“Again We Rise” - Lamb of God drummer Chris Adler reflects upon fifth full length, and Billboard top ten, studio effort Sacrament


By Anthony Morgan

August 2006 saw the issue of Heavy Metal full length Sacrament. Garnering mostly positive reviews, Revolver magazine hailed the effort as Album of the Year. In its first week of release, it shifted sixty-three thousand copies in the United States. Produced by Machine (Clutch, King Crimson, Eighteen Visions, Every Time I Die), it claimed eighth position on the Billboard charts. Less politically motivated than its predecessor (2004's Ashes of the Wake), the lyrics delve into more introspective and personal topics such as addiction, depression and self-doubt. Their fifth full length studio record, it emerged to become yet another chapter in the lives of Virginian Metal act Lamb of God.

A special CD and DVD deluxe edition of the album boasted ninety minutes of footage, capturing footage taken behind the scenes. Charting how the album came to be shaped, it documented process stages ranging from initial writing sessions and rehearsals, to the material being actually laid down. Produced by High Roller Studios, Doug Spangenberg spearheaded direction. Taped during 2006's spring, the DVD also included interviews with respective group members as well as two director's cut versions of the music video for “Redneck”. The album's choice single, “Redneck” bears an evident Pantera vibe. Directed by Bill Fishman, the track's video depicts the Virginian Metallers as debauched, beer-swilling music stars. They crash a toddler's birthday party, and hilarity ultimately ensues. In December 2006, it was announced that “Redneck” was amongst the nominees for “Best Metal Performance” at the 49th annual Grammy Awards. Capturing mainstream exposure, the group performed live on NBC-TV's “Late Night with Conan O'Brien” on February 9th 2007. Filmed at the Los Angeles' Staples Center on February 11th 2007, the award was ultimately won by Slayer for the song “Eyes of the Insane” (from 2006's Christ Illusion). Another deluxe edition of Sacrament is pencilled for release during December 2007, with a bonus disc that has isolated and separated all audio tracks. Innovative, it allows music fans to produce their own individual mixes of the album's songs via computer.

Without doubt, touring has been a key factor in the group's success as can be documented by just some of the aforementioned tour packages. Beginning at The Tweeter Center in Camden, New Jersey, Lamb of God participated in the North American leg of the Unholy Alliance tour alongside Slayer, Mastodon, Children of Bodom, and Thine Eyes Bleed. July 26th witnessed the tour's conclusion, at the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver, Colorado. Not ones for extensive rest, the group featured as part of the Gigantour 2006 lineup alongside Megadeth, Opeth and Arch Enemy. The Idaho Center in Boise, Idaho on September 6th was the initial stop, whilst the Bank Atlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida was the tour's final date on October 8th. A lone Japanese date, at Tokyo's Loud Park 06 on October 15th, was quickly followed by three Australian dates from the 17th-19th. A day later, and the group participated in yet another tour. Unholy Alliance Chapter II: Preaching To The Perverted paired the Virginians with Slayer, In Flames, Children of Bodom and Thine Eyes Bleed, from October 20th to November 20th. From February 16th (beginning at Palladium Ballroom in Dallas Texas) 2007 to April 5th (ending at Bogarts in Cincinatti, Ohio), the group honoured North American dates playing alongside Machine, Trivium and Gojira. The endless circle of touring didn't end there, with several more dates in Australia. A gig at Powerstation in Auckland, New Zealand on April 25th aimed to appease Kiwi fans, whereas from the 27th to May 1st, five more Australian dates occurred. From May 5th-7th, three Japanese dates at several Club Quattro venues. July 12th at White River Amphitheatre in Seattle, Washington saw the twelfth annual Ozzfest get underway, with all tickets freely distributed. Other dates saw 3 Inches of Blood, Behemoth and Hatebreed team up with the group for some dates.

Alongside Iced Earth, Lamb of God were chosen to support Heaven & Hell on their headlining UK tour. Making its lone Welsh stop at Cardiff's CIA on November 16th, the bill proved too weighty for ardent Heavy Metal fans to miss. An interview was scheduled to begin at quarter seven in the evening, and yours truly was lumbered with the task of locating tour manager Brian Griffin. A mobile phone call ensued, and so the instructions were to wait by the side of the stage. Moments later, Griffin collected me. Guiding me through the labyrinth maze that is the CIA's backstage, we eventually made it to Lamb of God's dressing room. Introduced to drummer Chris Adler, the sticksman greeted me with a friendly, courteous handshake. We took our respective seats, and immediately launched into the interview. A range of topics provided scope for conversation, including Black Sabbath's influence on Heavy Metal, his broken middle toe and how he has spent his time during its healing process, what Lamb of God aimed to achieve with Sacrament looking back, how that album affected the group's popularity, and how he would like it to be remembered. Also, the drummer discussed plans to “reconnect, get hungry and write” during 2008, and how Lamb of God's next album will be more intense. Wearing an unfazed smile throughout, Adler seems evidently warm and content with life at present. Gracious and relaxed, Adler's neighbourly demeanour immediately dissipates any tension. With several acclaimed albums and a stellar live reputation, it's anyones guess how critics will review the Virginian Metallers once the dust has settled in many years to come.

