Matthew Heafy - Trivium Frontman

Meet Matthew  — singer, guitarist, songwriter for the Grammy-nominated metal band Trivium; DJ/Host of “Chaos Hour” on Sirius XM; Twitch gamer; children’s book author; black belt Brazilian jiu-jitsu grappler; Audubon Park resident; and dear friend.


https://link.space/@matthewkheafy
https://youtu.be/wez4xjXEing

https://linktr.ee/helloapgdpod

Chapters

• 0:12 Intro With Matthew Kiitchi Heafy
• 7:27 Metal Music Love and Impact
• 15:10 Exploring Music and Culture
• 20:08 Discoveries, Comparison, and Setting Goals
• 31:44 Orlando's Food Scene and Local Appreciation
• 38:29 Hope and Musical Collaborations
• 41:37 The Balance of Fear and Love
• 51:56 The Impact of Metal Music
• 55:24 Music, Touring, and Self-Taught Success
• 59:20 Technology's Impact on Art and Creativity

Transcript

Intro: 0:12

Hi friends, thank you for joining us for the last episode of 2023 of Hello APGD, a neighborhood podcast about the Audubon Park Garden District in Orlando, Florida. I'm your host, Michael Lothrop, and my guest today is Matthew Kiitchy Heafy, Grammy-nominated singer, guitarist and songwriter for the metal band Trivium, Audubon Park resident, and dear friend of ours. We recorded this episode during Matt's live Twitch broadcast, so I left in the awkward intro for you all to enjoy. There's also a video component to this episode linked in the description. Be sure to follow the Instagram accounts @TriviumBand and @MatthewKHeafy and be sure to visit the link in the podcast for all of the cool stuff Matt's doing. If you'd like to be a guest on the show or if you'd like to be a sponsor, please feel free to message me on Instagram at helloapgdpod. Thank you for listening. Support for this episode comes from Neighbor Bread, a small batch sourdough home bakery made with excellence and integrity in Audubon Park. Visit neighborbreadorlando.com and sign up for the newsletter to get the latest on order scheduling and availability, with local delivery or pick up. It's just as simple as that; no social media, just bread. This episode is also brought to you by Red Panda Noodle. Made fresh daily. These wheat-based Chinese-style noodles are pulled, sliced and boiled to order. Find your favorite dish by following them on Facebook and Instagram at RedPandaNoodle. Check out their website redpandanoodle.com for the latest on food truck pop updates and other news. 

Michael: 1:48

Are we live? 

Matt:

Live and recording but I can mute us if you need to. 

Michael: 1:54

So we today are recording a podcast episode while we're doing this session. What do you call it? Do you call this a session? 

Matt: 2:02

You usually call it a live stream. 

Michael: 2:05

A live stream. Yeah, all right. Yeah, I'm a total noob, so I don't know anything about this stuff. 

Matt: 2:10

Twitch is kind of the opposite of YouTube. Youtube is like you think of, like final produced ideas, seeming to a podcast. There's editing, it's recorded previously, it's seamless, it's presented in like a nice package, okay. Twitch is kind of anything goes, like I've met professional Twitch streamers that have no face cam, that stream for eight hours just then playing games, sometimes them eating snacks, and sometimes it's people sleeping, sometimes people in a hot tub. Mine is very different. It's usually me doing my vocal warm-ups into me performing and then taking requests to tribute songs and then working on either, like I've been working on the Deathgasm 2 soundtrack. So I've been doing that live on stream because they're cool with it, and sometimes I've got projects that I'll do that they'd say you can stream it but you can't talk about what it is. Okay, you have to delete the replays. So, yeah, it's always different, but Twitch is like people are used to it not being final. It's like the Truman Show, gotcha. It's like you're existing just with them. 

Michael: 2:59

Gotcha. Yeah, all right. Well, hello Twitchers, is that what you call them? 

Matt: 3:02

We call them Chat, singular 

Michael:

Chat. Okay, yeah, hello, chat, yep. 

Matt:

And then people usually kind of pile in. Like the first 15 minutes when you hit live, it's people sort of coming into the door. Like after 15 minutes or so it was usually whenever it piles in. 

Michael: 3:16

Okay, cool. So the idea today, we're going to record a podcast about Audubon Park, which is the neighborhood that both Matthew and myself live in, and Matthew and I have been friends over a decade now, and so it's a real treat to get to be able to do this today. 

Matt: 3:34

Heck yeah, thank you so much, I appreciate it. 

Michael: 3:35

Yeah, thank you for inviting me. 

Matt: 3:37

Yeah. 

Michael: 3:37

So I'll kick it off with the intro that I usually do. If that's cool. And with me today is Matthew Kiitchi Heafy, Grammy nominated singer, guitarist, songwriter for metal bands Trivium and Ibaraki, DJ, host of Chaos Hour on Sirius XM. Twitch Gamer. children's book author, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Grappler, one shot energy partner and Audubon Park resident. Matthew, welcome, 

Matt:

you make me sound very good. Thank you very much. 

Michael:

You have quite the Wikipedia page, you know, and your resume is quite something for a 37 year old. So well done. Yeah, you make a lot of good use of your time and the fact that we've known each other more than a decade. You and Ashley are two of our favorite people in the world, so.

Matt: 4:26

Thank you so much. Likewise, I was very, very excited for this. 

Michael: 4:29

Yeah, so I've been doing this podcast a little over a year, just kind of talking about people in the neighborhood that do cool stuff, and people are always surprised when I tell them about you. You know, metal is kind of a specific genre of music and people who don't don't know metal don't necessarily know your stuff. But Trivium is really this powerhouse of a band. I mean you guys have been almost quarter of a century a band together. You've done multiple US and world tours. You just got off a two year stint where you played, was it? 208 shows. How do you even fit that in? I mean that's amazing. 

Matt: 5:12

It's a lot. It's a lot. We love it. It normally isn't that intense. Before we first started touring it was that intensive and Paolo reminded me that our first US tour on our second album a sentencing, I think we did something like 260 shows but that was in like one year. Wow, so that was absolutely grinding and as you should do when you're 18, and you're trying to make it happen. So this last two year chunk where some bands have done more shows within those two years, but for us that's a lot, for us being yeah, I got to count. I think maybe this coming years, 26 years for me and Trivium, I believe, and our second record will be 20 years. The one that I'm referencing from that 260 show run, will be 20 years in 2025. So it's just, yeah, it's nonstop, it's still. I tell this story all the time. I told it I think it was today in Jiu Jitsu class. I was saying that Trivium was my first band, first job. I tried out for the band and actually it was funny because normally it's like house music or pop music and every Jiu Jitsu gym, which is so weird, like it's usually pop music and I always I mentioned to my professors I was like, guys, this music is just not music to like. Try to break your friends arms to and break their legs and choke them to. Once I heard Beauty and the Beast on at the gym and I was like, guys, we have to change this. Like, yes, it's a great song, it's a great movie, but we cannot have this while we're trying to fight each other. 

Michael: 6:30

Does that get somebody riled up, you think? I mean if, if somebody has a personal feelings about that?

Matt: 6:41

Me, just me, it's working. But today, it was like Metallica radio and they just happened to play the song no Leaf Clover from the S&M record. And that's the song I played when I was 12 and a half at Teague Middle School in my eighth grade talent show. After playing that, I was asked by the original singer, Trivium's younger sister, who was in my grade “hey, will you try it for my brother's band? They just lost their guitar player.” And then here I am, this 12 and a half going on, 13 year old, trying out for this 16 year old, 17 year old high school band, and they all like just give me the death stare. When I walked in, I think I was carrying like a purple dinosaur pillow and a guitar case and they were kind of like laughing. And then when I played everything, their look was completely different. Okay, you're in. 

Michael: 7:18

Yeah, that's amazing. I also played the Teague Middle School eighth grade talent show. Yeah, I played drums in that. And I played a showcase of the bands at Lake Brantley. I know you played Battle of the Bands. It wasn't a battle when I played it, it was just a showcase. Yeah, but did you guys win Battle of the Bands? 

Matt: 7:38

The first year (when I was an eighth grader) we did not. I think maybe one of the years, but that was definitely a time that I was the only kid with the long hair, the white cut off camo shorts, combat boots, the extra large death metal band t-shirt, and I still remember that when we finished our set the judges came out like “okay, can all the metal kids just sit down?” Like laughing about it, I came out from behind the curtains and told them all to stand back up and I feel like since then I have been fighting for the genre but I'm trying to find, because like I'm not full Manowar. I don't know if you're familiar with Manowar, but they’re like super loincloths and oiled chests? 

