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MORE NEWS ITEMS AT END OF TRIVIUM INTERVIEWTRIVIUM- SHOGUN' ALONG!Thrash metal giants Trivium were in Melbourne to promote their upcoming album SHOGUN. Reza Nasseri caught up with bassist, Paolo Gregoletto for a nice little metal chat over some green tea.  RN: How old were you when you first started playing bass?PG: I think I was about 11 and I started playing music with friends. After about a year or two, I played my first live show at the Italian festival at my school. What songs did you play for that? For Who the Bell Tolls, Blink 182, an Offspring song, I think it was Self Esteem. Now that’s some Italian sounding music! Oh yeah! It’s not a very Italian festival, but they call it that for some reason. We played those three songs without vocals, because I was too scared to sing. It was fun, and after that it just made me want to keep playing, so I stayed with it and kept getting better and more serious about it. Most of my friends that started with me gave up and moved on wishing that they were still doing it now. Tell us about the formative years of Trivium and some of the struggle that you had to go through. I joined the band in 2004, and that’s when Roadrunner came into the picture and all the touring followed. In the beginning it was Matt and Travis that started Trivium, and I met them when I was playing in a local band in south Florida. We played shows together in Tampa and one in Daytona, where I met Jason Suecof, who ended up producing the last few records and he introduced me to them. He gave me their original self funded demo, when I was recording some of my own stuff, and it just so happened that they needed a bass player so it seems as fate brought us together. So I stayed in Florida an extra week doing the recording and was in the band temporarily. When it comes to struggles, we had to play our fair share of shitty bars having to do what every local band does, and that continued into touring. Once you think you’re the “top dog” of the local scene, you go to the bottom of the professional ladder and have to work your way back up to the top. It’s like being the big fish in a little pond. Definitely, and with metal music there is a hierarchy that stands. If you’re the new band on the scene and your doing well you still have to earn the respect of your peers. The songs I’ve heard so far on Shogun, sound like the album is going to be far more epic that your previous release. Did more thought go into the album? Definitely more time went into it creating, but we also have more experience now as well. When we did Ascendency we hadn’t been on tour that long, then when we did Crusade we wrote the songs in the studio as we recorded. With Shogun we really took our time, and demoed the material thoroughly. When someone thought a song was good, someone else would come up with a new idea to make it better. Up until we left for Nashville we were still changing things. Why did the band choose to record in Nashville? It’s not your typical metal destination. Nick Raskulinecz, our producer suggested that we get out of Orlando and get out of our comfort zone. We all lived together, we all went to the studio together, and everyone was there whether that person was recording or not. Nashville was a great place as well, very pretty, clean and the studio we were in, Sound Kitchen Studios was top notch, I mean we’ve never been in a studio that nice. It felt like this is what making an album should be like. I believe you guys recorded to tape as well? We were planning to record some parts to tape. We were never going to the drums, because that would have been an extra five weeks added on, and that’s why albums used to take like a year to make. We started recording guitars to tape, but it sounded weird and not like we’d intended, so before we got too far into it we recorded some stuff with Pro Tools and some with tape and decided to stick with Pro Tools. In the end it was mainly a tone based decision. The way Nick recorded us is all performance based, not just copy and paste editing. So you didn’t record section by section? No way, I mean we had to play through each song at least 10 times the whole way though, making sure every take was perfect. It was a very intense way of recording, similar to the records of the past, but with the advantages of digital. I understand you use B.C. Rich basses and have your own signature model out? Yes, I’ve been using B.C. Rich basses even before we recorded our Ascendency. I have my own white Warlock model custom model. And you fit them with Dimarzio Pickups? I used to use Dimarzio’s, but am now using EMG’s which are more solid sounding. I have another white Warlock being made, so I can keep my Mockingbird at home and just use it for recording. What made you decide to start playing B.C. Rich basses, as they’re not typically associated with bass playing? When I first got into playing metal, I started playing guitar about a year after bass and my guitar instructor showed me pictures of Overkill and Slayer and I saw those dude playing B.C. Basses and Guitars and I just thought the looked wicked and rad. Their custom shop is also excellent, I actually get a lot of compliments for the tone of my Mockingbird and people have contacted the (BC Rich) custom shop wanting to get replicas made. I also noticed that your bass really sticks out on Shogun, and has great depth to it. How did you achieve those sounds? There were four or five bass tracks all split up. Two different mikes were on the cab, with one of the mikes being a reverse speaker, which had like a super sub low end which was also used on the kick drum. There was a direct signal coming from the bass head and another one coming from a Marshall JMP-1 and maybe a Sans Amp in there too. On input we blended the sounds and changed the levels, a big thing with Nick was making sure that sounds kept changing so the mix would not sound monotonous, and this helped create dynamics when recording. We were all really happy because there is a good balance between clarity and heaviness in our mixes. Do you have any advice for metal bass players trying to separate their tone from the guitars? I think it depends on the guitar players tone. If you got a guitarist that scoops all the mids out and tries to carry the low end by themselves then you’re in trouble. It’s not usually the best guitar tone and not even clear sounding (laughs). You need to find the balance between the guitar parts and the bass parts. Are you going to be playing really involved bass lines