After four albums, 11 singles and a spot on nearly every major music festival on the planet, the guys in Trivium only want to push their blistering, unapologetic sound further and rock their massive crowds harder. You can catch them on the final leg of the “Into the Mouth of Hell We Tour” tour, as they shred through North America with Chimaira, White Chapel and Dirge Within. myMag caught up with vocalist/guitarist Matt Heafy to talk about metal dance parties, eating squid guts and why so many bands suck these days.

You guys did the Rockstar Mayhem Festival earlier this year. How does the “Into the Mouth of Hell We Tour” tour compare?
Mayhem was awesome. There was a lot of time to party due to the fact that our sets were only 30 minutes long. Now our sets are 75 to 90 minutes every night so it’s all about being focused, staying fit and being prepared for that long-ass show.

At Mayhem, Behemoth threw a party where everyone wore corpse paint. Was that an anomaly as far as tours go?
For a normal tour, yes. But apparently that’s the way that tour always is. There are always really cool themed parties. We had this one party where we took a bucket that was like 18 gallons and filled 80 percent of it with clear alcohol and all the rest was Hawaiian Punch. We played dance music all night. It was all these people on the most metal tour of the summer dancing to booty-shaking music which was pretty hilarious.  

Are there videos of this floating around anywhere?
Hopefully not. I’m pretty sure I deleted everything of me doing that, so I’m safe.

Have you gotten any downtime on this tour so far?
Yeah, the only things we really have to worry about are the shows, sound check and press. Outside of that, you can do as little or as much as you want in a day. My thing is food, finding local food. Tomorrow for example, the local radio station knows I’m really into food so they’re gonna have an Iron Chef competition of me versus [bassist] Paolo. We’re gonna be pitted against each other making crab cakes, which is pretty sweet.

It’s all about what you do with your time. If you let promoters and people know what you like, food and video games in my case, you can do stuff like that. I’m into venturing off into cities and living like the locals for a day.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten on tour?
In Japan, I’ve had raw horse. I’ve had tripe and intestines and all that. One of the things I didn’t like in Japan was raw squid marinated in its own guts with this really spicy Korean-style kimchi sauce. That was like licking the inside of a whale’s blowhole. I don’t do weird stuff for the sake of doing weird stuff, it’s gotta be something culturally enjoyed and eaten. Whatever a culture considers significant or part of their food style, I’ll definitely try. You learn all sorts of things from people’s food.

Are you writing potential Trivium songs on this tour?
We have about 30 songs written for the next record, purely in demo stages. We have a brand new song just about completely finished that we’ll record in January. It’s gonna be in the video game God of War 3.

Are you a fan of that game?
I’ve played a little bit here and there, but I’ll definitely be playing the hell out of God of War 3.

Is it hard for you guys to weed out certain songs and keep the special ones?
No, you can always tell. When you listen to all the songs right next to each other, you’ll know immediately which are the weak ones are and which are the strong ones.

As far inspiration goes, you’ve written numerous songs about mythology. What have you been drawing inspiration from these days?
Each record has been different. The first two were about things close to me. The third was about a lot of social issues, the fourth drew from mythology. For the next record, I just want to make it so that whether or not you’re into metal, you can enjoy it and whether or not you speak English, you know what the song is about. I want it to transcend the normal boundaries of what metal is. It’s gonna be about digging and writing from the heart.

What bands have you been listening to lately?
I’ve been listening to mainly classical music. Also, the new Muse album, the new Rammstein album, the new Coldplay album and pretty much the entire Depeche Mode catalog. And Nine Inch Nails’ entire catalog. I guess that’s about it.

Most of those aren’t metal bands. Do you feel there are a healthy number of talented metal bands out there today?
The problem right now is that so many bands are getting so extreme and into so many different subgenres.  I remember the hardcore scene when I was in high school; it wasn’t that hard. It was kind of punk-influenced, kind of tough. Nowadays the hardcore scene is getting so ridiculously heavy and so technical that they’re not even playing songs anymore. It’s so heavy and so ridiculous that it doesn’t make sense.

Metal is doing the same thing. Everyone keeps subgenre-ing themselves into these little categories so no one really knows what they’re listening to anymore. They’re definitely are some good bands out there. I think everyone’s so obsessed with everything other than making a good song right now that they’re inhibiting their own band.

What’s the most ridiculous genre Trivium has been labeled?
Some people didn’t even bother giving a genre for our third record because they said we sounded like Metallica copycats. We’ve heard some funny stuff, some clever stuff, some not-so-clever stuff. Metalcore I always shot down right away, ‘cause that genre’s gonna die out in like a year. There are pretty much no metalcore bands now. That’s the problem with sub-generification. Call us metal if you want, we just make our own music. When people start jumping on bandwagons with these ridiculous names, they’re screwing their own band over.

Do you feel pressured to stay true to whatever fans think is the true Trivium sound?
It’s tricky because each record is so different. I’m sure there are people that have their favorite CD’s. It’s not necessarily bad pressure, but good pressure from ourselves to find what our sound is and make the best possible song that we can.

Is there a particular international city you can’t wait to go back to?
Last time we played Barcelona, everyone was singing every note, even the guitar parts. Our dressing room caught on fire…

How did that happen?
I have no idea. And the food was absolutely amazing. But we’ve had incredible crowds everywhere. The first time we played in New Zealand, the entire PA went out while we were playing a 15,000-person festival. The crowd just kept singing the words even though they couldn’t hear us. They stayed on time and the power kicked back right where we needed to be in the song.

That’s amazing.  Obviously life on the road isn’t typical by any means, does that help along the songwriting process?
Definitely. I think you need to capture that tension or vibe and write about that. I notice a lot of heavy bands are all positive now, and life isn’t that way. I’m not saying be a downer all the time, but there are harsh realities of life and you need to write about them. No matter where people are, it’s something everyone can relate to.