Michael: 8:17

Didn't they sign one of their record contracts in blood? 

Matt: 8:20

Yes, yes, so it's like we're somewhere along like the healthy, the healthy balance of that somewhere between like yeah, because we still get this irony, we'll meet these heavy bands that started in metal. They're like metal. That's that stupid now, but it's something that I love. I love it and it's. You know, I'm not like, again, not the Manowar level, but it's like my own interpretation of that. I feel like I've been defending it since that moment, since I was 12 and a half, 13, but it's cool, I do love it. I do welcome everyone into it. I know it's not for everyone, but it definitely is the thing that gave me everything. It got me into Brazilian jiu-jitsu by touring Brazil for the first time and I loved it so much. I was like I want to do what Brazilians do and people said that's soccer jiu-jitsu. All right, I'm gonna do some of  jiu-jitsu. It helped me re-meet my wife and then eventually have my kids and get the yoga and all these other things that are, these huge parts of my life are being able to finally mix in gaming, which I've been playing games since I was about five years old, beat Mario when I was like five or six or so, bringing that into what I do, bringing that into Trivium. And thanks to Trivium, I was able to do Twitch, and Twitch is basically me just playing Trivium songs live to people all over the world. That was able to segue into a lot of the amazing things I was able to do with, like great partners like Astro and Asus, which led into some of the side ventures, like the children's book, having a vocal lozenge now with 1 Shot and all those other things. And now scoring video games and scoring movies, which is something I never knew I'd be able to do. But I've always, always dreamt of doing something like Nightmare Before Christmas, like a soundtrack, like that, or doing something like the Dune soundtrack. I'm not doing either of those, but I'm doing my own interpretation of like with Deathgasm 2, Marshal Arts Tycoon was the Brazilian jiu-jitsu game. There's a metal game that I'm I finished and turned in about a year ago that I'm still waiting for it to come out, and then this incredible game I'm working on now that I unfortunately can't disclose yet, but it's a thing I've been in love with my whole life. So some really cool things. Thanks to all that, thanks to metal, thanks to Trivium. 

Michael: 10:12

Yeah, it is. I mean, metal as a genre is very specific, but I feel like metal fans are very loyal, but also it can have kind of a narrow definition and people are very protective about it. I've been protective over music in the past, so I understand that to an extent. But then you grow up and you're like “this I love also, they love this, and it's just as simple as that.” And, like I know that that's one of the big things with Trivium is that you all write and play music that you all love to listen to. And if you're not enjoying playing all of those songs, then why are you doing it? And bands that I've played in that's what we've arrived at as well. So if nobody likes this, that's okay, but it just turns out that people end up liking it because it's good music, absolutely. 

Matt: 11:02

I've met so many professional bands. I'll ask them about a record that I love, they’re like “I haven't listened to that since we recorded it.” I'm like “do you like it?” No, it's like bummer. Yeah. It's like a chef being like I'm not going to taste anything I'm going to make and I don't like this food, but I'm going to sling it out anyway. 

Michael: 11:17

Yeah, which a lot of people do end up doing that and it's a living, right? But I think that's a difference between maybe something that's a passion that you've found that you can also make a living doing and it continues to be a passion. I mean, you can do something for two and a half decades because you love it so much and other than that you're going to run out of steam because this is very hard work. 

Matt: 11:40

Absolutely. Yeah, exactly what you said it's, you have to love what you're doing in any field, and especially music, and especially something I was describing metal. At one of my friend’s birthday parties, this couple is like, oh, what kind of music you play? Metal. They’re like, oh, we’ve never really heard metal before. Can you describe it? I was like, well, it's, it goes beyond the boundaries just being a fan of it in other places in the world, like South America, Europe, Southeast Asia, it's essentially a religion. It really truly is, and that's just such an amazing thing that there's this style of music that brings people together. I mean those two years that we weren't able to tour, or even leave our homes, I was still streaming on the regular schedule that I've had. I started streaming in Twitch about seven years ago and as of that seven years ago, it's Monday through Friday pretty much without fail, and on tour about seven days a week. So for the last seven years six and a half, seven years doing that same commitment. Yeah, and it's all these incredible people who I've met at shows who came out to the charity show and who would come out and I've seen like some of them get married and become best friends and start gaming groups, start bands and all these things. It's amazing. It's the same microcosm of communities and support systems that you see with the band and with metal. That's that's what you always see like I think outsiders looking in there was they think stereotypically, hilariously, still think like Satan and evil and sure, but I think there've been studies done, probably in like Finland and Germany, that metal fans are some of the most positive people because with their music we're able to address yes, life is dark. Yes, I can use these songs to get that energy out and once that's out, I feel good. Yeah, instead of just kind of, all the world is fine, everything is great, everything is great where it isn't, and. But there is a time and a place for that kind of music. Yeah, but I've always felt, I feel healthier and happier and more balanced using the music as the tool to cope with life. 

Michael: 13:24

Yeah yeah, that's an outlet that isn't, it's not hurting anybody and you're using that energy, that like negative energy, or whatever you want to call it. It's like we all have it in us and it's gonna come out in different ways. That's always been my thing with drumming as well, like I've just it's such a great outlet and people are like, “how do you play such aggressive music when you're so chill?” Because I've been in hardcore bands and stuff like that. It's like, well, that's why I'm so chill, you know, and it does level you out. I think that metal fans are very, I think that they're maybe smarter than the average person as well, just because it takes a little bit more to kind of understand the technicality of the music. Like it's very mathy, right? I mean, people never describe metal that way. They have like a whole “math rock” genre that is. It's different. But I mean you, what you guys do is like it's so precise and it has so it's so dense, with layers of rhythms and changes and things that are, I don't know. There's something that you're gonna hear every time you listen to it. You know it's amazing. Like what you guys do is truly amazing. 

Matt: 14:43

I've always felt metal is the closest living relative to classical music and now that I've really taken my venture into wanting to learn more about classical music because it's something I've always listened to. Classical music I've always loved it, but I never learned theory. I can't read music on guitar but I haven't necessarily wanted to. There was a minute during our fourth record when I want to start learning theory, but I almost learned it the wrong way and I thought I had all these rules now that I had to do, like, oh, “if I'm gonna sing this note, it has to be in the chord I'm playing as well” Where that's not true at all. So within this last, this latest game, I've been working on the, I guess he's the creative director of it, but luckily he's been a fan of the band since our first album, so he knows our music in and out as well as I do so when he's describing and giving me tools to learn from, or tools to investigate or Composers to listen to specific tracks. It's been opening my mind up and I feel like within this last month or so my mind is really open up to learning how to write music for film and for games, and it's just been so cool to be able to, like string arrangements and brass arrangements, and now I've got these Japanese instruments around. I'm trying to teach myself that, not necessarily for this game, but maybe for my next. A Veracchi record, like I've got the one shō, a shakuhachi, the taiko drums and the koto and all this stuff, and I really want to learn all this. I've never been able to play piano, but I've been teaching myself that specifically for scoring. Yeah and it's been so fun and I'm very curious to see, I feel like people who are in the know of my style or for Tribune style, they know, like, what my signature go-tos are, maybe for notes or for melody. I'm curious what we discover my go-tos are for for film composition or for games. Yeah and my heroes of that, or Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman and Junkie XL. So I'm sure there's gonna be some of that in there, but I'm curious to see where it can go from here.

Michael: 16:22

That’s so fun. Yeah, to branch out in that way and to find, I don't know, new discoveries and new talents, and yeah, I, I love what you're doing 

Matt: 16:31

Thanks. Yeah, I think it's ADD, ADHD. OCD, anxiety, all those things, I just use them to my advantage, yeah, and I know I've got these things, I know they're not going away, so I try to use them. So if one day I'm like I want to use Japanese instruments, I get them and then I gotta learn them and I'm gonna hop around and back and forth.

Michael: 16:52

yeah and you won't get bored because there's so much variety in what you do, too. Yeah, I mean, I just I think finding your passion and finding multiple ways to connect other interests with it, which is exactly what you're doing, is it's very inspiring. I think that that's a lesson we can all learn. 

