Written by Randy Blythe wants to read something to Metal Hammer. He’s just returned from the back of his sunlit office with a copy of his most recent book, Just Beyond The Light. He holds it up to the camera of his computer. A pithy, two-line epigram is visible.
“You tell me that nothing matters,” the Lamb Of God singer begins, his slightly nasal voice at odds with the fearsome roar that rips from his larynx on record and onstage. “You’re just fucking scared. You tell me that I make no difference. At least I’m fucking trying.”
The epigram is taken from the lyrics of the Minor Threat song In My Eyes, and they were written 45 years ago by Ian MacKaye, one of the founding fathers of American hardcore and a big hero of Randy’s. The words may be someone else’s, but they fit the 55-year-old perfectly.
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Randy has spent close to three decades trying to make a difference with the band known at first as Burn The Priest and, for the last 26 years, as the more familiar Lamb Of God. It’s been far from easy at times. He spent years as an alcoholic mess before sobering up a decade and a half ago, and he spent time in a Czech prison in 2012, awaiting trial on a manslaughter charge after the tragic death of a fan at a Lamb Of God show in Prague (it’s to his eternal credit that he faced the music, and was acquitted).
But the fire that was lit under him by the febrile, fucked-up Richmond, Virginia hardcore scene has never gone out, nor has his passion for Lamb Of God themselves. The band’s new album, Into Oblivion, is their finest in a decade.
The jackhammer grooves remain intact, but they’ve mixed things up a little more this time. Sepsis has a slow, filthy groove that sounds like early 80s noise terrorists Swans (in Hammer’s view) or swivel-eyed alt-rock demons The Jesus Lizard (in Randy’s). Equally startling is the dark-to-black atmospherics of El Vacío, which sees him actually singing rather just than howling and screaming like an angry hog (he does that too, of course).
“Those guys still have the capacity to surprise me with the music they write,” he says, his short hair and resting stern face giving him the look of an 18th-century Puritan just returned from a hard day bashing away at the pulpit. “But I think it’s a good thing that we’re a democracy and that I am not steering the ship, because by now we’d have done a record that is just purely noise, and our most of our fans would have gone, ‘Uh-uh, nope.’”
But we’re not here to ask about the new album, at least not directly. Instead, we’ve enlisted several of Randy’s musician friends and contemporaries to hit him up with questions for him, ranging from everything from his earliest inspirations to his belief in extraterrestrial life.
“Wait, so these are all from people I know?” he says, a grin splitting his face. “So they’ve done your job for you?”
Pretty much, yes, and they’ve probably done a better job, to be honest. Let’s start with an old friend…
Max Cavalera (Soulfly)
Max: Who or what inspired you to be a vocalist?
Randy: “There are two. One is John Lydon, or Johnny Rotten as he was. The Sex Pistols were the first band I heard that actually changed shit for me, to the point where for a long time people would try to play me American stuff and I’d be like, ‘That’s not from England, it’s not punk rock.’
“The other was H.R. from Bad Brains, who just had his own unique voice and was a spiritual force. Johnny Rotten and H.R. can’t sing in the traditional sense, but with both of them, it was the immediacy and the honesty of it that just cut through: ‘I’m feeling this, I’m expressing this in a loud manner, I’m not asking for permission.’”
Max: What would you like to have written on your tombstone?
Randy: “He tried his best.”
Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod)
Mike: We first met in 1993. You used to get onstage and do vocals with EyeHateGod. What are your memories of those shows?
Randy: “A lot of blood, a lot of drinking. Their shows were always chaotic. This will encapsulate my memories: EyeHateGod was playing a club called Twisters. I was down the front, screaming my head off, and the floor was covered with beer and broken glass, ’cos that’s what happened at an EyeHateGod show. I got pushed somehow, and my chin hit this broken bottle on the stage. I pulled it out, there was blood gushing down my face, all over my hands.
“After the show, their guitarist, Brian [Patton], needed some cigarettes so we went to the 7/11 round the corner. I walk in there, bleeding, and go: ‘I need a pack of Marlboro Reds.’ I pull out some money, I’ve got blood all over my hands, and the woman behind the counter just goes, [disgustedly], ‘Urgghh…’ Brian’s like, ‘I got this, dude.’”
