Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / A Collection Of Skulls With BRANDON SALLER From ATREYU
Transcript
- 0:00So I'm Kira from Heavy Mag here today with Brandon from Middlecore Giants a trade.
- 0:05So how are you doing today? Man? I like that intro.
- 0:08I'm doing very well. Had to be done, had to be done,
- 0:13So Tray, you were really busy. In twenty twenty three, you released
- 0:16two EPs and a full length album, which is a mammoth undertaking. Why
- 0:21did you guys decide to release so much material in that timeframe? I mean,
- 0:26I think initially it came from obviously we were in the studio making an
- 0:30album, and it came from our desire to want to sort of like figure
- 0:36out a new method of release where more of the material, more of the
- 0:40songs actually got like their day in the sun. You know what I mean,
- 0:43because I feel like this this day and age, most people don't have
- 0:47more than four and a half seconds of an attention span. So you get,
- 0:50you know, the songs that are you know, the money behind,
- 0:53or the singles or the ones that have videos get their kind of life shined
- 0:57on them. And then there's seven songs that just hide in the dark for
- 0:59a turn of We're not a band that believes in the concept of like B
- 1:04sides are like filler so it's like we really put everything we have into every
- 1:08song that gets released, so trying to figure out a way to kind of
- 1:12shind more of a lap over the material, and then in doing so,
- 1:18it's like, well, we don't just want to release the epiece with sake
- 1:19of releasing EPs, so we wanted to get to and the concept sort of
- 1:25just fell in our laps because conceptually, like the subject matter and the songs
- 1:30kind of kept repeating itself, and the songs we're letting themselves to this sort
- 1:33of like life cycle of like the kind of human condition and the different emotions
- 1:38and different kind of like phases. It was a which he kind of go
- 1:44through the low, the middle of the high that you kind of feels as
- 1:48a human being, and then it starts over again, much as it does
- 1:52in real life. So it kind of that once that fell in our lap,
- 1:55it makes sense that that's how we wanted to do it. And it
- 1:57was fun. It was like a cool, interesting remember for us, and
- 2:00I think it kept a listener and kept the fans kind of excited because you
- 2:02were getting your music like every few months, you know. Yeah, true,
- 2:06very true, kind of fun. Yeah, I'm following on from that
- 2:10I watched a YouTube session that you guys did and Porter explained the EP as
- 2:15musical Tappers, Which is this like beautiful and fully comprehensive analogy that will stick
- 2:20in my head for a long time because it does kind of feel like you
- 2:23get to taste all the flavors and then it comes together at the end.
- 2:27Do you feel the same, Like, is that how you kind of explain
- 2:29the experience? Absolutely? Yeah, a hundred. Like you get you get
- 2:32your you get the time to like experience the whole thing. Yeah, I
- 2:39mean, and a twelve song album is kind of too much for people these
- 2:45days for a lot of like the average listener is not not hanging on for
- 2:49that long. I still love listening to an album. I love buying vinyl,
- 2:53Like I can still sit and experience that, but a lot of people
- 2:55can't. So when you give some of you know, four songs at a
- 2:59time, like give you the opportunity to really, like like I said,
- 3:01like focus on every song and like really dig in, and it's like it
- 3:07is it is like top us. It's like you really get to savor and
- 3:09enjoy each step of the meal rather than just someone setting like you know,
- 3:14a twelve hours steak on your you know, on the plate with a baked
- 3:17potato and veggies and you don't know what to do. It's too much food.
- 3:21Yeah, so it really is. That's that's it. Or it was
- 3:23spot on with the musical topas. Yeah, yeah, that was cool.
- 3:25That definitely. It just explained it so well, that's something that'll stick in
- 3:29my head. But I see these EPs forever now. I feel like I
- 3:34just want to somehow only describe everything about our band for the rest of the
- 3:38time. And food analogies. Yeah, my best to keep on that.
