Former God Forbid guitarist Doc Coyle interviewed Lamb Of God frontman Randy Blythe for VH1.com and asked him if he still felt compeled to scream. The following exchange took place in regards to that:
“Coyle: Going back to what you said before about not listening to much heavy music— you being a screamer, an aggressive vocalist, the emotional ties to that, is that something you still kind of need to do?
Blythe: No. Not at all.
Coyle: Was it at one point?
Blythe: At one point, yes, but I’m 44 years old. I’ve been doing this band for 21 years. Now on the new record, there’s some different stuff on there. There’s a song with clean singing. There’s a song with Chino [Deftones] and a song with Greg Puciato [The Dillinger Escape Plan]. There’s one song where it’s almost clean vocals and it’s me doing it. That’s the most fun I’ve had in the studio in a long time.
Coyle: Really? That’s interesting.
Blythe: Yeah because, dude, sitting there screaming for 4-6 hours a day, that shit hurts your head. You know, I know people say this, but I think this is one of our best records in a long time because Willie and Mark really co-wrote it. Our producer, Josh [Wilbur], really encouraged them to sit down and write together. It’s a return to the old way of doing things for us, because for a while Mark would write his songs at home and demo them on the computer, and Willie would do the same, and they would come in and teach each other songs. On this album, it was like old days like when we were first a band and they wrote the songs together in the practice space. Like an actual band, ya know. Remember those days?
Coyle: I love that way.
Blythe: Yeah. I think it shows on the album, and it’s the best album we’ve done in a long, long time. But to bring that around to the original question, no, it’s not something I feel this need to do.
Coyle: Does it feel like a job? Does it feel like work like, “Gotta clock in, make the donuts?”
Blythe: Absolutely. Absolutely dude. Especially since we haven’t had enough time off, and we need to make some money. (laughs) So it is work, ya know. It’s not that I don’t enjoy my job, but it’s my job. I don’t have a plan…well, I do have a plan B, that’s being executed right now: I wrote a book, I did a photography exhibit, all that stuff, but there’s no retirement plan in this business, as you know. So it’s time to make a record, it’s time to go on tour, it’s time to do what we do in order to make a living and feed our families. And some people don’t like that, when you say it like that, and this is before their romantic idea of what being in a band is, but romance doesn’t pay your mortgage. (laughs)
Coyle: That’s true. Love don’t pay the bills, baby. (laughs)
Blythe: No, it doesn’t pay the bills. So no, screaming and stuff is not something I feel the need to do anymore. There’s not a burning desire inside.”
The discussion has become a bit of a hot topicin the wake of Lamb Of God‘s new single “Overlord“, which finds Blythe providing clean vocals. Blythe spoke of that track and the motivation behind it, offering:
“…We just do what we do. I give absolutely zero thought to whether what I’m doing is going to piss off fans. And I think our fans respect us because of that. We play exactly what we want to play. And I think if you start writing music to appease someone else, then real fans are going to be able to tell. They’re totally gonna be able to tell. So I mean, like I said, there is a song with clean singing on this record, but it happened really organically. Willie was just playing some blues riff, and he sent them to me, and I was listening to them along with some other songs, and I was like, “Holy cow, I could actually sing on this.”
For the first time in our career, there’s pretty much a whole song I sing clean, and it wasn’t this calculated thing where I’m like, “I’m gonna write a clean song and Randy’s gonna sing or whatever.” It just sorta happened, and it’s what Willie wanted to do while he was writing it. I don’t think he had any forethought of changing or whatever. But we’re consistent, ya know…we’re just a metal band, dude. Much to my chagrin, we’re a metal band. I wanted to be in a punk rock band back in the day.
I thought I was gonna be the Johnny Rotten of the South. Somehow, I ended up in a freaking metal band. It’s what we do. Mark does some stuff on his own. Willie does stuff on his own. I did music for the ballet, and I’m sure I’ll do another band eventually that’s not heavy metal, but Lamb of God is just metal. It’s just what we do.”
Meanwhile, The Black Dahlia Murder frontman Trevor Strnad saw Blythe‘s comments and took advantage of them, tweeting:
Sorry world, I DO have a burning desire to keep screaming
— Trevor Scott Strnad (@TrevorTBDM) July 2, 2015
Lamb Of God‘s new album “VII: Sturm Und Drang” will be released on July 24th.