Matt: 17:05

Thank you, thank you, yeah, and it's a big thing of wanting to just tap more and more to my Learning about who I am, and I'm 50/51 percent Japanese and like 39 percent Irish, and I need to learn about the Irish side one of these days, and last time we played Dublin, I did play some traditional Irish music for the crowd, which is really cool. Um, yeah, it's fun. Yeah, with the Japanese stuff, it's been, I've always loved black metal as a kid and then, growing up as an adult, I started looking back, some of my favorite bands. I'm like, wait, these bands believed what? And there's just all this. There's just like this deeply hateful stuff in some of them. So I feel like I had the blinders on as a kid. As an adult, I'm like I don't support that. So for me, it was about making a music of the genre that I loved, that realized that. I realized it was very Secular. It was like, oh, this is just meant for this kind of person. But then I wanted to make something that was quintessentially the opposite of that and make a kind of music that would show people my Japanese side and say, oh wow, that's his culture. What about the other cultures in the world. How else can I learn about what everyone else is into? Yeah and that really was what started pushing me into the other instruments, and that was done from one of my great mentors. He's one of my favorite bands, black metal band called Emperor. I became good friends with Ihsahn and one day I was telling him because this black metal project was really called Ritu, which I got from Sanskrit, from yoga, because I've been training yoga for a very long time and I said, Ihsahn, I wish I was Norwegian so I can write about your Mungandir and Ragnarok. And he's like Matt, that's been done, tapping your Japanese side. And also I was like oh, I need to rename the band and the lyrics were written in like a week. Wow. It's just just writing about all the ancient Japanese stories. Yeah, inspiring, thanks, that's cool. And the kids books the same thing. I was like how can I take this and distill it down even further? Yeah, make it something where I could see someone in the middle of the US reading this to their kids and they're going oh, these are cool stories. I'm gonna learn about the other stories of Asia and then let it branch out across the whole planet, hopefully yeah, yeah. 

Michael: 18:52

So tell me about the children's book, how that, how that came to be. 

Matt: 18:57

Yeah, it was the same concept. It was around that time when the world was shut and then the world just started opening up and there was a lot of anti-Asian resentment across the US, but also the really the whole planet, and I was like, what's I? Yes, I can talk about how terrible this is and say how I'm against this, but what if there's another way around? And the other way around would be teaching people stories of my culture that might be different, that inspire them to look within themselves, because everyone here is from something. We're all from somewhere, even if your people are descended of originally being from the states. You have an incredibly rich culture and you're like, let's all find out where we're from and realize that we all come from different places, eat different things, look at different things, maybe make different music, but we all want the same things out of life. Yeah, and that's really the overarching theme of wanting to make that books, where we would always be reading books to our kids. And I was saying, man, there's no like Japanese books, why not? Yeah, and I was like I guess we gotta make one right. So I made one and, yeah, it went from there. 

Michael: 19:53

That's so cool. I love that, yeah, how has becoming a father changed what you do for a living, like being on the road? I'm sure it's a little bit harder because you want to be home with them and what other things have you kind of discovered during that journey? 

Matt: 20:12

I think the biggest thing is that I used to just be very heavily stuck in comparison. I think everyone is because we all need things to compare against or things that got us into something, or maybe an Influence that we liked, like, hey, I like the way someone does this thing, I want to get in that as well, but I would beat myself about it, be like, alright. Well, here's what Trivium is. How come these bands that are brand new are ten times our size, or why aren't we doing the arenas I said we're gonna do. Why aren't we the next Metallica like I said I was gonna be when I was 12? And I'd always kind of beat myself up inward. But once we had kids, I realized that they don't care how big the band is. They don't care. All they care about the fact is that I'm their parent. So I stopped changing things to I'm gonna be the best in the world at this, this and this and this. To I'm gonna be the best Matt Heafy for all the Matt Heafy things. And well, I really encourage everyone to take their name and say that exact same thing. I'm gonna be the best John Smith for all the John Smith things. There's a lot of John Smiths out there, and just once I reframed that and stopped going. Oh, I failed because I'm not Living in a mansion and I don't have like a private jet and I'm the band isn't the number one band in the world. I stopped caring and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I still, to be juxtapositional about myself, while I have the things the kids I still do look at the things in life and go. I strive to practice to be as good as a hero, knowing it'll never happen. Now I'm not. It's not the latter part I want someone to focus on. It's the former part. I train to be hopefully as good as Bruce Dickinson, Ronnie James Dio, Freddie Mercury all my heroes, knowing it won't happen, jiu-jitsu. I train to be like Eddie Cummings and Gordon Ryan, knowing it won't happen, but I'm still gonna train like they do, so that way I can push and and it's not about, it's not about the end, it's not about not arriving there, but it's about putting the same kind of work that they would put in. 

Michael: 21:58

I love the fact that you cite these specific people who are your heroes, that you look up to, and I think that that's something that maybe we're missing a little bit of in today's culture. It's like the heroes aren't often talked about and and it's almost a challenging thing to say that you want to be a hero to somebody. It's like either you are or you aren't, but to have that goal, I mean I wonder in the beginning, when you were, you had the goal of being the best metal band if that Helped you get to where you are, if that was essential to getting to where you are today, or like what would have changed it's. It's hard to know the answer to that, but I feel that's very important. 

Matt: 22:45

I was just sitting with my dear friend of ten years, Brian from jiu-jitsu it all stems back to jiu-jitsu, metal, food or something like that with me. I was with Brian and the first time I met his son his son was like, I think like five or six years old, like my kids age, and now his son is like 15, 16 and he's a sophomore prepping for high, like what life is beyond high school? And Sorry, where was the train that was going at us? I had this. 

Michael: 23:12

So having the goal of being the best, thank you, yeah, thank you. 

Matt: 23:17

And so I think back to. I told Lex this I was like you should absolutely set your goals high and not let anyone push from that. Because when we first did come out as a bunch of 18-year-olds out of nowhere and no one cared about our band except for the UK. So the UK, we blew up out of nowhere. And then next thing you know, there's this band of teenagers saying we're going to be the next Metallica. On all the magazine covers, all the bands that I loved, that I grew up listening to. As soon as we started touring with them, we were bullied by my favorite bands. My favorite bands Cruz, my favorite bands fans. People would actually talk badly about me in their magazine interviews of my favorite bands in the world, like bands that I grew up buying their VHS's from eBay, buying their posters, having their posters on my wall, like really terrible things, like I'll never call any of that out by name, but the stories I would give. Like I remember I had a vocal issue on the tour we had and I had to walk through their dressing room. They're all making that vocal squeak at me as I was walking through the room. Oh, my God, you know what am I going to do. I've had band singers tell me like, oh yeah, we took a lot of, took a lot of shite bringing you on this tour, like during an interview with me, him and the other singers of the other bands. I'm just like, what do I say to this? So it was a trial by fire, it was terrible, but I wouldn't go back and change it. Like I feel like if we had like goals of, yeah, whatever's fine, which is totally fine, I'm not shooting like the. Some bands they just want to play and that's totally great. Some bands want to play clubs, some bands want to play arenas, some bands want to play stadiums, I knew I wanted to be a band that made a dent and that made that moved the needle in a specific way for people that loved it. And I feel like if it was a lesser goal, I wouldn't have pushed myself as hard, but I still wouldn't go back. I still wouldn't go back and slap myself in the face and be like, be more humble, like shift this around. No, it's. What's interesting now is I look at bands that are coming out now that are 18 to 20, 22, 24, 25, that are essentially saying kind of the same thing, but now they're praised, whereas before it was very different. Yeah, you know, we still came. We were coming out of the era where opening bands for bands would get glass bottles thrown at them. Like we were coming out of that, like that hell era that you heard of from the 80s and 90s. It was still around when we were there, but it's very much so gone now. Yeah, so I'll tell other, newer bands about it. Like, wow, I didn't know that ever happened. I didn't know that. So I remember the first thing we played San Francisco. It was Children of Bodom Headlining. We were direct support in the Monomarth first. Now, for perspective, monomarth was opening that tour to like 400 people and now they're doing like 5,000 people a night on their own in the States. So, like, show, how much metal has grown. But the San Francisco show, the crowd Buddhist the entire show and spit on us the entire show. Wow, we played a show on supporting Dillinger escape plan. I forgot what part of Canada it was, but the whole crowd stayed off the main floor and turned their backs to us the entire crowd. Wow, yeah, like that kind of stuff, like stuff that just doesn't exist anymore really, yeah, and I'm not using these as like oh, whoa, it's me, but I'm happy these things happened and that may sound completely. Is that masochistic or sadist? I feel like I'm both to myself, but it put us where we are now, even like doing our third record, completely rebelling against like the second record. We finally had fans who blew up in the UK the third record. I'm like let's do the exact opposite. Let's do nothing. We just did. The fans were into it, but then all the magazines that said we're the best band in the world also were the worst band in the world. And still to this day it's hard to get UK press to talk about our band. They're still mad about record two turning into record three all the way up to record 10. So it's it's this interesting thing Like we only had a moment on the second record in the UK of being a press darling and like a band that you'd see at a festival and other bands being the size and stage. Since then we've purely been held up by just our fans. That's it and just ourselves. So that's why the I feel like the bond between the four of us, the band is so strong and the bond with our fans are so strong because it's just had to be out of like this, almost like survival, like it's. It's felt like it's trivium and trivium fans against the world, which keeps us strong. 