 

  • First of all Chris, how are you? Alright?
  • Yeah, I'm very well man. We've been touring the UK for roughly two weeks now with Heaven & Hell, and things are good man. It's a really cool, relaxed tour. Everybody's really friendly, and we're doing really well. Everyone is having a good time.
  • Alright. What great memories has this tour brought you thus far?
  • Well, being on the road with Heaven & Hell is something that I'll never forget. Seeing Tony Iommi and Dio play every night is pretty amazing. I'm also a pretty big fan of Iced Earth, and I get to check them out every night. That's cool. Also, we're making friends with these guys. It's one thing to be a young musician, and to hear these bands impress you. To then get to know them as people though is really kind of a special thing.
  • What are they like as people?
  • Very nice, and everyone is super friendly. Obviously, they're a bit older than we are. For that reason, they're probably looking at us like we're the crazily drunk band on the tour. They've been there though, and they've done that. Therefore, they're familiar with our ways. So we can continue as long as they have, we're learning to be a little more like them.
  • When you was a kid, you obviously listened to Black Sabbath.
  • Yeah, of course. Sure.
  • Were you influenced by their music?
  • Yeah. If anybody who plays Heavy Metal says that they weren't influenced by Black Sabbath's music, then I think that they're lying to you. I think all Heavy Metal music was, in some way, influenced by what Black Sabbath did. Yeah, I think Black Sabbath was a big building block in terms of where we came from.
  • Do you feel that Dio's time with Black Sabbath is getting its due recognition nowadays?
  • Well, I'd like to think so. He's an incredible performer. We just spent all summer touring across the US as part of the Ozzfest bill with Ozzy, so now we're spending the fall touring with Dio. It's really interesting to see the differences between the two. In 2004, we toured the US with the Ozzy version of Black Sabbath. Now we're touring with the Dio version of Black Sabbath, and it's interesting. The differences are obvious, though it's pretty cool that we've had the experience of both.
  • Given the fact Lamb of God has toured with the two major incarnations of Black Sabbath, the group is probably in an exclusive club.
  • Yeah, I hadn't thought of that before. There's probably not too many bands that have toured with both versions of Black Sabbath, never mind just either one of them. It feels pretty special.
  • Are you influenced by Vinny Appice and his style of drumming?
  • I've watched him every night, and I'm a fan of what he does. Not to take anything away from his playing though, but when I was coming up as a musician... I didn't play drums until I was roughly twenty-two.
  • You played guitar.
  • Yeah, that's right. Coming up as a musician, I was more a fan of Tony and Geezer. Now I can appreciate what he brings to the band, and what he does behind the drumkit. He wasn't on my list though. It was a somewhat younger time in my life, so during that period I listened to the music and didn't think about drums.
  • During October, you broke your middle toe in your right foot.
  • I did, yeah. You can see it's still...
  • Can you tell me about that?
  • Yeah. It's still wrapped up, and I just checked it out. It's still swollen, but I'm getting through. Actually, I'm playing pretty good. It hurts at the end of the night, but I can get through the show ok.
  • You broke your middle toe while coming back from the toilet. Is that right?
  • Yeah, coming back. I wish I had a better story, but I broke my middle toe while coming back from taking a piss.
  • You should've made one up, and something really legendary.
  • Yeah, right. You're right.
  • You didn't play the drums for a few weeks after breaking your toe of course, so how did you spend that time?
  • Well, I had to keep it elevated, and put some ice on it. I spent a lot of time watching movies, and playing video games. These are the kinds of things that I normally feel too guilty to do. If I sit around for too long doing nothing, I feel like I should be getting something done - I'm that kind of guy. It helped me to just hang around, and do nothing for the first time in a long time. It was pretty nice.
  • Is it unusual for you to do what regular people do such as watch television, relax and so on?
  • I wouldn't call it difficult, but it's unusual. Sure. Yeah, that's not typically what I do.
  • Was it really frustrating not being able to get behind the drumkit?
  • For the first... After I broke it, there was only two and a half weeks left until our UK tour with Heaven & Hell began. For the first couple of days, it was very frustrating. I kept thinking of all these things that I wanted to do, such as rehearse and take care of domestic errands I needed to run. After that though, it just somewhat sank in that I should just enjoy the downtime. So, I made the most of it.
  • Was you ever worried that you couldn't come over to the UK?
  • No. I would've limped along one way or another.
  • So you're a fighter?
  • Yeah, yeah. John, our bass player, asked me “Is it really bad? Do you think you can do the tour?”, and I said “I'll play the tour with a broken leg if I have to”.
  • How is that affecting your playing at the moment?
