“We were getting bullied to our faces by our favourite bands”: Trivium’s Matt Heafy reveals the ‘intense cliquiness’ of the metal scene when they came up
Matt Heafy has looked back on the ruthless cliquiness of the metal scene back when Trivium were just starting out in the late ’90s and early 2000s.
According to Heafy, the band faced bullying from other bands that they admired, and physical violence from music fans. These days, he feels things have significantly improved, and with rock and metal having somewhat of a mainstream revival (though for us it never went anywhere), there’s no time like the presence to form a band.
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Speaking to Metal Hammer in its new print magazine, Heafy – who is a big supporter of rising talent within heavy music – is asked about his thoughts on the state of the heavy music world right now.
“It’s a good time to be playing heavy music, man. It’s a good time to be a younger band, too,” he replies. “You’re not having to deal with as much of the bullshit that we had to deal with: there’s not this intense ostracisation, this intense cliquiness.
“When we were coming around, we were getting glass bottles thrown at our heads, fans waiting for us outside of our van to try to fight us because they didn’t like the kind of music we played, getting bullied to our faces by our favourite bands. That doesn’t happen anymore as much [to young bands].”
Interestingly, Devin Townsend has also spoken of how metal was overlooked and undervalued by the music industry when it first began to blossom, back in an interview with D’Addario in August.
He said, “Metal is a dynamic that I feel was undervalued by the music industry at large because it was tied to the aesthetic of Mötley Crüe and all that shit. Because I was a very sensitive kid and consequently, a very sensitive adult, I do find that it’s visceral in ways that other music isn’t, and it managed to scratch an itch, but as a dynamic, as a texture.”
The post “We were getting bullied to our faces by our favourite bands”: Trivium’s Matt Heafy reveals the ‘intense cliquiness’ of the metal scene when they came up appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
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