Michael: 27:07

Yeah, that's some real solidarity. That's, uh, I mean what? What a thing to face as far as critical adversity people being that mean spirited towards you and you just rejecting it. You know, having a healthy boundary with that and being like that, I'm not going to take their criticism as to. You know, attach to my character. That's not who I am. It was, it was tough. 

Matt: 27:33

I bet it was definitely tough. 

Michael: 27:35

Yeah, I mean that's, that's massive, it really really is. And I mean, I think that you, you are that hero that you strived to be or strive to be, yeah, because stories like that. I think that you know, you're just so approachable to your fans, you're very humble, but also you're very grateful for your these talents, these gifts, and you use them and you try to make the most of them that you can. And yeah, I just I think that you're just such a unique individual in in all of those ways. 

Matt: 28:11

Yeah, yeah, thank you. 

Michael: 28:14

I mean, in addition to the talent which you can just hear, listen to any trivia and song or look at anything that you've done. It's a yeah, it means a lot coming from you. 

Matt: 28:22

Oh well, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I definitely. You know I'm very, very I keep checking just make sure it's recording our voices. That's why I keep looking back. Yeah, I definitely feel very lucky. I mean, it was even today, like this morning. Ash and I we dropped the kids off with the yoga class together and come home I get to play a couple of trivia songs for some awesome people who live in all these different countries and work on some music for a really killer game, and then go do jiu-jitsu, have lunch and hang out with my friend, brian and his son, and then come here and hang out with you. It's a really I'm very fortunate. It's just fun. 

Michael: 28:51

Yeah. 

Matt: 28:52

Like it's, it's, it's fun. Yeah, I get to have a lot of fun. 

Michael: 28:55

You have one of the best lives of anybody that I know. Oh damn, thank you, and yeah, but also I know that, like what kind of work you put into it as well. Like it's not, it's not all just fun and hanging out and it's, it's very. 

Matt: 29:10

Yeah, I like to work. Yeah, this morning I woke up too early. I've been habit waking up like 5 20, for some reason. 

Michael: 29:16

That's the best time of day. I guess it's really great. 

Matt: 29:19

I came in here and just started working on a different secret project, but it's, it's for, yeah, for this other game that's having me do this one, one off song and it's really cool. That's awesome. Yeah, I love it. 

Michael: 29:30

Yeah, and I mean to have that thing that gets you up in the morning and you're just like I'm going to start working on this because I want to see where it's going to go. 

Matt: 29:39

Yeah, I wake up excited. I wake up excited to get to work on this stuff. Wow, it's like I love what we do with Trivium and Trivium has a very specific identity and I know what things work in and what don't and I've just been having so much fun Like I still dream. I dream to do more and more movies and more and more games. I'm very thankful Deathgasm 2 signed me on and there's another horror film that I can't announce yet that I'm doing their score as well, but we're kind of further further down the line to really start up, but maybe someday it can keep progressing because I love that. And since getting into this, watching movies has felt different. Like I feel like I'm hearing more things, like we watch all the Harry Potter's every year and I'm hearing more things in the scores and I'm about the final two were also scored by a guy that did Zero Dark 30. Oh, wow, and I can kind of hear those parallels of that intense darkness in the music and just starting to. Yeah, it really does. Yeah, A bad score can absolutely destroy a movie and I've started gravitating. So I was like I have been like favorite instruments in classical composition. I don't know how to play cello, but I really want to see if I can play it and if I can, I want to get a cello because I feel like I can make my own cello quartets or something like that. I've really just been drawn to what other instruments you can have out there and what sounds and what things they can make you create. Like even just playing that harp, that koto, it's, it's. The melodies have been coming up with are so different than what I would normally come up with and I really like that a lot. That's awesome. Yeah, it's very very fun. 

Michael: 31:03

Well, since I do a podcast about Audubon Park, where we live, let's talk about the neighborhood a little bit. 

Matt: 31:08

Oh yeah, yeah. Today I already ate at Hinkley's Fancy Meats and had his banh mi, which I think is the best banh mi in town, even though we have, like a little Vietnam, essentially the dochi Japanese donuts, which is good as Japan I had them in Japan just a couple of months ago Lineage coffee, like I just did all that just now, and that's all at East End Market under one roof yeah. It's like a minute or two from here, so very, very lucky to cross. There's red light, one of our favorite hangs. I'm so excited Jess has her kitchen open now at red light. Her food is insane and we're actually planning a really cool band get together there. We're just going to cook for the band and we're going to film it and everything, so that's going to be fun. Yeah, yeah, it's. We're so lucky Like we don't have to really drive further than five minutes to eat food that is that can contend with any other city in this country Like truly can. Now, I always used to say that I mean this may mean the wrong comparison I remember 10 years ago maybe five, five, 10 years ago, as you say, like Orlando will be the next Austin, but I think it's even a better way, because Austin now has like almost too much, it's like a critical mass, whereas Orlando we have just the right amount of stuff you can share. La, san Francisco, chicago, new York, seattle, portland has amazing food and there's so much of it, but us it still has that small town feeling here. It still feels small somewhere between small town and big city, and things like Edelboy and Cadence and Sozecki are as good as any other Michelin sushi place anywhere in the States or even in the world. It's amazing. Yeah, we're very, very lucky and I don't know why that happened here. 

Michael: 32:35

But it did. Yeah, I think it's a confluence of things. I mean, I think just the people, the level of talent here because of the proximity to Disney, you know that drew a lot of people here and then they kind of branched out and just over the years this became a very viable food scene. 

Matt: 32:52

So it's crazy. It's just so exciting how much good stuff we have, and you know we love going to the new farmhouse, sit down, play for breakfast, and one of the biggest, saddest things, though, is the piece for pie is gone. Yeah, that was one of our favorites. We've been eating there since the kids were like six months old. I understand why, but that's just because it's tough. It's tough, but we got things like the Strand and Prato and Pizza Bruno it's the list goes on. And on Chicken Fire. Remember, Chicken Fire started growing during the pandemic and then just thrived and exploded and became, honestly and Paolo says this, and I do agree with him, he said it's like the best fried chicken you get in the States. It destroys everything in Nashville, in my opinion. Yeah, absolutely without question. One of our favorite tour spots was always Gus G. Gus G's guitar player, Gus’, is in Memphis. That was one of our favorite fried chicken places, but I think Chicken Fire smokes it. 

Michael: 33:43

Yeah, I haven't tried Jam's Hot Chicken, but I hear that's really good as well. 

Matt: 33:47

Corey is our resident chicken sandwich guy, so if you ever do a chicken sandwich segment, you should talk to Corey, our guitar player, because that is like his thing. Fried chicken sandwiches. Although the Strand's fried chicken sandwich is like one of the best in the world as well. Yeah, it's just nuts. The best ramen I've had in Japan was really difficult. I thought it was like maybe it was Dusseldorf, maybe it was Sao Paulo, maybe it was Austin, Texas, but I think Domu is as good as Japan, and Zaru now is like I never thought we'd have a Tempo Udon place. That's where you dip Tempo into the Udon and that is as good as Japan, without question. Wow, yeah, we're very very lucky. 

Michael: 34:24

Yeah, I mean, you have done so much traveling and I know you have a food blog. Do you still do that? I don't. 

Matt: 34:30

Okay, I researched. I researched the heck out of every single meal we do, but luckily, all my guys it's usually three to four of us for one to three meals a day, every day on tour we just try to find the absolute best, whether it's the best hole in the wall food, like we had at the markets in Costa Rica or in Thailand on the street street food market stuff, or if it's like the fanciest sit down place anywhere in between, like Sweden. For my birthday, we got to go to the number one steak restaurant in all of Sweden. Wow, sweden has high standards for things and that was absurdly great. Yeah, the hyphen spoon is also absurdly great and that's right here too. Yeah, I'm very thankful in that I've been able to travel and eat everywhere and to be able to come back home and say, wow, our stuff is just as good, whereas we don't have 20 the strands, but we have the strand. So why not just go there? 