  • It's not. I'm taking care of it fairly well off the stage. While I'm on the stage, it's holding up pretty well. It does hurt a bit after the show as I said, but the shows are going great.
  • So the fans are still getting the full experience of your drumming style?
  • I hope so, yeah.
  • You had a break due to your broken toe obviously, you had time off..
  • Yeah, a little bit.
  • So when you came over to the UK, was you really fired up for the shows? More than you have been for shows in the past few months? Lamb of God seems like a group that seems tour, tour, and then tour some more.
  • Yeah, yeah. We've been touring for a very long time, and the time between Ozzfest and this tour was the first time we had taken more than just a couple of days off in a long time. It was very nice to decompress somewhat, and relax, be at home and be comfortable for a little while. For me though, it was enough time to want to get back out on the road again. I started to feel like I wanted to be playing. It came at a good time, and it was a tour that we were all looking forward to. We knew after the Download Festival that we wanted to come back to the UK, and what better way to do it than with Heaven & Hell.
  • Yeah, definitely. Looking back, what do you feel Lamb of God aimed to musically achieve with Sacrament? Also, how much of that do you feel the group actually achieved?
  • The biggest goal was probably to not just repeat ourselves, and to somehow try and outdo ourselves. We wanted to write something that was, quote unquote, better than what we had written before, and that was our goal when we entered the studio. We worked on the material for a pretty long time; we demoed a lot of material, and threw a lot of material out. Also, we worked with the material in different ways, and in every which way we could. In the end, I think we achieved exactly that. We didn't repeat ourselves, and we evolved as a band. We branched out in different directions that we hadn't explored before. On a plain level, and on a songwriting level, I think it's absolutely the best record we've ever done.
  • Would you class Sacrament as the breakthrough album for Lamb of God?
  • I don't know. Break through what? I think our first album was our breakthrough record; it proved we could put a record out (laughs).
  • When Sacrament came out, Lamb of God's popularity seemed to just skyrocket really.
  • It's interesting talking to you about it, given the fact that it seems to happen at different times in different countries. In the US, Ashes of the Wake seemed like the record that really helped our popularity. There was a huge surge in the number of people coming to our shows. When you take both the responses at Download and at the shows we've been playing into account, it seems like Sacrament was the album that really helped our popularity over here. I think it has something to do with our label as well. They do a fantastic job for us in the US, and have not done a very good job at all for us overseas. We are in a different situation now, a situation where we're talking to other labels about the next record. We want to work with different labels overseas, so I think that's going to be a very positive step.
  • So Lamb of God is thinking of working with different labels overseas?
  • Yes, outside of the US.
  • Is that just a possibility which is being discussed, or is that a definite plan?
  • It's a definite plan.
  • There's no rift with Epic Records in the US though?
  • No. In fact, we couldn't ask for more. They're fantastic in the US, and we're very happy with them.
  • You said Lamb of God plan on taking “the entirety of 2008 to reconnect, get hungry and write”. Can you tell me about that?
  • Yeah. We've been touring for a long time, as we spoke about earlier. Sacrament came out during the end of August last year, and we were on the road in July of last year. Before it even came out, we were on the road. Ever since, we've been travelling pretty much non-stop. Therefore, I think it's important for us. We know we want to do another record. The label wants us to do another record too, and so do the fans. For us to do that properly though, we need to go home, rest and get away from each other for a little while. We can then recharge our batteries somewhat, and get back together. Once again, we'll feel hungry about wanting to outdo ourselves.
  • Considering the album Sacrament, to me, was so big, is there a real pressure to do that?
  • To you, Sacrament is big. To me, it was the next record. The next record that we do from here is as big as Sacrament, and it's as small as Sacrament. It's also as big as the Burn the Priest record, so it's the same. We don't want to repeat ourselves, and we want to continue to grow. If we achieve this, then that's a success. I hope the fans continue to enjoy what we do. At the end of the day, we are the ones in the studio that have to decide if this is going to be released or not. If we achieve that, then I think we've succeeded.
  • When Lamb of God releases an album, how do you personally define if that specific album is successful or not?