- 3:42Look, that's easier for me to understand. I think that's something that everyone
- 3:45will kind of get on board with. Yeah, and there's so much room
- 3:49for merchandise there. Try you snacks, Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely so
- 3:53you guys are hitting out, as he shows in a few weeks actually for
- 3:57the first time since twenty twenty with Bad Love on your You Want Your Skulls
- 4:00tour. What's something unique to Australia that you're excited to do everything? Everything?
- 4:06We love Australia. So I've said this before, like without exaggerating,
- 4:11Australia is like number one for our whole band, Like we all get so
- 4:15excited every time we get to go and it's like vacation for us. It
- 4:20kind of happened to also play shows. We've brought our families to Australia,
- 4:26We've brought our wife to Australia, like we love it so so we're just
- 4:30like, so it's been too long, like twenty twenties ages ago. So
- 4:33for us, like we're we've been trying to get back for two years now.
- 4:38Like it was literally one of the first conversations where it's like, okay,
- 4:41like the world's opening their doors, let's start talking about tour. We're
- 4:44like cool Australia first, Yeah, we going to Australia for us, like
- 4:48it was a good it was. It was a good closer like for that
- 4:53to be the last tour that we did for like two years, like at
- 4:56least it was at least it was great. At least it was Australia.
- 4:59You know, we had to go out on a high yeah, end on
- 5:01a good note. Absolutely. Yeah. Now jumping over to the Beautiful Duck
- 5:08of Life, which is aptly named by a clever little daughter I might ad
- 5:11who maybe or may not be in the car with you right now. Awesome,
- 5:15well done, this album is epic. Each song has its place and
- 5:19it absolutely slaps tell me a little bit about the album, Like what does
- 5:24that mean to you? I mean it was kind of a very cool like
- 5:29I think that in the last couple of years the band uh became like a
- 5:32bit of therapy for all of us. Yeah, I think for the first
- 5:35time, like all of us were really like talking to each other about how
- 5:41we felt. And like it wasn't like because the role like the kind of
- 5:46like lyrical role and sort of like the everyone's role that elevated, and it
- 5:51really forced us to kind of sit down and like we've always been there for
- 5:56each other and been like friends for each other, but it really like kind
- 5:59of us up to each other a lot more and we really kind of,
- 6:02you know, without sounding like cheesy, like bared our souls to each other.
- 6:05And there was no like I think a lot of us before before now
- 6:12kept a lot of our personal stuff to our chest and like maybe didn't share
- 6:15everything that was going on in our lives. And we really kind of started
- 6:18to and just kind of like opened up about how we were doing and how
- 6:21we were feeling. And it changed everything within the band. It changed it
- 6:28changed how we felt about writing music. It changed how confident we were in
- 6:33each other and then writing and everything. So I think that this record specifically
- 6:38is kind of like hold held in like a high regard to all of us,
- 6:41because it's I think one of the more personal things we've ever done as
- 6:44a collective, you know, And it's to this day like our band operates
- 6:48on a higher level because just on a personal level, like we're all that
- 6:53door opened and it made a huge difference in the life of our band.
- 6:57Yeah, oh that's awesome. And you can say, just in your later
- 7:00videos today that you guys just spew positivity and gross together, like you see,
- 7:04you're bouncing off each other. And I suppose that back when you guys
- 7:08first started out, it wasn't that mentality to be able to spee your heart
- 7:11out wasn't classified as cool or whatever you want to say it was, you
- 7:15know, So that's a testament to you guys. Yeah, that's really cool,
- 7:18and I think it's important too. I mean, we're we're you know,
- 7:23we're five or five American men on the on the on the scope of
- 7:28people in the world that haven't been a hard time, We're not very high
- 7:31on the list. You know what I mean, but worst of human beings
- 7:35and for men in general too, Like it's not it's still not okay to
- 7:41like be a vulnerable grown man men have emotion or cry or be afraid of
- 7:46things or or or have like self doubt or deal with anxiety or depression or
- 7:54any of the things. So it was kind of like once the door opened
- 7:57within ourselves where it was like, wow, this look goodness feels to just
- 8:01talk. I've ever been to therapy in my life, but I felt like
- 8:05I gained the same things I would in therapy by talking to my brothers in
- 8:11a recording studio, you know what I mean. Absolutely, Yeah, So
- 8:15it's definitely something that we're trying to push and like we are five, Like
- 8:18we're a positive band. If you meet us, like there's no fucking grumps
- 8:22in our band, there's no We're having a fucking great time. We're loving,
- 8:26loving in the band. Like you see us live as you get it,
- 8:30Like I always say, like, oh you listen to our band and
- 8:31you like our band, that's great. Come see us live to really understand
- 8:35like who the fuck we are and really like you'll you'll feel, you'll feel
- 8:39yourself in us. You'll see yourself in us. We're just happy to go
- 8:43lucky dudes, and and I think that that has more recently come from being
- 8:50elevated because we just are that open to each other. And it's so important
- 8:54that someone that yourself is saying that, because you're setting an example for generations
- 8:58that are coming up to be able to go, well fuck if they can
- 9:01do what I can too. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the truth.
