Trivium returned to Carolina Rebellion for the third time this year. The metal veterans are no strangers to the festival, but this time they visited North Carolina with their eighth studio album The Sin and the Sentence in their arsenal. It’s an album that encompasses a sound that the band have been honing over the years and one that still igniting the mosh pits and getting fans rowdy. We spoke with Trivium guitarist Corey Beaulieu about the new record, what he spends his time doing off stage and the NBA Eastern Conference Final between the Celtics and LeBron James.
Another year at Carolina Rebellion. How was the set from up on stage?
“The crowd was going crazy. It was a really energetic show. It was awesome. I feel like we played really well and the crowd responded. It was a great day. We just wanted to go out there and kick everyone’s ass. Carolina Rebellion, it’s about our third time playing it and out of all the festivals in the States, every time we play Carolina Rebellion it’s the most energetic and craziest crowd. It’s something in this area that people just get all rowdy.”
Coming back from Europe, how does your headlining tour compare to these festival gigs?
“We don’t get to play as long. It makes for an easy day because we’re playing about an hour less and we do interviews everywhere. Doing the headlining tour for playing an hour and 45 minutes every night for six and a half weeks, coming to this is a piece of cake. With a shorter set, we try to go as hard as possible for the entire set. There’s a lot of people who maybe have never heard of you and are seeing you for the first time, so you need to make an impression, get people to listen and check your band out. You want to get people to wander over and think, ‘Woah, I’ve never heard this band before, this is really cool! I need to check out a record.’”
Corey Beaulieu of Trivium performing at Carolina Rebellion. Photo by Benjamin Robson.
Now that The Sin And The Sentence has been out for a few months and you’ve been playing the songs on tour, have any of the tracks changed for you? The meaning or how you feel about them?
“Not really. The songs are a lot of fun to play live. When we wrote the record we were playing it all live in our rehearsal space and everything was really fun to play, guitar wise. It’s been great to see the fan response to the record and wanting to hear it played live. When we were in Europe, the new material went over as good or better than the old material so people are catching on to it and embracing album. It’s good feeling when you’re eight records in and fans are excited about hearing a new record live and they know all the words. It’s a good feeling.”
That’s not surprising, I would say you put together your best record yet.
“Yeah, fans are super excited about it. It’s been a long time since it’s been across the board with our fans that are in love with it. A lot of people feel it’s their favorite record or our best record considering that we’re competing with a lot of records that have some history with our fan base. It’s a good feeling to be able to still strike that excitement with our fans that might have been loving a certain record since they got in the band. Definitely motivates us for the next record to try to top this one.”
And the variety in this record is almost encapsulates all of what you’ve done up to this point.
“Yeah, our booking agent in Europe kind of summed it up. The record has only been out for a couple of months, but there’s something to it that has a familiar feel. It feels like you’ve been loving the record for your whole life. There’s a lot of elements that have the vibe of stuff from our old records, but it’s done in a new way that gives the songs a feel that they’re a part of the Trivium history already. Seeing how people react to it and sing all the parts, people have definitely spent some time digesting the material. We try to write a lot of interesting stuff, but also make melodies that people can instantly start singing. It’s cool to see the new stuff right up there with the old stuff that people have been singing for 10 years.”
Matt (Heafy) has his streaming and Jiu Jitsu when not performing. What do you like to do when you’re not on stage?
“I don’t do any of that. I have a basketball game to watch. I have my Celtics hat on. I watch a lot of sports. I’ve been watching a lot of basketball and hockey on the bus. I play a little bit of Xbox, but not enough to care to stream. I’ll play on my own and watch sports, play guitar, write music.”
Can the Celtics beat LeBron?
“I don’t know. It’s pretty impressive we’re down three of our top players. It’s cool. It’s the New England way. The Patriots are the same where it’s next man up. We play as a team and they’ve been doing well. I though with no Kyrie Irving and when Hayward went down and Brown, I thought with the power the 76ers had it would be tough. Someone keeps popping up and making it happen. LeBron beat the Raptors by himself. I think the Celtics-Cavs is what I’ve always been predicting. I play 2K and play on the Celtics and had to play LeBron.”
It’s too bad so many Celtics went down because the series would’ve been ever better?
“Especially with the dynamic of Kyrie leaving. I think the team still has enough good players to pull it off.”
