LIVE ‘N LOUD MEETS TRIVIUM
I met with Paolo Gregoletto, Trivium’s bass player on Sunday of Heavy MTL. Trivium are a metal band from Florida, who’s sound draws a lof of inspiration from Iron Maiden and Metallica. Paulo spoke with me about those influences, as well as their tour, and a bomb threat incident in New Mexico.
Erin: So! Welcome to Heavy MTL!
Paulo: Well, thank you!
Erin: How have you been enjoying your day thus far?
Paulo: Good! Its better weather than yesterday, it was very rainy yesterday…
Erin: Oh, you were here yesterday?
Paulo: No, we were in Toronto for Heavy TO. Yeah so we did that, it was a good show, but it was really bad weather… and yeah, we did this festival last year, and what we’re really stoked about besides the show is the catering, there’s like a celebrity chef in, so we’ve been looking forward to this.
Erin: The life!
Paulo: Oh, it’s not this good every day! If it was we’d probably all be really fat.
Erin: Hahaha! Any acts that you plan on catching today?
Paulo: I definitely want to see Slipknot today, we’ve seen ‘em a bunch, but it’s always fun when you get the chance to see them. They’re an amazing band… who else is on today… I’m trying to think…. Overkill! They’re great, I love them, they’re like one of my favorite bands from when I was young, so anytime I can see them I definitely try and go catch them.
Erin: So you guys are basically the fastest rising name in metal right now.
Paulo: Yeah, sort of! We’ve been around for seven years, so it’s been a pretty quick ascent, I guess, but uh, we put a lot of time into it, so you know, it’s great up here in Canada, we’ve been comin’ here for years.
Erin: That’s some serious success. The response to your most recent album, In Waves, has been phenomenal. How does that feel?
Paulo: It’s good! I mean, it’s our fifth album, and the fact that we can be getting new fans off a new album still, it’s pretty rewarding to us, you know, we’re not just a nostalgic band living off of the first the first couple of records, and we just kinda put out whatever, we’re really working on pushing ourselves, and we’re writing our sixth album right now as we tour, so as soon as we finish up, we can get back in the studio, we just try to push ourselves to top each record.
Erin: Awesome! So, your shows are progressively filling up larger and larger venues. Do you ever get nervous at all?
Paulo: No, not really! Like, we’re really well rehearsed, and since Nick’s joined the band, we’ve become like, so much tighter, we can pull a song out, and put it in the set, if we haven’t played it in months, and it’ll just be like… as tight as it was the last time we played it. I think it’s just that everyone is really on top of their own instrument, we just have a really good chemistry live now, that makes us really tight.
Erin: Awesome! Well you guys have been touring for the past little while right now, what have been some of the highlights of your tour?
Paulo: Some of the big festivals like Wacken last year, and Download this past summer, those are some pretty special shows, but I mean like, every tour that we’ve done, it’s been a very diverse year, we’ve toured with Dream Theater, In Flames, we’re out with Five Finger Death Punch right now, uh, just a lot of just, different bands, and it’s been a lot of fun, because every tour has been a little unique.
Erin: Yeah, that sounds like a blast! I heard something about a bomb threat in New Mexico? For real?
Paulo: Oh yeah, on the In Flames tour, yeah. It wasn’t like, a legit bomb, but someone called it in, and you know, you gotta take it seriously, and it cut In Flames’ last song, so yeah…
Erin: Oh wow, I bet a lot of people were pissed about that
Paulo: Yeah, they were bummed.
Erin: I’d say! Who would you say are your biggest musical influences?
Paulo: Hmm, still my favorite bands are Metallica and Iron Maiden, uh, but I guess, musically, we’re all so broad with all the stuff that we’re into, so I don’t think those two bands sum up what make the Trivium sound, but, those two bands in my opinion are the best heavy metal bands of all time. They just put off such incredible shows, still to this day, it kind of, you know, the bar that we strive to achieve is to be as good as those guys when we’re that age, to make it to that point…
Erin: Yeah! Well, that’s honestly what attracted me to your sound at first, I’m a huge Iron Maiden fan, and when I first heard you guys, and when I first had a listen, I could really hear a lot of Maiden in that sound. So awesome.
Paulo: Yeah definitely! Well that’s kind of the thing with us, it’s a lot of balancing the melody with the heaviness, and we always try to keep that in there.
Erin: Where did you get your musical training?
Paulo: Uh, it was all just lessons with local instructors, and just stuff I taught myself, no formal schools, or anything.
Erin: Oh wow, cool! So, uh, Trivium has undergone several lineup changes since the beginning. Explain how that process works for you guys?
Paulo: Well there were no real lineup changes before Nick, for me, and before that, I was the last one to join the band, so, that was a bit in the beginning. That wasn’t as hard, to integrate in, and with Nick, it was in the middle of the tour, and we were doing the US tour, and Travis left, Nick came in and rehearsed for twelve days and was in the band jamming with us, playing another US tour. It’s just that it happened right away, and if there was anything that didn’t go right, it would have been disastrous, and it really just saved our band, we just kept going, and it’s been about two and a half to three years now, and he’s integrated very well into the band, and he’s got an album under his belt with us now, so yeah. It’s very solid right now.
Erin: Well that’s great to hear! So you said that you guys are currently working on a new album, right?
Paulo: Yeah!
Erin: So what can we expect with that?
Paulo: We’re still trying to like… get the vibe of what we want to do yet, we want to like… pick up where In Waves left off, it’s just going to be a little bit heavier and just top what we have done!
Erin: Ha ha, well that might be hard to do!
Paulo: Ha! Yeah, that’s why we started off early!
Erin: Ha! Well, that’s all the questions that I have right now, do you have any words of wisdom?
Paulo: Um, I just want to thank anybody that’s supported us for the last six or seven years, or whether you got into us this week, this month, or here at Heavy MTL, we just wanna thank you all very much for the support, we love it!
Erin: Awesome, thank you so much for your time today!
Paulo: Well, thank you!
Click below to find out more about Trivium!
Category: Interviews