- 9:03That's the truth. Like I said, we're just dudes, like we've
- 9:07we've the age of the age of mystique and power in bands and musicians is
- 9:15fucking gone. Like everyone's on everyone's on Instagram, dude, and if you're
- 9:18not whatever, yeah, like you know, still you got but you get
- 9:24boogers too, man. Like we're yeah, like we're fucking we're we're dudes
- 9:30that we're lucky enough to find each other and create art that was good enough
- 9:35to make a career out of, you know what I mean. It's like,
- 9:37but like we're just people like you guys could do this ship too,
- 9:39Like you know, we just we just put everything we had to do it.
- 9:43So it's I I'm losing my train of thought. We're just on this
- 9:46wave of positivity. This is good. Yeah, I love it. I
- 9:52think this first thing in the morning. I guess what time is it where
- 9:54you are. It's about four thirty in the afternoon, thoroughly evening. Yeap,
- 10:01nice, It's almost nine in the morning here, So you put my
- 10:03day on a good start. This is good. I'm going to write it
- 10:07all away. So in twenty twenty eight, a trayer is going to be
- 10:11celebrating thirty years like which is I know it's massive, and it's just something
- 10:18that the person that's ever the first person that's ever fast forwarded. Oh sorry,
- 10:24I'm all about the future. You've got to be worldly, you know.
- 10:30But you guys thought you should be so proud of what you've accomplished,
- 10:33and you've been such a solid unit throughout the years. So I guess you've
- 10:37kind of touched on what the secret is to keeping that together, which is
- 10:39your brotherhood, and what you've been through together and what you've done. What
- 10:43advice would you give your younger self or what advice do you wish that you
- 10:46received when you're first starting out. I think that it's crazy because I don't
- 10:54think I got tons of it. Like we've a lot of we really had
- 11:00figure out on our own because we we weren't like even when we had our
- 11:05first kind of wave of like popularity, like we were not the We were
- 11:11not the darlings of the world. Like people fucking hated us. Like even
- 11:15when we like we started selling out shows and selling records, it was like
- 11:18there were so many people that were like no, no, no, but
- 11:20fuck you guys. Also, you know what I mean, So like there
- 11:22wasn't terns of like kind of like older peers or are our kind of like
- 11:28you know, bigger bands that were like, you know, let me show
- 11:31you the ropes kid. You know, so we kind of had to figure
- 11:35out a lot by ourselves. We made a lot of mistakes when we were
- 11:37coming up. We made a lot of mistakes, which is like you know,
- 11:41spending double amounts of money on things we didn't need, and like the
- 11:43way we approached different things within the band, and you know, I think
- 11:50that are our biggest kind of valuable lesson that we always still stick to is
- 11:54just like we have to love this. We had to love every step with
- 11:58the love love the music we're making. We have to like be absolutely in
- 12:03love with what we're doing. We have to love playing shows and love being
- 12:07on tour. We have to be happy with each other or else or else
- 12:11it's wrong. It's when it stops being that, then it's no longer the
- 12:16magic's going, you know what I mean. So I think that's been our
- 12:18kind of number one is just like there's number two, trying not to drop
- 12:22your phone during interviews. No, but that's kind of been our Our number
- 12:26one is it's like, make sure that we love this and if if it's
- 12:28if it's too much or we're burning out, or we need breaks or you
- 12:33know, like oh you need time today and you don't want to talk to
- 12:37people because you need some times like do what everyone needs to do to make
- 12:41sure that we're here for the right reason. Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely
- 12:46it's I think since we've been you know, late teenagers, early twenties,
- 12:50and like since our first wave of success, I think that's what's resonating now
- 12:54again, is that I think that in our heads, it's like we feel
- 13:01the same things we felt when we were like teenagers and like our band was
- 13:05getting big for the first time and it was like holy shit, like this
- 13:07is actually happening. I think that that same energy is kind of running through
- 13:11us right now. And I think that's why people it's resonating with people,
- 13:15that there's like this is real, Like I don't know. I think that
- 13:18it's it's making it's connecting to people because it's like a I don't know,
- 13:22there's something like youthful that we feel. And that's weird coming from a forty
- 13:26year old dude. That is, you know, currently dropping my kids off
- 13:30to girl scouts. I feel like in here and on stage in the studio,
- 13:35like I think we feel like fucking teenagers. Yeah, you know.
- 13:39And you guys you keep it lighthearted, like even your film clips. You're
- 13:43not afraid to take the piss out of yourself like that forever more film clips.
- 13:48I love that that moment where you and Dan are just like standing in
- 13:50the middle and there's no music, and you guys like, this is great.
- 13:54You can have me in stitches. But that's just like a perfect example.
- 13:58You guys are happy to do what my did you feel good and just
- 14:01yeah, go with your hot yeah yeah. The The weird thing is that
- 14:05we keep coming up with these like ridiculous drunk ideas and then one day and
- 14:09then one day there's a camera there and we're actually filming them, and we're
- 14:13like, this is actually happening. Love it. Let me throw my daughter
- 14:20in a pool. Paint abs on my stomach, and let's throw my daughter.
- 14:26Bring it to fruition exactly. If you if you could time travel right
- 14:31now and go back to any Atray era, what would it be? Man,
- 14:39that's so tough. I feel I feel like there's two ye I feel
- 14:48like I would have gone, I'll go back to the curse just to feel
- 14:54that that thing for the first time again, you know, because like,
- 15:00although I'm saying it's like we're in that same energy right now, there's nothing
- 15:03like the first time you taste that, you know what I mean. It's
- 15:07like foxing Heroin. You know. I've never done Heroin, so I don't
- 15:09know what that feels like, but we like it's one of those things where
- 15:16like I would love to kind of more approach and see that whole era for
- 15:20more of a bird's eye view, and then like maybe focus on some different
- 15:26things or I don't know, maybe I don't know what I would have did
- 15:28different, and then I would I would go back to lead sales again,
- 15:33because I think that there was such a mixed emotion within our band. When
- 15:41we put out that album, I was it was my favorite thing we had
- 15:46ever done. It still is in my top favorite records we've ever created.
- 15:50For me, it was like the first time a producer like put me on,
- 15:56like I felt like he put me on like a pedestal, Like I
- 16:00was like, it was the first record where I really felt important. And
- 16:04I think that, like I felt like what we were doing was like so
- 16:10different and fresh and important. And then it came out, and of course
- 16:14it was polarizing, so it was literally fifty to fifty of like, Okay,
- 16:22half the people want to murder us for this album, and then half
- 16:26the people are like they're on board and they're loving it. It's hard,
- 16:32it's hard to kind of discern what was winning, you know. And I
- 16:37think it took years. It took us going away. I remember we went
- 16:41on hiatus and we came back and we were like, oh, you know,
- 16:44like let's give people the old shit. Like we came back and made
- 16:47Long Live and like, well, let's try to get people the old shit.
