Unusually for a metal band, in the U.S. at least Lamb Of God have been on a major label for well over a decade. How has this experience been for you?
“Coming from the punk rock scene, it was implied that major labels would take artistic control. But we talked with different labels, and then before we signed with Epic/Sony we had a meeting with Polly Anthony, who was the president of Epic Records, a wonderful woman, who took us out for a meal after a gig and told us how excited she was to be working with us. And I said to her, ‘Before we start, let me tell you something: you can’t tell us who is gonna produce us, you can’t tell us what to write, you can’t expect a radio hit, and you can’t tell us who is gonna manage us.’ I told her that she could put our records out, but that’s it. We retain full artistic control. This was before we put any ink on the contract. The [rest of the] band were looking at me, horrified, like, ‘What the fuck is he doing? He’s gonna sink us.’ And she just looked at me and said, ‘I’m so sorry if I came across that way – we just want you.’ And Epic has never, ever messed with us. We sell records on our own without any radio play. But signing with Epic was the first time that I didn’t have to work a day job. Up until then, for the first 10 years of our career we all came off tour – signing autographs, riding on tour buses – and went to work as construction workers, bartenders, cooks and dishwashers. So it was the first time in my life I could concentrate solely on making music.”
Is being a star in the metal world a universally good thing?
“That kind of stuff isn’t really important. People telling me where we’ve debuted on the [U.S.] Billboard Hot 200 at Number Two, or that we had a Number One record in Canada, that kind of stuff doesn’t really change how I approach music. It’s nice, I suppose; it’s better than people telling me we suck and throwing shit, but it doesn’t really come into my mentality when I think about my band. Neither do GRAMMY nominations. We’ve had four of those and I’ve never been [to the ceremony]. I don’t care about that stuff. When you get on the stage, all of that stuff is really just fluff. There are plenty of people who have sold a lot of records who suck live. It’s smoke and mirrors, and you don’t get that with me.”
We live in an age where it’s rare for bands to make money from record sales alone…
“I know! If we started 10 years earlier I could have a house in California by now.”
Is the prospect of all of this being taken away something that bothers you?
“If they took everything away tomorrow, every penny in my bank account, I’d get a job in a restaurant and start over. In essence, all you need is food, shelter and clothing. So once I had those, my thoughts would turn to how I could transition back to being a creative professional. Without a thought for making a living from this, I did that for years. I’m an author, I’m a writer, I’m a musician… I just had an opening at the Grand National Gallery on the Cayman Islands. I shoot for magazines. I’ve had work published in Rolling Stone. I’ve had a bestselling book. I’m working on another. My band is still going. So for me, I have all these creative outlets so that I don’t have to mould myself to any corporate identity. And that’s solely because of hard work.”