local scene. But only a few bands from Richmond, however awesome they have been or are, have bothered to go out and do the work. People in Richmond are more concerned about being the best band they can. Basically they don’t give a crap about getting on a label or touring or anything like that. And there’s really no label or industry in Richmond.
For us, we started getting attention when we started getting a pretty big following in the northern cities, particularly Philadelphia, and industry people kind of saw us there and the ball started rolling. We also got some help from a guy named Jimmy Stewart from MP3.com, he pushed us and we went to No. 1 on that and people started paying attention. It’s like constant work and touring for nothing (laughs) and being broke and eating dirt.
KNAC.COM: The first time I saw you was when you were opening up for Gwar like four years ago at the 9:30 Club [in Washington, D.C.], it might have even been on Halloween.
BLYTHE: It was on Halloween.
KNAC.COM: And you had a broken arm, I think.
BLYTHE: Yes, I had fallen off a roof the fourth day of that tour. Gwar, by the way, those guys helped us out a lot, as well. They’re from Richmond, they’re established. They gave us a chance, took us out, and showed us how to tour and how a real tour works. But yeah, I’d gotten pretty drunk at a party in Ohio and ended up falling off a roof. It sucked. I was on mad amounts of pain pills on tour -- it was the only way to get through it.
KNAC.COM: I’ve seen you guys a couple times since then and you put on a pretty physical show, so to run around in a cast couldn’t have been much fun.
BLYTHE: It sucked. All the blood in my body would rush to where my arm was broken in my wrist and it was like excruciating. I’ve toured with broken ribs, a few other broken things. It sucks, but you gotta do it, you know.
KNAC.COM: Any injuries on this tour?
BLYTHE: Yeah, there was a pretty good wipeout in Dallas. A member of a certain band, which I won’t name, had commandeered one of those Ozzfest golf carts, and had a rope trailing behind it was towing people on skateboards. And I got up to like 30 miles an hour and he made a pretty sharp turn and I did not make the sharp turn (laughs). And I hit the ground pretty hard, so I’ve got a pretty good amount road rash. Nothing’s broken, yet, knock on wood.
KNAC.COM: Before you signed with Epic, did you have other big labels enquiring about you?
BLYTHE: I don’t think they were the only one, but they were the first one. There was some bidding going on and so forth and we just got the right feel from them. They weren’t trying to screw around with us and make us go commercial and they put the right number for us in front of us. And we went with it and it’s been good so far.
Majors don’t usually sign bands like us and our A&R guy, when he met us, before we got signed, he said, “Look, I’m not really interested in this type of music. I don’t want to sign10 or 11 bands like you, I just want to sign the one that I think is the best in this particular genre.” He had been to see us and somebody in his office had brought us to his attention, some intern or something, and it went from there. It’s been all good so far.
KNAC.COM: Epic just had Cradle of Filth, but for only one album.
BLYTHE: I think there was some kind of screw up in the marketing strategy with the Cradle record. I don’t know exactly how it went down, but I know Cradle’s with Roadrunner now.
KNAC.COM: Their album’s coming out a couple weeks after yours is, so there’s going be some good extreme music around this fall, which is nice.
BLYTHE: Yeah, Shadows Fall is putting out their record Sept. 21 I think. Their bass player, we’re really good friends with them, called me and had heard a rumor of our release date and confirmed it with me so that they staggered their release date so we wouldn’t be going head to head with each other. So everyone wins.
KNAC.COM: They’re a lot like you in that they come from an area that’s not really known for its music scene and they went out and worked and worked and built it all themselves.
BLYTHE: That’s what you gotta do. None of us ever really pursued labels. We never were like “Oh we’re gonna go get signed.” It’s that we did it by ourselves for so long that people started paying attention and that’s good.
KNAC.COM: Was there ever any kind of feeding frenzy around you?
BLYTHE: As I recall, before we got signed to Prosthetic, there were quite a few labels coming at us. I believe my drummer or my guitar player (Willie Adler) kept all the contracts, he’s got like five or six contracts sitting on his mantle. I try not to pay too much attention to the music business aspect of things because it bums me out, it’s such a crappy business, it’s so cutthroat. You never know what’s going on in these peoples’ minds because they want to make money.
KNAC.COM: Does Epic seem to have a fairly decent marketing strategy for you?
BLYTHE: For this tour, I’ve met a lot of our college reps and different Sony employees across the country and they all seem to say -- I know it’s probably their jobs to say this, but -- Epic seems to place a pretty high priority on this record because right now, the music scene is at a state where our type of music is starting to blow up. And I think they want to strike first and kinda get their foot in the door with it.
From what I understand they have a really good marketing strategy for us, but once again, as I was saying, I don’t pay too much attention to that stuff. I don’t really care how many records we sell, I don’t really give a shit because we don’t make this music to impress anyone. We’re lucky enough to do this for a living now, but that was never the focus, the focus was always the five of us sitting around and writing the tunes that we wanted to write and playing them. That’s how it is. And if things don’t go well with a major, oh well, we’ll still be playing music.
(Photos by Sefany Jones/ KNAC.COM)
