When gold-certified melodic metalcore band Atreyu split with their frontman Alex Varkatzas back in 2020, a fracture almost formed among the group’s fanbase. Ultimately, Atreyu soldiered on, with bassist Marc “Porter” McKnight assuming Varkatzas‘ unclean vocal parts, and drummer Brandon Saller retaining his clean vocal duties as the band’s new frontman. Varkatzas himself went on to form Dead Icarus, with little interaction between the two parties being exhibited since.
While two Atreyu albums have since been released with Saller and McKnight behind the mic, and a third, “The End Is Not The End“, is on the way for April 24th, the divide between at least some of the band’s fanbase remains.
In a recent interview with Suicide Silence guitarist Chris Garza‘s ‘The Garza Podcast‘, Saller addressed those continued calls for Atreyu to reunite with Varkatzas and the derision he continues to face from some over taking up fronting the band.
When asked how confident he felt in first taking on the frontman role in Atreyu, he offered:
“I wanted to have it so that people wouldn’t have a reason to f*cking talk sh*t. I wanted to present myself on stage and my voice in a way that people would be, like, ‘Oh, I can’t say anything.’ That doesn’t exist. Especially on the Internet, people are just f*cking assholes. But it was the kind of thing where in my head it was, like, ‘I just need to make sure that I’m going out there and doing something that I don’t think people can talk sh*t on.’
Whether you like me or you like him better or whatever, it’s, like, you could at least respect what I’m doing. And then even from there, it’s gone on where, like, now I’m screaming a lot more in the band too.
With Porter in the band, it’s, like, f*ck, he has an insane voice. It was, like, we don’t need it, but mentally, it was, like, ‘Well, I wanna show people I can do this too.’ So it was a lot of that. But I wouldn’t say I worried about it, ’cause I was confident in my abilities, but it was definitely in my head where it was, like, ‘I have to be f*cking great — or else people are gonna talk sh*t.’
They’re gonna talk sh*t anyways. I mean, Alex hasn’t been in our band for, like, f*cking — what? — six years? It’s a long f*cking time. And still it’s, like, ‘Bring Alex back?’ It’s, like, bro… It’d be, like, one of your friends being, like, ‘Man, I love your ex-wife more.’ It’s, like, ‘Dude, we’ve been divorced for six years. Move on.’ But there’s always gonna be those 150 people that still will do that till the end of time.”
As for the negativity that still persists from some over the lineup change, Saller pushed back, citing the band’s recent successes:
“A lot of times it’s funny ’cause people will say sh*t on the Internet as if it’s fact. We’ve gotten that a lot. It’s, like, ‘The f*cking band died with Alex.’ And we’re, like, ‘Well we’re on tour with Iron Maiden. So it obviously did not.’ It’s, like, our band died with Alex. Well, we just had the number one most added song at radio this week. Quite obviously not. But then it’s again, you’re just kind of one f*ckhead that wants to do that on the Internet. It’s, like, no one is f*cking listening. No one f*cking cares.
My favorite thing to do is when they… I’m very aware that I’m not your average lead singer type. I’m a big motherf*cker that, I’m not f*cking little skinny boy in cutesy f*cking jeans My favorite, though — I don’t ever respond to whatever, but whenever someone’s, like, ‘You f*cking fatass’ or whatever, I’ll respond with, ‘That’s your move? I will quote comment, like, ‘That’s what you’re doing. That’s what you’re attacking? Okay. I’m gonna tell your mom. She’s gonna be very disappointed.'”
As for if the band and Varkatzas remain in touch, Saller replied:
“No. I think it’s just better that way. I have had the imagination going wild, where it’s, like, I run into him at a show, or I see him at the grocery store or something, like, what would happen? Someday I would love to have a conversation with that dude and talk about history and talk about everything that happened and whatever. And I’m not saying we need to be friends or whatever, but, yeah, of course, I don’t want negative thoughts with anyone in my life. It’s not a healthy thing to live with. Which we don’t.
I feel like I’ve always been very vocal about everything he’s done too. I fucking bought a Dead Icarus shirt from his webstore and I wear it. It was, like, cool. You’re doing that. It’s making you happy. Make the sh*t you wanna make and live. I think it’s important for everyone to be happy in life.
And I think that the truth of the matter is I think that both parties are much more happy in the current situation than we were before. So I wish nothing but the best for the dude. We all do.”
[via Blabbermouth.net]
