Paragon Music Mag: Trivium is comprised of a group of fairly young musicians. Has the band’s age hindered or helped the progress of the band in any way? 

Corey Beaulieu: No, not really. What benefited us in regards to starting off at a younger age is that it gives us time to grow and progress. With our music, a lot of people are impressed with how good our music is for our age, and really, they hear how the band sounds, and the age isn’t a factor because they consider us a good band that can play music as good as anyone else can. 

PMM: You recently completed the Roadrage Tour. Can you tell me what it was like touring with the likes of SLIPKNOT, DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, FEAR FACTORY, CHIMAIRA? 

CB: Awesome. All the bands we’ve toured with have been really cool, really nice. Especially the bigger bands, like Chimaira, which we’ve toured with for the second time, it really awesome. We’re friends with those guys and they treat us really well. Eveyr band has been really respectful to us and have helped us a lot, so it’s been a really good experience. Going out with those bands, we learned a lot about how to be efficient and professional on tour. 

PMM: You all seem to be pretty dedicated musicians. In fact, you drove from Atlanta to Orlando through Hurricane Charlie. Can you tell me a little bit about that experience, and the motivation that you had to go through with it? 

CB: We had a show to do in our home town, and everyone wanted to go home and relax, see family and girlfriends and whatnot, so it was like, “Let’s go.” And it really wasn’t that bad. Everyone was saying, “don’t come,” but we went and it really wasn’t that bad. It didn’t even seem like there was a hurricane. There wasn’t really anything going on when we drove. The next day, when we drove into the venue, we got to see all the damage that we didn’t see on the drive in. 

PMM: Matt Heafy is the guitarist and lead vocalist in the band. He’s said that Trivium’s goal has always been to be the next METALLICA. How do you guys expect to achieve that goal? 

CB: Working hard like Metallica did. Be road warriors and bring our music to as many people as possible and play anywhere we can. Just work really hard and try to set ourselves apart from all the other bands by doing something different. Bring in more of old Trash mentality to our music and rock it out. Kick a lot of ass. 

PMM: How do you feel the Metal scene’s evolved since the glory days of Metallica? 

CB: It’s a lot cooler. The whole "Nu Metal" thing was kind of a step back, I thought. It wasn’t nearly anything close to the glory days. I think now it’s starting to kick back up. More bands are starting to play, have more musicianship in their music like they did back in the day, and be heavy and aggressive, a lot more musical than the whole Nu Metal thing. I think all the bands now are a lot more influenced by those bands than the Nu Metal bands. It’s definitely got more of an 80’s vibe going on now. 

PMM: Most of you guys can’t even legally drink, which doesn’t really mean that you don’t, but what do you do for fun? 

CB: We drink. ::laughs:: Matt and Paolo are the only ones who aren’t legal to drink. But Travis and I pretty much hang out, have drinks, chill with people, meet fans and stuff, and if we get a chance, we’ll go check something out, like a bar or something ina city that we’re playing in. When we’re not at a show, we’ll watch movies, listen to music, play video games. On tour, it’s kind of hard to really do anything else besides that when you’re in a van. So pretty much, we just kind of chill out a little bit, and once we get to the venue and stuff, we just kinda shoot the shit and hang out with fans and the other bands and try to have a good time while we’re at the show. 

PMM: Can you tell me about the experience writing your recent release on Roadrunner? How does it differ from your first release? 

CB: We had a lot of time to write. We weren’t touring or anything, so we were hanging out writing songs, and we wrote a bunch of songs before we signed to Roadrunner, and when we signed to Roadrunner, we just kept writing. And then we started touring, to test the songs out on the road, and fine-tune the songs and make them the best they could be. It was really cool to not have a label putting pressure on us to write a certain sound, it was just kind of do what you gotta do, write the best you can, make it sound like Trivium. So there was no pressure, so it was really easy to write the record. The difference from the first record is I think all the aspects of what Trivium does from the first record were stepped up and improved upon, trying to make a heavier record, faster record, with a lot of musicianship in it. So we definitely have that going on, and we just kind of made the new record to kind of step up from the last record, and hopefully the next one will be a step up from this one. 

PMM: Are you guys working on something right now? 

CB: Individually, on tour, we’re all just kind of writing riffs here and there, but we haven’t had any time off to rehearse or put together some new tunes because we’re pretty much starting the long haul of nonstop touring. We’re in the limo right now on the way to the airport to fly to Europe. 

PMM: The album’s artwork was created by Paul Romano. How does the artwork on Ascendancy relate to the music of the album? 

CB: The artwork is derived from the title track of the record, and pretty much all we did was we gave Paul a copy of the lyrics and a basic concept, and he just kind of created that. He read the lyrics and got an idea of what we were looking for, and we wanted to be like rising in the sky and stuff like that, so the album artwork kinda relates to us. And the first album, Ember to Inferno, was kind of like the band starting out from nothing and becoming like a little spark, and now we’re making the big jump to the top of the game in the Metal scene, so we’re kind of a band ascending to a new level. 

PMM: What are the goals, as a guitar player, do you aspire to achieve? 

CB: I think one would be to be the biggest band in the world, to be that band like Metallica that just brought Metal to the masses and really inspired the next generation of musicians, to be that band that everyone looks up to and can gain inspiration to do their own thing from, and just be known for writing great songs and be a really good band, just have the respect of everyone that listens to it. Just make an impact so that people know that Trivium put 110% into everything we did. 

PMM: What does Trivium mean to you personally? 

CB: Pretty much everything. Pretty much, my whole life right now, everything we do. Everyone just pretty much eats, sleeps, breathes, lives Trivium fucken 24 hours a day. We put everything we have into the band, everything we do is for the band, so it’s pretty much like our baby. 

PMM: Do you have any plugs for our readers? 

CB: Check out our website, www.trivium.org. If you haven’t heard us, there are videos and MP3s and a lot of other cool stuff that we put up on there. And also, www.roadrunnerrecords.com to find out more info on the band. Definitely check us out