  • If we can enjoy listening to it, I think (laughs). When we demo material, I'll often take a recording of it in the car and just drive around with it. You want the music to make you feel something. For me, that's always how I come to my judgment; whether it makes you smile, jump around, or want to punch something, or whatever. You want to feel something from it, and we bring that belief to our live show as well. That's the reaction from the crowd. If you can touch someone in that way with your music, then it's extremely amazing. This is the same thing, and that would be my judgment of success. If I can listen to that product that we worked on and sweated over, and still feel that excitement or something from the music following the end of the process, then that would be a success in my opinion.
  • Given your statement, does this mean that there will be no live shows from Lamb of God during 2008?
  • Well, it's hard to say that for sure. Our plan right now is to take the year off, and to concentrate on writing.
  • That's the whole year? Twelve months?
  • Yeah. As with anything though, plans change. We hope to maintain that, and I think it's important for us to do so. When it comes to band related things though, it's hard to set anything in stone.
  • Is there the possibility that the touring bug might bite towards the end of 2008, and you might do some home shows in December or something of that nature?
  • You see Metallica conduct the Sick of the Studio tours, and I'm sure we will get the itch at some point. We may have some new material that we want to try out, or something like that. Since we're just getting ready to begin that process, it's hard to say right now. Also, we're so weary of the road right now. We're more interested in just getting home, and starting to relax. That's as opposed to thinking about what happens when we've finished relaxing. Give us a few months, and ask again.
  • Alright. Will this be a good chance to catch up with family and friends?
  • Yeah. I was at a show recently, and I saw a bunch of people that I hadn't seen in a long time. I told them; “I look forward to hanging out next year, and doing a barbecue”, or whatever. It's tough just finding those people that you leave behind so often. Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to it.
  • You did say that you feel Lamb of God's next album has to “more intense than anything” the band has done before. How did you hope Lamb of God's next album will be more intense, and in what respects?
  • As we spoke about earlier, I think we expect more from ourselves this time. Every time we write another record, there's no point in going backwards. There's no point in putting out something that's not as good as what you've done before, or otherwise we should possibly stop. For us, it has to be more intense; it has to be a more intense process, it has to be a more intense record and it has to outdo what we've done previously.
  • Is there anything written for Lamb of God's fifth studio album?
  • I think there's a few ideas floating around, but nothing concrete.
  • Musically speaking, is there anything you can tell me about Lamb of God's fifth studio album? For example, will it be heavier?
  • (Laughs) No, I can't. It'll be faster, slower, heavier and lighter (laughs).
  • So you feel it will be a varied album? Something for everyone?
  • No. It'll be something which the five of us all agree on. We hope that people who enjoy what we do continue to enjoy Lamb of God's music, though it's hard enough to get the five of us to enjoy the songs. If we're able to succeed in that, then I think a lot of people will enjoy it. The only difference in terms of writing this next record is that we want to outdo ourselves once again. We want to outdo Sacrament, so it's going to be tough.
  • How do you feel Sacrament will be remembered in the coming years?
  • It's really hard to say when you're in the middle of it. If I was a writer, or somebody on the outside...
  • If you had your way, how would you like Sacrament to be remembered?
  • As a piece of the bigger picture, which I think is all of our records. In many ways, I think Lamb of God is helping change the sound of Metal a little bit. We're helping to break down the door for other Metal bands to get signed, and we're also helping heavier bands possibly get a little more attention. We just played Wembley Arena the other night, and our UK booking agent was there. He said that we are probably the heaviest band that's ever played Wembley Arena, and it's upcoming bands like Lamb of God which are somewhat helping to pave the way for bands that are forming after us. I think our whole catalogue speaks to that. In the end, I hope that it's remembered; I hope it's remembered that we helped to change the face of heavy music, and make it a little more real.
  • Do you have a message for the UK fans who've come out to the Lamb of God shows?
  • Thanks (laughs). Thanks for coming out. We're having a blast, and we hope that you're enjoying the set we're doing this time. We're definitely looking forward to getting home, writing a new record and returning to the UK with a new label. We're going to properly tour the UK on our own as a headline act, and that'll probably be at the end of 2008, or during early 2009.
  • Are label discussions at an advanced stage, or is it early days?
  • It's somewhere in the middle. We don't know who it's going to be with, though it's not going to be with Sony Epic.
  • You can't reveal who you're in discussions with?
  • Not quite.
  • All will be revealed?
  • All will be revealed.
  • Thank you for the interview Chris, it's really appreciated.
  • Thank you for taking the time to do this interview.