- 16:48Let's write some heavy shit. That's what they want. They want the
- 16:52curse. They want the curse. Let's give them some fucking old shit,
- 16:55and then we started touring again and everyone would just want to lead sales,
- 16:57and I was like, wait, I thought that that was the one that
- 17:00we got shipped for back in the day, And if I could again relive
- 17:03that and like try and I think, make myself and even the rest of
- 17:08the band realize the good that was happening from it, you know what I
- 17:14mean? It was hard to get away from the bad I mean. And
- 17:18don't get me wrong, like some of the stuff we did on that album
- 17:19cycle was insane, Like we did like direct support or like almost you know,
- 17:25it was like direct support on main stage for Family Values tours, like
- 17:27Corning Evan Essence, we did, like you know, pace the Chaos with
- 17:32the vands. We did like Arena and amphitheater tours. Like most of that
- 17:36touring cycle, it was like the biggest ship we've ever done, and like
- 17:38radio existed all of a sudden, So like, you know, but I
- 17:41would love to go back and experience that with a little bit of a different
- 17:45lens. Yeah, you know, Oh that's so cool. I honestly put
- 17:48down I was like, what would I want to revisit if I was them?
- 17:51And I put down the Curse and lead Soiles as well. Ye,
- 17:55because honestly he shouted my world when that was released. I just, yeah,
- 18:00what I think I think the rest of it. I'm like, I
- 18:03really like, you know, suicide notes, we were I was fucking a
- 18:06child that was a straight of a child. I was seventeen. I turned
- 18:08eighteen on tour like I was. I was. I was a kid in
- 18:12a van, like not knowing what the fuck I was doing, living off
- 18:15of like six bucks a day, like eating fucking you know. So I
- 18:19was like, oh, I remember that shit, like I fully lived that,
- 18:22you know what I mean. It's like when you start to get a
- 18:25little bit more comfortable and things start going good, it's like almost that that's
- 18:27when it becomes a little bit more blurry, you know. It's like it'd
- 18:30be cool to go relive those moments. Yep, speaking of blurry, I
- 18:36want to take you back to the Avenge sevenfold, both my Valentine Try you
- 18:38tour of two thousand and eight. Now, I've I never heard thinking about
- 18:44it. I've reamed you guys got absolutely fucked and obliterated. Like I can
- 18:49only piece you guys together and imagine what you come up with is this far
- 18:52from the choice and do you have any stories you can tell me now the
- 18:56kids are out of the car. Fucking absolutely true. That was the most
- 19:00drunk I've ever been on any tour in my life. I mean the Evenge
- 19:03the Avenge dudes are still like some of mine of my wife's best friends to
- 19:08this day, and that was kind of like not new in our friendship,
- 19:14but like the first couple of years of our friendship maybe. And we had
- 19:18also toured with the Bullet Dudes a handful of times, and we just the
- 19:22problem is when you tour in the States, it's like everyone's on their own
- 19:26bus, everyone's in their own dressing rooms kind of thing. You don't get
- 19:30like a bit of your a little bit of separation, you know what I
- 19:32mean. When we toured in Australia, it's like we're all in the same
- 19:34fucking hotel, everyone's at the same locking bar. You're in the same flight
- 19:37every day, the same bus to the same flight. I remember every morning
- 19:41it was like it was like the Terror twins, like Jimmy and Johnny from
- 19:45Avenge would like come on the bus. Jimmy's like singing opera at the top
- 19:49of his lungs at like seven in the morning. Half the bus is like
- 19:53not into it. Half the bus is really into it, like you know,
- 19:57like it was just chaos. Like I remember one of the shows,
- 20:03one of the last shows was in New Zealand and it was like we're in
- 20:07the lobby bar and it was like cool guys were closed and there was like
- 20:11thirty of us in there, and I was like, no, you're not.
- 20:14And the bar just ended up staying open because we wouldn't leave. It
- 20:18was just like then of like we'll let you know when you're closed. I
- 20:22think Johnny might have I think Johnny and Jimmy might have emptied the mini bar
- 20:26and stabbed the bottles into the wall in the room. It was a beautiful,
- 20:33a beautiful time, beautiful time. Everything that you could imagine was real.