or just and some depth to the sound? These questions should help you find your tone. Who is the greatest metal bassist of all time? A few people come to mind actually. I think Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath) and Steve Harris (Iron Maiden) set the foundations of a metal bass player could be in a band. Cliff Burton inspired me more than anyone, because Metallica was the first band that I really got into, and there’s also Billy Sheehan who just f*****g ripped. He’s probably the best metal bass player or all time, I don’t know how he plays the way he does doubling guitar parts and so forth. That first album he did with David Lee Roth is simply ridiculous. Yes it is (laughs). Are there any specific techniques you like to employ in your playing, like three finger galloping? (For a demo check out this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS7NXRQXem) I do the three finger gallop when the tempos are really fast and I need to define my triplets. On Ascendency I played all my parts with a pick because I wanted to match the guitars, and I couldn’t do the finger gallop properly, but now I can do it pretty good. Now I’ve change my approach, because I think it’s more important to follow the drums and retain your bottom end, and when you play really fast you begin to loose you low end. Even certain places you play on the neck affect the tone. Playing the same note in different positions give you different tones, that enhances the music in different ways. So how do you feel about the less is more approach to playing, by having the amount of notes you play etc? I definitely understand that more now as develop as a song-writer. Simple things seems to translate better live as well, because the music breathes more. Sometimes people don’t give the bass the credit it deserves, and if you remove it from the mix, the guitars just sound like a lot of high end and mids. The bass complements the guitars by adding low mids and making a wall of sound. A lot of engineers have told me that bass is the hardest thing to mix on a metal record, because there’s a fine line as to when the guitars end and where the bass begins. In saying that, I was really happy with how the bass sits on this record because you’re not fighting to hear it, it’s just there. Tell everyone something they don’t know about Trivium. Do you guys have a mascot you take on tour with you? That would be our bass tech, Ryan that we actually refer to as “Ralph”. We call him that because he’s always throwing up (laughs). He does what he’s supposed most of the time, but always ends up doing something funny. I tend to think of him as more of a jester than a mascot. If he didn’t entertain us and do some of the dumb shit that he does I would really question as to why he goes on tour with us. What do you do with your time between shows when touring? I just practice my daily ritual like everybody else. I’ve made it appoint to stay healthy on this touring cycle, because I ended up sick a lot on the last few tours. We have weights that we take out on tour with us and I try to go running when it’s not freezing cold outside. When we were in Japan I’d just go running outside the hotel room, and it was a great was to see the city. Have you attracted any freaks or psychopaths when on tour? Man, we’re a travelling group of freaks and assholes (laughs). You just meet some really odd people sometimes, and it’s like, I wouldn’t want to get into a car with that guy. No people with a Trivium tattoos on their face? There was this one kid that has all of our signatures tattooed on him. I wrote my name with a smiley face and he got that tattooed as vampire teeth, and Travis signed his armpit and he got that tattooed in his armpit. How about strange body parts? Have you signed any eyeballs? No eyeballs, but some kid let me draw military camo on his face last night, that was pretty funny. People let you do some strange stuff when you’re in a band. I mean if I started drawing on people’s faces right now I’d get arrested, but then I play a show and do that and they love it. It’s weird. What can fans expect from Shogun? Is this going to be the defining album? Shogun is definitely on the way to defining what Trivium is, and we’ve found out where we’re going as a band. Our previous releases don’t have much in common with each other, but this record has something in common with all three albums. We took the best elements of all three records and wrote Shogun based on that. When you know what you are and you’re happy with that you don’t need to change anymore. Shogun is set OUT NOW through Roadrunner Records. Stories in this Issue STEVIE SPREADS THE WONDER ON JOYOUS AUSTRALIAN TOUR It had been a long time since Stevie Wonder set foot on an Australian stage, but for his many Australian fans the wait had been well worth it. MUSIC ICONS TOUR OZ IN 09 Australian audiences are in for a treat when Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and Eric Clapton tour Australia in the first quarter of 2009 75TH BIRTHDAY KUDOS TO OZ JAZZ ICON BOB BARNARD It would be remiss of us here at Australian Musician not to acknowledge the 75th birthday of one of our pioneering jazz musicians, Bob Barnard. ROSE TATTOO GUITARIST IN CLINIC Dai Pritchard, Rose Tattoo’s powerhouse guitarist is taking time out from The Tatts and The Angels tour to share his legendary playing secrets with a program of guitar sessions to be held around the country. MELBOURNE SPORTS ROCKS IN 09 Huge lineups for Australian Open and Formula 1 Grand Prix NEVEREVERLAND-MODULAR 10TH BIRTHDAY The gypsy caravan of enlightenment that is the NEVEREVERLAND Festival is set to sweep our wide brown land again this December featuring the Presets, Klaxons and Cut Copy among many other not to be missed acts JEFF BECK TO TOUR AUSTRALIA ... FINALLY! It's been 32 long years since guitar great Jeff Beck has been to Australia (which means most of us have never seen him!), but he'll finally be here for gigs in January 2009. ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES FOR OZ TOO Australian audiences had a taste of the All Tomorrow's Parties experience earlier this year when Sonic Youth, Died Pretty and Low performed seminal works live. Now the full ATP festival comes to Australia, with the line up curated by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. VFEST 09 ANNOUNCES KILLERS & SNOW PATROL The Killers, Snow Patrol and Kaiser Chiefs are among the first acts announced for next year's VFest |
Australian Tour Dates
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