PunkTV.ca exclusive interview by Dixon Christie with Matt Heafy of Trivium in support of The Crusade.

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Dixon: I'm just about to talk to Matt Heafy from Trivium. Hey Matt, how are you doing?

Matt: Good man.

Where are you guys today?

Today we are in Toronto at the Molson Amphitheatre.

Oh nice and obviously this is still part of the Family Values Tour, how is that going?

It is excellent. We already played today so it was an amazing show. We get to play in front of a lot of people who wouldn't have normally wouldn't have even got a chance to hear who we are so we have been able to play in front of a lot of new fans and a lot of fans that come out that know us already so it's good times.

Isn't it amazing that there could be so much metal that people that are into Evanescence and Korn may not hear of a band like you guys that are headlining in stadiums in Europe.

Exactly, it's a very good outlet for all the bands on this tour that wouldn't often be able to be heard. I guess most of the bands after us are all on the radio already so we are going about it the other way which is just playing in front of people and showing them what we do live.

Last time we talked was here in Alberta. You guys were in town for Sounds of the Underground. Have you guys been touring non-stop since then?

We have literally been on tour since April 2004.

Holy smokes.

So kind of 3 and a half years and we just had our first ever 6 and a half weeks off right before Family Values but we pretty much have been on tour since April 04. We've had like a week here or 2 weeks there and a month here but never anything longer than that.

Is it getting tiring?

No the 6 and a half weeks rejuvenated so we are just destroying people now because we are pretty rested up.

Did you do any practicing? I know kids are always wondering if you guys are practicing on the road?

Well I do recommend it if a band takes off a lot of time but since we've been on the road so much we only did like 3 rehearsal days as a band then we did 2 warm up shows then we went to Family Values. So I guess technically we only did warm up shows and just 3 practice rehearsals. We practice a little bit here and there but not so much. If we took a year off then we would have to practice a lot.

Last time we chatted about how much you were looking forward to playing with Iron Maiden over in Europe. How did that go down?

That was a dream come true. It was about 6 and a half weeks sold out with one of the greatest metal bands of all time so it was the shit. Iron Maiden fans were absolutely incredible to us and it was a great tour and we just had a really good time with that one. Some of the shows we felt like it was our show from the reaction of the crowd and it was a good time.

Did you get to sit in on any of the songs? Did they ask you on stage to play with them at all or any of that kind of special stuff?

None of that but we did get to have a couple wine courses with Nicko McBrain. He taught me about the good stuff and the bad stuff and I drank some of the best stuff so I'll always remember that one.

Good, I'm sure kids are wondering the follow up to The Crusade you have hinted that it will be the next evolutionary step in the musical saga that is Trivium and the shit is fucking rocking. First of all do you have an album title and can you tell us about what is in store for 2008 in Trivium?

It's still a little early to tell but I can tell you that we have got 19 songs written right now and we're in the process of just doing purely scratch guitar demos. We've got to finish up this tour, we got a break where we are going to do a real pre-production for about 10 songs and then we're going to go to the Black Crusade tour then starting in January of next year hopefully for a good chunk of the year we will be recording the next record. We're not going to bill titles or any of that good stuff yet because we don't really know any of it. I guess the best thing I can say is just that I think what people are expecting of the next record and anyone that already has a predetermined thing I think that they are wrong and people are going to be really surprised when they hear the new stuff.

You want to keep people guessing.

Exactly.

Good. I know you guys just released "To the Rats" exclusively at www.triviumworld.com. How did that go over and tell us about the release of that video.

It's a compilation of live shows we had done on Maiden and on our headlining tour of last year. Actually anyone who didn't get to see those shows gets to see what we do in Europe and see what those shows are like. We decided to show it to our fan club members first because they have been getting a lot of exclusives lately and since we just started it up they are going to be getting that good shit first. I know we have a lot of great super friends out there but they get to get it first. We've got a video for "Becoming the Dragon" coming out pretty soon and I'm thinking everyone should see that in hopefully weeks.

Dude there is no end to it.

Nope there isn't.

And I know right here you got your very first Gold member to sign up on www.triviumworld.com. Tell the kids about what being a Gold member can do for them?

I know that anybody that joins they get exclusives and basically this whole fan club thing is free form. Like any ideas that the 4 of us or the fans come up with we can do literally anything with it whether its like cook outs or hang outs or parties or guitar lessons we are probably going to do all of that stuff so we are just starting to get stuff going. An annual gold membership will cost you $29.99 and include the Triviumworld.com package that has a members only DVD with exclusive footage, meet and greets with the band, an autographed photo and a Trivium graffiti stencil is some of the stuff you get with it.

Well the DVD alone is 3 bucks so that sounds like a great deal.

Yeah it's pretty good.

Let me ask you this: after 10 million listens on MySpace and so many friends I know it is so important for you to stay in touch with the fans but how do you possibly manage it all?

It takes a lot of effort from the 4 of us, from the management and form our webmaster. So it's a little bit of effort and we try to get to all the questions that we get online and now its kind of hard to get to everything but we try to get a mass representation taken care of. We actually did a fan only interview and that was posted on our site and a lot of people were happy about that. So we just try to do what we can. We try to get to everyone but obviously we can't get to everything but we will always do our best.

So you and Corey are releasing Dean Signature Model Guitars?

Yes we are. Actually people that have been seeing us live recently starting yesterday we have been playing with the prototypes so I'm sure that some pictures will surface soon enough on www.triviumworld.com and hopefully MySpace.

Ok well we got 2 questions that we ask everyone and the first one is what would surprise people most to learn about Matt Heafy?

Oh man I've kind of been running my mouth about myself for so long that I think everyone knows the intimate details now.

Why don't you dish on Corey, what would surprise kids most to learn about Corey? Something he hasn't told anybody that's not too invasive.

His 2 favorite things in the world as I can tell so far are vodka and chicken salad. So Polish vodka and chicken salad.

Interview by: Dixon Christie, PunkTV.ca
Visit Dixon on Nexopia!

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