- 20:37Yeah, And it was like, you know, like that showed Cheers.
- 20:41It's like that if you don't know, I'm familiar with you, that
- 20:42show Cheers from like the seventies eighty. It's like you just like you know,
- 20:45if you went to the bar, you went to Cheers, you're gonna
- 20:48run into people, you know. That was like it would be a day
- 20:52off and it'd be like eight thirty nine. Like, I don't know what's
- 20:56gonna happen tonight, but I bet if I go to the lobby bar,
- 20:57someone's gonna have me a drink and it's gonna do something somewhere, it's gonna
- 21:03be down there. Like, yeah, it was, it was, it
- 21:07was rough. We still we still like that goes down in history for I
- 21:11think all three bands is one of the most blurry, painful tours. Oh
- 21:18love it. Yeah, it was only like a week and a half long.
- 21:21Yeah, if you can't, I'm surprised you remember it. I want
- 21:25to do it again, to be honest, probably talk about it. We
- 21:26should do that same tour again, can you plase? Actually that would be
- 21:30good. The challenge awesome challenge. So you just announced I think a couple
- 21:41of hours ago. Actually you're on the lineup for Rockfast, which is ironically
- 21:45head on by the country superstar Jelly Roll. Jelly Roll can go anywhere he
- 21:52wants to dominate. He is he is omnipotent, like he can go,
- 21:59he can he can do a wrong. Yeah, no kidding, he's literally
- 22:02it's just yeah, yeah, it's gold. There's some huge names on that
- 22:07line up, yet bend you stoked to be sharing the stage with or was
- 22:11there something that you have before and you can't wait to see him again,
- 22:12or you know, I'm I'm stoked because we always play. We always get
- 22:18on festivals with Shine Down, and we never play the day of Shine Down,
- 22:22and like, those are homies and I never like I've seen them when
- 22:26we go to their shows. We never play the same day as then,
- 22:27So really stoked for that. I think we're on the same day as Parkway,
- 22:33which will be sick cool. I've I've I've never seen them before.
- 22:37We were like I saw him back. We did like what was it called
- 22:42what was it called some festival in Australia No Sleep Too sleep till I remember
- 22:48because you gypped person and I lived in person at the time, and I
- 22:51was like, I finally get to see a tray you and you didn't come
- 22:52to Perth. That one wasn't our fault, but we the time I saw
- 23:00them live was like in that era where they were like oh like it was
- 23:06like more they were like served out and yeah, yeah of their manitude yet
- 23:10so I haven't seen like the modern day gargantu win that is Parkway. So
- 23:15I'm excited for that for sure too. We're never on the Bear Tree day
- 23:19either. Oh and I always love hanging with those dudes, so nice.
- 23:25All right, Well, it's no bloody secret that I absolutely love you guys.
- 23:27I've followed you from day dark. Literally I've lost my voice trying to
- 23:30catch up with you singing in my car on the way to work. And
- 23:33I don't think there's honestly been a week you guys haven't played in my house
- 23:37or car or anything like that. So I'll be fun and sent out on
- 23:40Brisbane because I actually haven't seen you guys yet, so I'm so fucking excited.
- 23:44I'll be there. Oh oh yeah, but everyone can get tickets for
- 23:48me. They're Silverback Touring dot com dot au or Treyofficial dot com and you'll
- 23:52be here as of the seventeenth of fem starting in path. Do not wait,
- 23:56because the last time we were in Australia, people waited and it was
- 24:00a bummer for them, and most of those last shows sold out, and
- 24:03I want all the same to happen as times, but I don't want you
- 24:07people to be disappointed. Yeah, so we'll get your tickets now. If
- 24:10you heard him, folks, get in there alright, Thank you so much
- 24:12man. That was an absolute pleasure. It was so good to make you
- 24:15sure. Thanks thanks for having with you in Brisbane. Absolutely enjoy the rest
- 24:19of you day. Bye bye, all right.