Trivium

Trivium is a metal band from
Orlando, Florida. They formed in 2000, and after three years, released a demo. The demo helped them to get signed to Lifeforce Records, where they released Ember to Inferno. Following on from this, they were signed to Roadrunner Records and released Ascendancy. Their popularity grew, as their next, and most recent album, The Crusade peaked at #25 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and #7 in the
UK. They have toured many countries and played alongside many different bands, including Iron Maiden, Metallica and Machine Head. Originally Trivium were a metalcore band, as is heard on their first two records. Recently, they have developed a more thrash metal sound as heard on their most recent album. 

Early daysMatt Heafy started out his middle school talent show, where he performed Metallica’s “No Leaf Clover”. Brad Lewter noticed Matt and asked him to try out for the band. He went over to Travis Smith’s house where they played Metallica’s “For Whom the
Bell Tolls” together and Matt was welcomed into the band. After a couple of gigs at bars, Brad Lewter quit the band and Heafy took over the vocals. Heafy also performed “Self Esteem” by The Offspring at the

Lake
Brantley
High School talent show. Heafy also spent time in the
Orlando black metal band Mindscar, before leaving to focus on Trivium. In 2002, Heafy won the Best Metal Guitarist Award at the Orlando Metal Awards. Later, at the beginning of 2003, Trivium went into the studio to record their first high-quality demo disc. From this demo, German label Lifeforce signed Trivium and sent the band into the studio to record their debut album, Ember to Inferno.After changing the instruments that each of the band members played, Brent Young decided to stick with bass while Corey Beaulieu became the second guitarist. In 2004, Paolo Gregoletto joined as the band’s bassist just prior to a tour with Machine Head. After good sales of their debut album, Trivium was signed to Roadrunner Records and began writing songs for their follow-up album, Ascendancy.Rise to fameThe writing for the band’s second album, Ascendancy, was mostly completed by July 2004. It was recorded in Audiohammer and Morrisound Studios in
Orlando, Florida and released on March 15, 2005 through Roadrunner Records. The band toured to support the release of the album. Playing along such bands as Machine Head, Iced Earth, Killswitch Engage, and Fear Factory helped to add to the hype building about the band. “What’s cool about a tour is every night’s a party,” Heafy said at the time- “It’s not always because everyone’s drinking, but people are getting along well and hanging out. The energy from the crowds is amazing.” Their touring cycle also included the Roadrage 2005 US tour, featuring bands such as The Agony Scene, Still Remains and 3 Inches of Blood. The band also made 13 appearances at 2005 Roadrage in the
UK through the summer. Trivium also performed on the main stage at Download Festival 2005.During the months of July and August 2005, Trivium appeared at Ozzfest, playing second stage alongside bands like As I Lay Dying, Arch Enemy, Killswitch Engage, and Rob Zombie. After Ozzfest, the band headed back over to the
UK for a headlining tour with All That Remains and It Dies Today. They later toured in Japan with Arch Enemy, and then toured in the United States and
Canada for a main support tour with Children of Bodom and Amon Amarth. In early 2006, Trivium were the main support for the Swedish band In Flames’ North American tour, along with DevilDriver and Zao. In 2006, Trivium recorded a cover of “Master of Puppets” for the Kerrang! Remastered 20th anniversary tribute to Metallica’s album Master of Puppets. Also appearing on that album doing tributes are Machine Head, Mendeed, Bullet for My Valentine, Fightstar, Chimaira, Mastodon, and Funeral for a Friend. This was released exclusively with the issue of Kerrang! magazine, released on April 5 2006. The CrusadeTrivium began recording a new album in April 2006, just after their 2006 headlining tour “The Crusade III: Ascend Above the Ashes” with God Forbid. The band played on the main stage of the Download Festival in 2006, beneath only Korn and Metallica.The Crusade was a change in their musical style. The majority of the lyrics were sung, unlike in the previous two albums, where most vocals were screamed. In an interview with Blabbermouth, Heafy was quoted as saying-”If anyone is wondering why the screaming is gone it’s because the four of us were never into bands that scream and we don’t like any of the current bands that scream, so we asked ourselves why we’re doing it. The only reason I started screaming in the first place is because I sucked at singing and wanted to be the front man of a band. This time around I wanted to be a better singer because that’s what we wanted to hear, so we dropped the screaming and did a lot of vocal training and vocal work. I think everyone will be really happy with it and those that aren’t can go listen to any of those dime a dozen bands that are all doing the same thing. I have this quote that I’ve been randomly throwing out and that is ‘evolve or be eaten’ and we evolved.”The album was placed at #172 in the UK Rock Charts and debuted in the
UK album charts at #7. It debuted on the U.S. Billboard charts at #25. The album saw use of seven string guitars on a number of songs, including the tracks “This World Can’t Tear Us Apart”, “And Sadness Will Sear”, “Becoming The Dragon”, “Contempt Breeds Contamination” and the title track of the album. The band’s style was described as having returned to the classic thrash sounds of bands such as Metallica, Testament, and Megadeth. The album received generally positive reviews from critics. The album was voted #9 on Metal Hammer’s ‘Best Albums of 2006′, as well as Trivium being voted the Best Live Band at Metal Hammer’s Golden Gods Awards. On April 28, 2006, Trivium announced a North American re-release of their album Ascendancy, which included four bonus tracks, one of which was their cover of the Metallica song “Master of Puppets”. It also contains reworked art, and a DVD featuring all official Trivium music videos existing at the time.To support the album they toured under Iron Maiden on the European leg of their 2006 world tour from November 9 - December 23. During this short tour of the
UK, Kerrang! 105.2 arranged one day in which Trivium was the headline band, on 13 December. No tickets were sold for the gig; tickets were awarded through a competition on Kerrang! The fourth and most recent single the band has released is from The Crusade and is called “Becoming the Dragon”. It has been played at certain venues through the Black Crusade tour and the official video is on the MTV overdrive video area.  Recent events 

Trivium toured Australia and
New Zealand in early 2007, making appearances at the Big Day Out. In late November, Trivium made appearances in major Australian cities on tour with Arch Enemy and headliners Machine Head on the ‘Black Crusade’ tour. Trivium toured on the Family Values Tour alongside Korn, Atreyu, Hellyeah, Flyleaf, Evanescence and others. Between April and June 2007 they went on a headline tour of much of Europe and the
UK with label mates Annihilator and Sanctity, as well as Gojira. They opened their sets with “Entrance of the Conflagration” and ended with “Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr”. Recently, Heafy and Gregoletto signed on as endorsed artists for EMG active pickups. In an interview with the
UK music channel Scuzz, Corey informed fans they could expect a new album in 2008, although no particular date or target has been set as of now.