Mike: Those days were pretty decadent and insane. Most of us survived and are fairly sober these days. Were there key moments that led you to cleaner living?
Randy: “Yeah, and ironically it was a moment where I was not hanging out with a bunch of dirty, sweaty, crazy, scummy punks like EyeHateGod. I woke up on a hotel balcony in Brisbane. My band was on tour in Australia, opening for Metallica, one of the biggest bands in the world. I had a hotel room that was bigger than my apartment, everything was beautiful and I was still miserable. That’s when I got sober.
“I’d had about four and a half years of trying and failing to quit drinking. It was difficult for me to admit that other people could do things I wanted to do without impunity – they didn’t wake up in jail, they didn’t wake up in the mental hospital, they didn’t worry their family to death, they didn’t piss off everybody around them. All of that shit happened to me, some of it several times over.
“It was a four- to five-year process of trying to come to terms with the fact that I had abused my mind and body with alcohol and drugs, to the point where that privilege was no longer a viable option for me. That was hard. When I reached that point where I’d had enough, it became surprisingly easy, but it took a lot of pain to reach that point. I’m not very smart. It had to be beaten into me.”
Dez Fafara (Devildriver/Coal Chamber)
Dez: How did surfing and the surf culture lifestyle bring you peace in how you deal with touring and the stress of being in a massive band?
Randy: “I love Dez, he’s a great friend and he introduced me to one of my favourite surfing beaches. When I got sober and decided to write my first book [Dark Days, 2015], I rented a house down at Oak Island, North Carolina. I was on the beach and I saw some people surfing in the sea, and I went: ‘I’m gonna learn to do that. I’m a skateboarder, how hard can it be?’ And it turns out it’s very hard!
“Surfers have a saying: ‘Leave it on the beach.’ In modern life, you’re always thinking about something – worries and concerns and plans, or you’re getting distracted by your phones and screens. So when you’re surfing, you can’t think of all that stuff, because everything is moving and changing so swiftly that you have to be perfectly present and in the moment.
You’re looking for the next wave, or maybe for fins, depending where you are in the world. All that other stuff is still there when you get back to the beach, but I find I can approach it in a much calmer emotional state.”
Lewis de Jong & Tū Morgan-Edmonds (Alien Weaponry
Lewis: What’s your favourite surf spot that you have surfed and why? Also, are there any spots you haven’t surfed that you would like to and why?
Randy: “I won’t say the name of it, but it’s down in Cape Fear, North Carolina, where I spent some time growing up. It’s home to me. I know people and it’s my community.
“A place I haven’t surfed and I want to? Since Lewis asked this, I would love to surf Piha Beach in New Zealand. It’s a beautiful, black sand beach with a magnificent rock formation in the middle of the water and a lot of Māori culture and history around there. And I want to surf Cornwall. I hear it has good waves.”
Tū: I’m a huge fan of film, more so than I am of music, and film is always shaping the way I write music. What is your favourite movie?
Randy: “My favourite movie is Lost In Translation, with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. It takes place in Tokyo, and I love Japan. It’s the perfect cinematic representation of severe jetlag and also the oddity of the first time you go to some place so culturally different to America. Our old drum tech described Tokyo as a nuclear mindfuck, and Lost In Translation really captures that.
“It’s not an action movie, it’s not fast-paced. But there’s so much feeling in it. It’s about these two people who have found themselves in this lonely time. It doesn’t morph into this romantic thing, but you can tell there are feelings there. At the end, Bill Murray leans down and whispers something in Scarlett Johansson’s ear, and they walk away. It’s this sad moment. And you don’t know what he whispered. They don’t explain. It’s so brilliant.
“A lot of that movie takes place in this bar in the Park Hyatt, Tokyo, on the top floor. I’ve been to that bar just because of Lost In Translation.”
Cristina Scabbia (Lacuna Coil)
Cristina: You are as ferocious and brutal onstage as you are sweet and kind and humble offstage. How does this duality coexist? And do you think people have expectations when they meet you?