Michael: 35:19

You only need the one, exactly, and it's like a mom and pop operation. Yes, like just. It's like a home cooked meal yes, but like the best home cooked meal you've ever had. Yeah, yeah, and I'm not touching it here, it I just think Orlando is often overlooked because people just associated with Disney or I don't know whatever else they Florida. 

Matt: 35:44

Florida things. Yeah, yeah, a lot of Florida things in the state. 

Michael: 35:47

Universal Studios yeah, just like it's a tourist destination, obviously, but it's just. It really is so much more because of the people who have stuck around and made something of it, and I love that you guys are here and you're not. You are sticking around. 

Matt: 36:01

Oh, absolutely Absolutely. We've gone everywhere in the world and still this is the place we want to live. I mean, if I were to live anywhere else in the world, we've always like kind of theorized about it. We won't ever leave, but Orlando's still make those places would be what Tokyo, osaka, helsinki, oslo, gothenburg, stockholm, copenhagen, ashwood, say Paris? But still, like even putting those some of the best places in the world up, I still love Orlando so much and I, you know, as much as I love it. I hope people keep traveling here to helping it grow. I hope it never hits that super critical, massive place that we see where oh, it's incredible, it's incredible, oh no, it's been completely overrun by all the tech industry stuff and now everything's unaffordable. We have to move out. I don't know if that'll happen here. I don't know either. I almost feel like it kind of would have already. 

Michael: 36:50

I'm not sure. I wonder if it's. I mean, this is a whole deep conversation but about like infrastructure. Here we don't have great public transport, so it's like there are certain like quality of life things that maybe have been holding us back from becoming that. But I mean, I think about Austin too, because people do complain about Austin a lot, how it's changed and grown and everything, and it's just completely different. 

Matt: 37:15

Nashville's definitely that one's been one of the most drastic changes. We did our fourth record there when it was like it's kind of like where we are here, like there was cool food, it wasn't overgrown, and now it's just it's. Paulo described it as, like he said, cmt Las Vegas is what he said. He's really smart, he's very good at describing things Something along those lines and he's absolutely nailed it, cause walking around was like oh he's right, it kind of almost seems like a Bravo show, like just everywhere you go, or like a TLC show, like with whatever TLCs become the learning channel which you don't learn. 

Michael: 37:50

Yeah, I haven't been back to Nashville in forever. I have a good friend that lives there. 

Matt: 37:54

Yeah, it still has great stuff. Like we've got local friends who are like oh, this is where you go. But I feel like there's a couple like the spots that I really thought held like something local have, kind of just. But that's what happens with the like over expansion of things. 

Michael: 38:07

Like, I feel like. 

Matt: 38:07

Portland has kind of hit that recently. 

Michael: 38:10

Maybe there's something recent. 

Matt: 38:10

He was in the last five years or so. 

Michael: 38:12

Yeah, but change is inevitable. But it's like it's how it's changed, how it's managed and that sort of thing. Yeah, but this is a good place to call home, for sure. 

Matt: 38:21

Yeah, sorry, people from Nashville, I still love Nashville. Uh-huh, I was like don't you ever come back here again? So yeah. 

Michael: 38:28

So back to music stuff. You've done a ton of collaborations with people. You've met some of your music heroes. Is there anybody out there that you haven't yet worked with, that you really are excited to or hope to work with at? 

Matt: 38:44

some point. I've recently had this dream of I wish I could do like Nightmare Before Christmas in a theater, kind of like a Broadway thing. I know it hasn't been done, but I mean Danny Elfman would do it better justice. But I would love to do Jack Skellington live. I'd love to work with Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer yeah, those two are definitely more. 

Michael: 39:02

Have you reached out to any of them? 

Matt: 39:04

I feel like I don't know if they can see the message or not. 

Michael: 39:07

I think you should. I mean, what do you have to lose? 

Matt: 39:09

Yeah, yeah, actually the times I have done that, it has worked out well. I did that with. I tweeted at Richard Marx. I was like, hey, let's do “Right Here, Waiting”, but with you on it. And we did it and it's on Spotify and it's awesome. Oh, wow, yeah, that's wild. And then Deadmau5 and I have been supposed to do something for a couple of years. I remember I was telling the story about Richard Marx and then telling the story about how that kind of led to the same thing with Mike Schnoder from Lincoln Park, and then Deadmau5 is in my chat. I was like, hey, Deadmau5, let’s do a song together, let's do it. That hasn't happened yet, but hopefully we end up doing that. I learned a lot from his masterclass and Danny Elfman's masterclass and Hans Zimmer's masterclass, but Deadmau5 was really cool because it was a very different approach than everyone else's. 

Michael: 39:50

That's so cool that stuff like that exists and it's so accessible. I just like things like that give me hope, the fact that good information is being passed on, people's stories are being told. I wonder what are some of the things that give you hope about the future? 

Matt: 40:07

Great question. I mean like to be super deep and existential about it. I would say, my kids. 

Michael: 40:14

Yeah, of course it has. Yeah, we'll do that one then. 

Matt: 40:16

Then, we'll maybe go for something a little more shallow after that, but the fact that my son has a really great rhythm, like you can hear a song and actually tap to the beat, Whereas I'll meet adults that you've seen it. They can't do that, they cannot stay to a beat. I'll quiz both of my kids; I'll sing like mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm mm-hmm, mm-hmm, Harry Potter. But I'll do like maybe 10 of those things, everything from like movies to songs from Attack on Titan, this anime that they don't watch yet that I'm obsessed with. And I'll sing something from like Attack on Titan, season one. They'll be like Attack on Titan or Power Wolf, and I think that's really, really cool. Or Mia, she'll just make up songs. Like she's never, it's not even gibberish, she's just constant words that are telling this story. She doesn't stop and it's amazing. So that stuff gives me a lot of hope, hope in the more superficial sense. 

Michael: 41:04

I don't know, You've just been out there in the world a lot more than all of us and you know I remember like we had a lot of conversations during the shutdown and just not knowing what things were gonna come back and if things were gonna come back, and when it got very dark and bleak there for a while. And I think that we kind of we view things differently now, now that things are open again and we're able to get out there and do things. But yeah, I just I wonder if your perspective has shifted from that. 

Matt: 41:37

It's just, it's so cool to see the excitement around the world. I mean, we went to Costa Rica for the first time and it was like a sold out show and we spent the whole day after the show still in Costa Rica and just eating and the promoter took us around and then I found this really cool this chef who has a restaurant in his garage that his family lives in and then I was able to get like a private dinner for all of us and he made us just whatever he wanted to make. It was truly incredible. And Argentina like we were supposed to play South America. There was no Argentina show booked, but there was just nonstop comments from kids from Argentina like play Argentina. And we were able to find a venue like two weeks before showing up to Buenos Aires and it like sold out and it was one of the greatest shows of our entire lives. We had a day off I think it was the day after as well and we just walked Buenos Aires for like 10 hours and ate and drank the entire day and ran into really cool people and really interesting people and having these conversations, this thing kind of conversations we're having here about that, and the more I travel. I'm probably paraphrasing my other hero, Anthony Bourdain here, but the more I mean. All around the world. Things look different, sound different, like I referenced earlier, but everyone just wants the same thing. Everyone just wants to have fun and love and be loved and enjoy life and feel safe and secure, and I think that’s maybe what gets lost in the plot sometimes, like it gets lost in the shuffle how similar we all are, even though we may look different or be into different things. Like I think that sometimes we need to pull the blinders off, but I feel like the world is a lot more, while the clothes minded are a lot louder. The world is also, I think, a lot more open minded. I really do think so, cause it's from touring, like the stories I told you, but nowadays, like heavy tours can go out with very, very different bands and no one even bats an eye about it. No one gets mad about a lineup anymore or says like tries to bully a band anymore, really, whereas we were the band that was bullied. So that that is really interesting how much more open mindedness things can be. But of course it's always going to be light and dark and that's the way the world is, and that's you know. Yeah, if we got rid of the negative, how would the positive even feel? Probably good, I guess. 

