Lamb Of God frontman Randy Blythe has opened up on the music he worked on with Testament guitarist for an upcoming ballet. The piece is titled “The Solution” and will be performed at the Richmond Ballet in Richmond, VA on April 05th-06th. Here’s what Blythe had to say of the piece via his Instagram:
“This is one of my dearest friends, Matt Frain (@mfrain1). Matt is a total brutal death metal freak. Matt is also a professional ballet dancer with the Richmond Ballet (rad combo- I love weirdo people- all my closest friends are strange). I shot this a few months ago when he was helping me shoot some photos of myself for my book publicity, & he just started jumping off stuff at the VA War Memorial- whoa! Anyways, the Richmond Ballet decided to do a New Works II festival- 5 new pieces choreographed by their artistic staff & some of their dancers. Matt wanted to try to choreograph (not dance in) a piece for the show, but he was having a hard time with the music- he didn’t want something that had been used before.
I had played him some stuff I had been working on, he seemed to dig it, so I said “I’ll compose a piece for you”. We discussed the concept, wrote out a proposal, I gave him a 5 minute sample piece of music, & a few months ago he submitted it to the artistic director of the ballet. It got accepted! Amazing! These are serious people who don’t care or know about metal, so my name didn’t really mean a thing to them- the piece was accepted on it’s own merits & Matt’s artistic concept, not “we’ll use it because it’s that dude from lamb of god“. He began choreographing with two dancers, & I began working on the music in my spare time from touring & writing. I got the piece mostly done, but it needed something else. I had to call in another friend.
I had been working on the piece for a few months, so I had thought a lot about it & knew just who to call. This is my buddy Alex Skolnick (@alexskolnick), the lead guitarist of Testament & The Alex Skolnick Trio. Besides being a real-live metal legend, he is a world renowned jazz guitarist. He & I had worked on some weirdo electronic stuff on tour just for fun, so I asked him if he would help out with my ballet piece. He was stoked, sent me tracks, we went back & forth over mixes & parts for a bit, & then the piece got better by twice.
The piece, entitled “The Solution” is a very serious & dark 10 minutes of me & Alex writing music specifically for a very serious & dark ballet piece about internal struggles. If you want to hear our music, & see the piece we composed for my buddy Matt performed, you can go to the Richmond Ballet April 5 or 6. Tickets are complimentary- call 804-344-0906 ext 231, or they are available at the box office (407 E. Canal St. RVA). Showtimes are 6:30 pm on April 5, 4:00 pm on April 6- 407 East Canal St. Richmond, VA. Music is life, and so is art. I’m just happy to be surrounded by people who create both. Hope some of y’all can make it!”
You can find the pictures Blythe referenced in the above post as follows:
