“We’ve been meeting a lot of new people recently and Matt [Heafy, vocals] has been hanging out with a lot of graphic artists in Orlando. They’ve introduced him to some amazing films and filmmakers, stuff that’s inspired the visual side of our album in a big way. I mean, we’re not painters or graphic designers, so we didn’t know how to do that physically, but now we’ve been shown new ideas and the whole concept of the album just unfolded on its own.”
It’s an epic one, alright, Beaulieu confirms. And while the term ‘journey’ gets thrown around alot, in Trivium’s case, it’s literally what you get as part of the In Waves package. Everything is connected, according to the guitarist, from beginning to end, including the videos accompanying the tracks.
“It is like a story that’s come to life,” he explains. “It’s a ‘complete’ album in the sense that we had a very clear vision of how we wanted this record to look and sound. We sat together, made sure everything ties in and made one cohesive project. We didn’t want the music video to have nothing to do with what the record is about, we wanted to make sure nothing was out of place and I don’t think I can say that about our previous records. Certain things have been just afterthoughts or whatever. I love the idea of In Waves being a visual landscape, I love the fact that you can look at the artwork and hear the music in your head – it all just naturally fits, you get a visual pallet for the music.”
And while the band’s 2005 debut album Ascendency kicked down the industry doors and earned Trivium gold status as well as loads of awards, Beaulieu still reckons In Waves ups the ante altogether. Six years on, the guitarist says Trivium is a very different band these days.
“Because it’s been a ridiculous ride and something like that is bound to make you better as a band,” he points out. “I remember when we did our first tour overseas in the UK – we’d never had people recognise us before and the first tour we did there was sold out. All of a sudden we had all these super-fans and we were like, ‘what the hell is going on?’ The band just kept blowing up and selling gold records – we’ve had massive success. But that’s not what makes the fondest memories, it’s actually the earlier days that I enjoy thinking about more. When we started touring we were about 17 so we couldn’t even drink at the shows – they’d allow us in the club to play our set then they’d kick us out because legally we weren’t supposed to be in there! Machine Head became really good friends, they gave us leftover beer and scraps of food on one of our first tours. We learned from Metallica and Iron Maiden what a headlining band is made of. You see the professionalism and how a tour moves along and you take mental notes, but you learn from fucking up more often than not.”