Michael: 43:42

But I mean, I think, the balance of fear and love, which are kind of the two main drivers of human existence, right, it's like you're drawn towards what you love and then you're drawn away towards what you fear, and I think a lot of people who get kind of lost in their lives are letting fear lead, you know. And it's like you're not really even like approaching something that's good for you. You're just like fighting against something that you're afraid of happening and it's really not realistic, it's not going to happen, but anyways, that's, that's why I make metal. I know man. Yeah, it's really needed for that sort of thing, I think, where there are no words for certain feelings and ideas. I think that music kind of fills some of those gaps. 

Matt: 44:31

Yeah, music, art, food all the things that you and I the why we've always got along so well, all the things that we love. Yeah, you know, we became pals through our love of food and good music and life and art and all these things. And I think that's the thing and finding people that are similar to the things you love and try out different things in life, try everything. Try to go to every country that you can and listen to every kind of music. Everywhere we go, every time South America, for example we'd show up in Bogota, Colombian music and I just have that country’s music playing while we prep to go get that country's food and that country's drinks and then go play in that country. Like I like to truly immerse myself in everything that I'm doing and pairing everything. When I do yoga, I listen to classical music or Japanese traditional music. When I go to Jiu Jitsu, I listen to super heavy stuff, and I like to have these pairings of things outside of, just like food and booze 

Michael: 45:23

It’s like a soundtrack, right? Yeah, I mean, again, that's like a movie, like scoring a movie, absolutely, yeah. That's what we do in life. So what do you suggest? Like, I mean, I've found, just as I was researching for this interview, I mean— I know you—but it's like there's the online you, like the history of you, and there's a lot there. And it was just like, listening to Trivium songs as I did it. It was like this is great, just like, doing work, listening to stuff. It just keeps you going. You know it pairs well with working. 

Matt: 45:53

That absolutely does, absolutely does. I think that's probably why I'm so drawn to always making it, because it's just I don't like to stop. But I've gotten better with that and some of the tips that I've been giving to, like my friends, that I've been trying is, like, 60 minutes within waking up and 60 minutes before going to bed, don't look at your phone. Don't look at your phone. Yeah, because I feel like that'll like kind of trigger something in your head. Maybe it needs to be longer, even. Same thing with games I've on tour, like I love to game, like me, Paolo, Alex and a lot of people from our chat will all game together. I need to stop like two hours before going to bed, like those little things. 

Michael: 46:27

Let your brain come up with its own dreams and visions. 

Matt: 46:30

Exactly, yeah, exactly. Or things like if you're truly in disconnect, like I make, sometimes I slip up, but I try to always keep it centered, like on the weekends when work is done and there's nothing I have to do. Keep my phone plugged in underneath like my bed, underneath my bed, like away from me, and I'm not going to use it. I'm going to be over here on this other side of the house, cause if it's around, I'm going to plug it. I'm just going to check it for a second. I see, you know it's been an hour, so things like that. Like I'm trying to set up those balances. I just released a YouTube a day in the life, like what I do on tour, like I've got a lot of processes to feel kind of balanced. I always need to do like some kind of foam rolling, meditation, stretching my physical therapy not on tour but at home jujitsu, steel mace or kettle bells, and then making music, a lay time where I'm just laying and not doing anything, and it's like a 10 thing long list. I need that sunlight for like five to 15 minutes, direct sunlight, as much as my skin is possible. Cold shower, steam shower, all these things. I do all of those things to feel balanced and it's a lot, but it's because there's no like, there's no cure for the things that we don't like that go on within our brains and bodies. It's getting. I reconcile the fact that these things just exist and I have to work with them. I can't, but there's no like, there's no cure and it's not really a bandage. I'm looking for it's more. How do I navigate these things? 

Michael: 47:45

Yeah, so this is anxiety, this is or is it something diagnosed like more? 

Matt: 47:50

Yeah, it's definitely heavy like super high anxiety, and I've always had it. That's why you can see that theme of anxiety, that theme of drowning, basically, from like record I don't know about record one, there's a lot of angry stuff in record one but from record two to record 10, you can see that, hey, this is not gone away, it's a part of life. So I do all of that then, in addition to like speaking to a licensed mental health counselor one to four times a month. Yeah, it takes a lot and that's what I want people to realize. It's not just like a hey, snap your fingers, not just. I appreciate that nowadays people do say like about their mental health, but I think my problem is influencers or musicians or people with a platform be like yes, your mental health is important, that's all they say, but they're not giving the suggestions like seek a licensed mental health counselor, not just your friend, not just your family members, and find one that's a good fit too. Yes, exactly, absolutely. And then find the other things that make life feel balanced, because life is a very unbalanced thing. So you have to figure out what, your I don't want to use the word cocktail, but it's something, the appropriate word, your combination of things that make you feel ready to face the day, to be the best person you can. 

Michael: 48:57

Some people call it “the soup.” What you put in the soup. 

Matt: 48:59

I like that. Yeah. 

Michael: 49:00

Cause, I mean, our lives, they are comprised of many different things and you have to have a good balance and you have to know what's healthy for you. You know, and it's going to be different, it's going to vary from person to person. But yeah, I mean, I think the shutdown definitely made us look inward and it prevented us from having all these distractions that we have sometimes of like traveling places or, you know, socializing in the same way. 

Matt: 49:29

But yeah, I don't know, there are some good things that came out of it for sure, definitely, definitely. I've been very fortunate and then, like a lot of the meet and greets we've done in these last couple tours, I'll meet people that said, hey, if I didn't have the channel during lockdown, I would have lost my mind, like people that were by themselves in their apartment for two years. 

Michael: 49:44

Can you imagine I can't. 

Matt: 49:46

I can't. I was lucky cause I was with my wife and my two kids that were just born, so I was like this is kind of ideal. Yeah, that we're all for here. What are the odds? 

Michael: 49:54

Yeah. 

Matt: 49:54

And then my main training partner in Jiu Jitsu, Jeff. He also just had his kid around that time. So we're like let's not see anyone other than our two families, essentially. And we set up a tent in my backyard and just did Jiu Jitsu every day, Wow, and for two years and I feel like we got really great and became really close pals through that. 

Michael: 50:11

That's cool and you had like all of that joy that you were still able to have in your household. You were able to kind of put some of that out in the world. 

Matt: 50:20

Definitely, yeah, still be able to play music to all the people that supported me twice over with Trivia man, with Twitch. 

Michael: 50:25

Yeah, that's amazing. So how much crossover is there? I mean, you've probably got a lot of fans of the band who are online, but not all of them, right? 

Matt: 50:38

My guess would be, when I first started Twitch, 99 to 100% were Trivium fans who were trying out a new social media. It's really hard to port your supporters from one thing to another. I say, as the years went on, I would guess 75 to 80% would be Trivium fans first and that other chunk would be new. That's really possible, possibly. I think 75 would be kind of the highest, or 25% would be like the highest of, like newcomers who came in from there. I'll definitely get people that said like hey, I got into music through this game or through this collab thing that you did, or seeing you play do music on QuakeCon or our Elder Scrolls crossovers that we did, or Metal Helsing or things like that, which is really cool, but still just my dream to just keep doing as many full video game soundtracks and full movie soundtracks as possible. I'm just absolutely obsessed with that. Right now I'm actually scoring a graphic novel, which is really cool, because I befriended I can't announce this one yet either I'll fucking announce it really soon. I'm just befriended this incredible writer who's got this awesome graphic novel series that they're planning, and I was like have you guys ever done a soundtrack for one? It's like well, we're thinking about it. I was like I know it's because it's a medium, you don't think of a soundtrack. Yeah Well, maybe we can have these songs that we recommend, like hey, have this song playing across these pages and this song across these pages. 

Michael: 51:54

We're doing that too, which is gonna be really fun. Wow, yeah, has that been done before? I'm not sure. Yeah, that's really interesting? 

Matt: 52:00

Hopefully not. That'd be cool if it hasn't. 

Michael: 52:02

Yeah. 

Matt: 52:05

I mean I've got all things like that were kind of geeky, that aren't really geeky anymore. Now I see people wearing anime stuff all the time. I grew up with anime and it's kind of cool to be geeky now, yeah, it is great. Yeah, it really, really is. Because I remember, you know, when I remember once I was wearing glasses in like somewhere in the Midwest on tour and somebody like hung their entire body, the car just yell like hipster, and they just drove by, I was like okay, it just like. It's been like my whole life, like I can never have the right look. When I had long hair, metal dork. 

Michael: 52:35

When I had short hair, emo kid glasses, hipster yeah, I mean yeah, it's like we society tells us to blend in, yes, but then when we, I think, fiercely refuse to do that which I think is part of what metal does really, it's like it's music, that is, it's going to piss some people off, no matter what, you know, people are not going to get it. They're going to be afraid of it. They're going to assume that it's like got some negative messaging which, as you said, some of it does, but not not all of it, and some of it is just getting that negativity out, as you said. 

Matt: 53:17

So, Absolutely, and it's so important, like you know, not to get super heavy right here but one of the things that stuck out with me, or stuck with me from our second record I remember meeting a fan we've got a song about child abuse and domestic violence on that record and then I met a fan that said this song saved my life. It was like I thought this was all my fault. I was the only one going through this and I read these lyrics and it made me realize it wasn't and it was my family household's fault and I got out of that situation. And you know they they've seen us for years and years and years or people that said, you know I was considering ending it all but thanks to having the band's music and having this the channel, like the things that I don't think that that would be that significant to someone Like I know it makes people feel good and I want it to and I'm glad. I'm glad we do have the responsibility because I do feel the four of us in my band are very empathetic people and we can handle that kind of what maybe look like pressure, but I welcome it because if I can try to help someone out, that's the way they've given me a career. That that's a very powerful thing and I feel like metal is one of the few things that does that. Does that I mean thankfully, you know, I hope Swifties out there are getting that same kind of strength too, sure. But like I'm very happy that my genre is sort of like it's just half and half, it's maybe historically probably 50% of heavy stuff. Maybe is that stereotypical and they just want to make heavy stuff and don't really care what it is. Maybe it's not 50%. 

Michael: 54:35

Yeah. 

Matt: 54:37

Maybe nowadays it's a lot larger for population or percentage, but I'm very thankful that our music can be something that's very positive and that's meant to be positive for people and that's, I think, that's why metal is so big, that's why there's 100,000 person metal festivals that are a week long that are sold out in five minutes in Europe 

Michael: 54:59

Yeah, and it's unreal that you often play to tens of thousands of people. That's just like a normal thing. It's really fun. Yeah, the logistics of that just I can imagine just seeing that many people out there and they're all really into it, it's really cool. 

Matt: 55:08

Yeah, that would be. We just headlined a festival called Summer Breeze. It was a 60,000 person festival in Germany and we were the headliner and it felt great. 

Michael: 55:15

Wow, good, wow. I mean I was blown away, just like your Instagram stuff you had posted. You were in Dallas and played a show and the security wasn't covering things properly, so somebody was at risk of getting very seriously injured who was crowd surfing, and you jumped off stage and caught this person. 

Matt: 55:37

Yeah, he was going out and head first and when I caught him he was huge. When he stood up he was like this, much taller than me. I was like no wonder why you're so heavy and that amount of weight like landing on his head, yeah. He was like I'm going to be broken his neck because I've seen it. Like, I remember we played Le Bataclan. We were one of the first bands to play it after they reopened it after the shootings, and I remember security was terrible that night too. A kid got tossed and his entire back went on the barricades and bent backwards like Linda Blair from the Exorcist. I stopped that. I was like, are you okay? And he's like boom. Then he just walked on. He was good, he's a very flexible kid. Oh my gosh, I would have been done. I would have been done. Wow, yeah, I'm very much so looking forward to and I hope people don't take this wrong with it this year off because we had such an incredible. We did 10 records of album tour, album tour, album tour 10 times and it was amazing. And now we get to truly take this like this refresher and where I'm not going to stop, like singing, with singing and guitar playing. I never take time off for singing, ever. I condition it like an athlete, like it's every single, every single weekday, within reason. Like I finally got a little better with it. Before, I would never skip a day of Jiu Jitsu, I would never skip a vocal training. But now with kids, I'm like it's not even that. I want to be flexible for them, I need to be flexible for me. I'm tired of some of those incredibly rigid things where I would like beat myself up like I skipped Jiu Jitsu today. Everyone's going to be better than me now, but thankfully those things are. I've been working on them. 

Michael: 57:04

Yeah, but there's years. There's a balance. Yeah, yeah. 

Matt: 57:09

I'm a moderate, I'm extremist, but I use it in moderation. 

Michael: 57:15

Something like that. I'm trying to figure out the exact thing. 

Matt: 57:17

And I mean purely by my hobbies and things that I love. 

Michael: 57:19

They say type A personality. 

Matt: 57:21

Yeah. 

Michael: 57:22

Something that's like a very like go-go, like very, can't shut it off, but I don't feel like my personality is necessarily like that. 

Matt: 57:28

I'm not sure it's maybe just the work ethic, but I do definitely draw people with that personality the very, I don't know why that is, but maybe it's because of my work ethic. 

Michael: 57:37

Yeah, and you find ways of getting stuff done and that's like you're effective that way.

Matt: 57:45

Yeah. And it's funny though, the first game soundtrack I was able to do. The creative director approached me. He's like do you want to score a game? Yes, can you make Brazilian music? Yes, and I just said yes. And I went back home and tried to learn as much about making Brazilian music. I had no idea how the hell it's done. Yeah, had to learn. 

Michael: 58:03

If you put your mind to it, you can do it. So, basically, with music, I was reading that you are essentially self taught. You had some lessons in the beginning, but for the most part you're self taught. 

Matt: 58:14

Yeah, it's probably just 10 to 20 lessons, not even at the beginning, but kind of like, maybe like a year after, starting from this guitar teacher named Dave Hopwood in Orlando. But it wasn't that much, it was just a little bit, and the rest is just by ear. That's why, like if I were to fret a string, I couldn't tell you what note it is without thinking about it. But I believe that theory can be incredibly helpful, like I'm sure maybe it'd be more helpful for scoring, but maybe it'll be a more interesting path. Maybe, if I go the way that I'm discovering it, I'll write it differently, I'll make it sound differently than someone else. Yeah and if I went the traditional rock, because I've met some and I've heard of anecdotes of some people who compose that, musically trained to a tee, know every single thing about theory but maybe can't make a song that sticks with someone, then we'll hear about these guitar players that are not very good a guitar, known apps, you know thing about theory but wrote some of the biggest songs ever. Yeah, so it's finding that, that balance, and it is just that it's theory. Yeah, you know it's something that explains something of why, but it's not necessarily of that. It has to be done that way. 

Michael: 59:15

Yeah, like you can sense what things go together, what? I'll go words and notes go together and. 

Matt: 59:20

I feel like it's the way I've talked to like really fantastic chefs, because I used to, you saw it; I used to like cooking a lot but I've fallen out of it because it's just too much time, too much work and, like I realized I don't love it. But Ashley loves to cook and I've met people that do love to cook and I've talked to some incredible chefs. I'm like how do you come up with something like, oh, we just know, we just know like what ingredients gonna go together. But that's how I feel with music, yeah, especially with this. I'm not the first person to do it, but I feel like my general approach for scoring things is like a past, present, future approach. So past being orchestral and choral, present being like metal and Future being industrial, electronic, and those are three things I love to mix together and that's how, like all the scores I've been doing I tried it. that's kind of like my north star where I try to go first. It's very much so like a composer named Hiroyuki Sawano. He did the first Attack on Titan or the first, like maybe three or four seasons actually, but it's his present was more rock and very kind of like simple guitars but still was so effective with the brass and the strings and real drums and all these things. I'd love to pair those three things together. And that's why I like sometimes be like, oh yeah, I just need the koto there or I need like a shamisen part there. My good buddy, Jared Dines like one of the biggest music youtubers. He does this your shred content or shred collab or all these guitar players around the world try to get into it. But he'll have a lot of his friends are in Simon as well and when he first started like they were great. They were good guitar players, but now the bar of musicians has gotten so high. It's insane. Like everyone is incredible. There are these guitar players who've been playing for a year that kill every professional on flashiness and shredding. So Jared invited me to be on this. I'm like looking at the other people on these people and I'm not being humble they destroy me on the guitar just absolutely run circles around me. So I was like I'm gonna play shamisen. So I just picked the shamisen. Like Jared, this is what I'm sending in this year. So I always want to do something different. I was gonna be the opposite, like if I know, if it's a thing with a bunch of people, how can I stand out, without doing it ironically, and be me and make it something unique? 

Michael: 1:01:17

Well, I think, these days, with YouTube; you can learn from so many different teachers now, whereas, like when we were growing up, that wasn't. 

Matt: 1:01:29

Exactly the conversation I had with Brian earlier. Yeah, he was telling his son is just like you can learn anything now, Alex was like, not really. Like, no, you can't, you literally. Yeah, I, if I find a CD I liked, I'd have to put it in my computer, rip it to my computer, burn it to a different disc and then play it into a CD player that had like a cassette adapter or slow things down. You've never knew what a song title, like what song title was. 

Michael: 1:01:49

Yeah, you were limited to your CD collection. 

Matt: 1:01:51

Yes, of what you that's my old CD book from middle school, to the one that says MKH. I still have, but instead it has all the Trivium stuff in it, but I guess I really do keep things. My kids are playing with the old Aliens toys from 30 years ago of mine, my old Power Rangers and Transformers and Ultraman. 

Michael: 1:02:06

That’s awesome. Yeah, I mean, I remember the day you showed me Spotify, it was before anybody knew about. And I know it's a very controversial thing because of how they pay artists and things like that; not to say positive or negative about them. But yeah, it was just like oh, this is a game changer. Yeah literally, with this subscription, you have access to every single song out there. 

Matt: 1:02:28

I mean before, that I have to travel with like an iPod, like I can't even imagine. Like I found my iPod still in my drawer. I'm like this is so weird. I'd have to organize everything. My genre, it was a pain. 

Michael: 1:02:37

Yes, I mean, they were great. It was a great leap from like a Walkman or a Discman. But yeah, I don't miss. 

Matt: 1:02:44

Yeah, I like the conveniences in technology like this MIDI keyboard, for example, like I don't have to get a grand piano and it can do? 

Michael: 1:02:50

I could use any instrument in the world. Yeah, it could be anything. 

Matt: 1:02:53

I write drums on that and I can write horns on it. 

Michael: 1:02:56

Yeah, and it you can't. You can almost not tell the difference exactly. 

Matt: 1:03:01

Yeah, I've got Hans Zimmer string pack and it their real string samples of what he might. 

Michael: 1:03:09

Yeah, between like that and AI and just all these different ways of kind of elevating arts and things like that. I mean, AI is another one of those things that people are like, Is that gonna take over creative things?

Matt: 1:03:22

As long as that one's done for, like, not final things. For me, like, as long as not like a final album, artwork, or you know, I've heard some bands talk about having like AI write songs. Like, at that point it's just pulling from the universe of things that already exists and making a copy of a copy at that point. But if it's used in research or something like Helping teach or helping navigate around, Problem for an illness something like that yes, let's, let's do it that way. Let's yeah, let's not figure out a way to like make the next Beatles Hologram Christmas show or something like that, because it's just gonna be recycling from the other bits. 

Michael: 1:03:59

Yeah, it's gonna augment, but it shouldn't replace and it shouldn't revive. Yeah, it's a weird thing. I've already seen some of that too. 

Matt: 1:04:07

Yeah, like people getting excited about AI making music. I'm like that's, that's not that cool. I'd rather a human being make it. I want to know what a human's gonna make or a human using those tools in a different way might be interesting. Or I don't even know what that would be, because, like, a lot of the art that I've seen made on made with AI looks really cool, but, yeah, pulling from everything that's existed, right. So at that point it's like, how are we compensating the people that? It's like actually pulling their work out of it, which, but yeah, that's a whole nother. 

Michael: 1:04:33

It definitely makes me worried about, like artists and what they're able to contribute. Oh, definitely, I mean, you know, like, how do you compete with a computer that has access to? 

Matt: 1:04:44

Actually do logos for like independent companies and stuff, and now People can get a logo made for like a dollar. Mmm, I don't like that. No, I don't like that at all. No, yeah, if our crew, the creative stuff, should always be human. Like I just bought a painting from Mathieu Nozieries, the guy that did the painting of in the core of the dragon, our last record but I produced and managed and Helped get them managed by another manager after getting them set up, this Japanese band called Ryujin. But I bought the painting and it's hanging my house. I'll show you later. It's incredible. Like I would always rather own something I could see that was made by a human being, by hand. Yeah, it was handcrafted. And same thing with listening to something. I'd always want to listen to something. But if we can navigate the tools in a way, like I said, okay, so I can use Hans Zimmer's pre-mic’ed things, but I'm writing the notes, right, and then I'm gonna shift them afterwards and create them To something different afterwards. Yeah, but not like a. Hey, I'm gonna use this AI thing. Make me Hans Zimmer song this is my song that it wrote Pulling from every Hans Zimmer song that he's ever written. Then we're like walking and you know murky waters there use the tool. 

Michael: 1:05:44

Don't replace the artist. 

Matt: 1:05:46

Yes, yes. 

Michael: 1:05:47

Yeah, exactly, I hope. I hope that that's the way that it goes. I know it's gonna be kind of an ongoing battle and things like that. 

Matt: 1:05:54

Definitely same thing, like I don't want an AI program cooking my food for me. Generating my meat for me, right, although we are gonna get to that point m when we just run out of everything. But right, as I've said to my kids when they were babies, it's gonna be your mess to clean up. 

Michael: 1:06:11

I mean it's so sad but true. Yeah, I mean we hope that something, will you know, some kind of technology will save us from some of the climate change, yeah, it's like man, it gets. It gets heavy quickly, I think, when we think about the future and we're here and we're making the most of it. And that's what people have always done, too. You know, there's been all sorts of adversity faced throughout history, and we just find a way to be our best selves and try to instill that in others. 

Matt: 1:06:47

Yeah, and then put good stuff out there like this, like this messaging that you've said, that I've said, and I hope that people can take this and it makes their day a little bit better, or maybe turn something around for them and they say hear this and go. You know, I want to do things differently now and make things kind of on the up and up. 

Michael: 1:07:01

Yeah, absolutely yeah. I mean, look to your heroes. I can't stress that enough. I think that you find the people who are to be celebrated; and stop giving your time and energy and thought to thoughtless people you know? I mean, I think that's been such a struggle and just knowing who the truly helpful people are, because there are always people out there that are doing good, and that's part of why I do this podcast, because it's on a very local level. It's like who are the people in your neighborhood? You know? It's very Mr. Rogers of just like these are people doing cool stuff? Or Sesame Street, you know? It's like that was foundational to our upbringing of getting to know who your neighbors are and why they're special and what drives them, figure out what drives you and keep doing that. 

Matt: 1:07:57

Yeah, I love it. 

Michael: 1:07:58

I love that, yeah, incredible. 

Matt: 1:07:59

Yeah, it's all we got, we got this one. 

Michael: 1:08:01

You know, and I mean you said you've had pretty profound impacts on other people, not even knowing that that was going to be an end result of it. But it's like you can't do that without doing good work and it being sincere and putting yourself out there. You know it's like you could have stopped when you were getting that pushback at those shows, and where would that have gotten you? You know it's. You've done it. It's been an uphill battle and you've done amazing things. You continue to do so. So thank you so much. Yeah, well done, absolute pleasure. Yeah, are we at our hour? 

Matt: 1:08:39

I might need to go get the kiddos in a couple, but yeah, but yeah thank you so much, but I'll have this neatly buttoned up and then we've got the video as well. Um, cool Shlife. Could you make a downloadable file for me to send the mic, please? Thank you so much, and I can get you the raw audio. So, yeah, if you want to release on video or if you don't normally do it on video, I don't know.

Michael: 1:08:58

I’ll do a one off. This is great. Yeah it's awesome, we've got it. Heck yeah. Thank you so much, man. 

Matt: 1:09:02

Yeah, great to see you. Thanks for the incredible chat. Love it man. It's my good friend, Mike. Say hi to Mike. 

Michael: 1:09:08

Thank you everybody. Thanks for Letting me steal the hour today, 

Matt: 1:09:15

Yep awesome. All right everybody. Um, it's my sister on right now Raider channel. Shlife, can you do that for me please? Thank you so much. I'm gonna hit mute and I'm gonna hit end. 

Outro: 1:09:32

This episode is brought to you in part by the Audubon Park Community Market. Join us every Monday from 5 to 8 pm, rain or shine, and a parking lot of stardust video and coffee. Located at 1842 East Winter Park Road, this weekly gathering of makers, farmers, gardeners, fishmongers, ranchers, craftsmen, artisans, entrepreneurs, neighbors and friends brings the very best of central Florida to you every week Our theme songs by Christopher Pierce, and special thanks to Tre Hester for all his help in making this podcast a reality. We do hope you enjoyed this episode. If so, please click subscribe and leave a review, if you'd like. We'll see you next time you.