Randy: “We all have a dark side, and it’s foolish to deny or ignore that. That’s repressing part of human nature – nobody is Buddha, they’re not sitting in perfect balance, at peace with everything. Getting that aggression out onstage, it helps me not have it in my day to day life.
“And yes, people do have expectations. I hear, ‘Oh, you’re a nice, normal person.’ I don’t drive around town screaming at the top of my lungs. I’m not at the bookstore screaming. I’m there looking for a new vampire book I want to read. Screaming my lungs out is what the band is for.”
Cristina: What is your absolute favourite food, besides cilantro? No, that’s an inside joke. Seriously, if you could choose one last meal in your life, what would it consist of?
Randy: “I love cilantro [coriander in the UK], but everyone in Lacuna Coil hates it. We have a WhatsApp group, which I named, called ‘Cilantro Is The Best’. At least once a month, I’ll send a video of me making something with cilantro and they’ll go, [Italian accent] ‘I do not like cilantro, it’s gross.’
“My last meal? It’s not just because she’s asking about it, but I think I would have a pasta with meatballs and some pomodoro sauce. I used to work as a cook. I worked at some nice restaurants. I did like that life. Sometimes I still miss it. But it’s a great place to develop a nice case of alcoholism. How do I know that? Because that’s what happened to me.”
Blöthar The Berserker (Gwar)
Blöthar: How dare you?
Randy: “’Cos I can.”
Blöthar: Who do you think you are?
Randy: “A Gwar slave that escaped their evil clutches.”
Blöthar: Why?
Randy: “Why not?!?”
John Famiglietti (Health)
John: It seems like Lamb Of God do nearly 150 shows every year. What drives such a schedule?
Randy: “We keep saying, ‘God, we need to slow it down.’ But the biggest kick I get out of being a musician is being onstage, whether it’s in front of 50 people in a punk rock basement or 100,000 people at Download. Have I ever been sick of touring? Every time! Ha ha ha! By the end of it, you’re like, ‘Fuck this.’ But then you do a new record and you’re like, ‘I wanna play this for people.’”
John: After so many years as a band, do y’all get sick of each other? And if it got to a breaking point, which member of the band are you most afraid to fight?
Randy: “None of ’em, I’ll fight ’em all at once! Ha ha! But we get along better than we did in the early days. Twenty-five years ago, we’d have been yelling at each other. All of us were fucked up, dude. There’s a reason Willie [Adler, guitarist], Mark [Morton, guitarist] and Art [Cruz, drummer] don’t drink anymore. It wasn’t just Randy The Rampaging Drunk fucking things up.
“We’ve learned how to function and accept each others’ differences. I don’t want Lamb Of God ever to break up. I want to die in Lamb Of God. Not onstage with those dudes, though. Preferably sitting on my boat or the front porch of my house, at a very advanced age.”
Lzzy Hale (Halestorm)
Lzzy: What was your journey in finding your signature scream and how has that changed/developed throughout the years?
Randy: “I was about 14 or 15, and a bunch of us were driving to a skate ramp. The person who had the car was playing the Corrosion Of Conformity song Hungry Child, and I just started screaming along. And he looked back and said, ‘You should be in a band.’
“As far as the deeper, guttural stuff goes, that was kind of a joke. We were sitting in a bar in Richmond and someone started playing some death metal, and I just started clowning along to it. And people were, like, ‘Whoa, you can do that?!’ “As far as learning to control and expand my range, that’s just been a constant process. Every new record I try to add a different flavour. Mark calls it another of my ‘characters’ – like, all these different goblins in me. I just try to find a new goblin with each record.”
Lzzy: Do you ever look back on the beginning of being in a band and almost mourn that feeling, because you’ll never have that experience again?
Randy: “Oh yeah. Getting in the van and driving up to Philadelphia to play in a warehouse that friends had booked for us, and people showing up to see us: ‘Holy shit, we’re making something that people enjoy.’ My biggest goal at the start was maybe one day to play [famous New York club] CBGBs, because that is the birthplace of punk.
And we did. I remember getting onto that stage and thinking, ‘I have walked into history.’ But I’m constantly surprised at what we’ve achieved. It’s like, ‘Holy shit, we’re actually doing this.’”
Jesse Leach (Killswitch Engage)
Jesse: Do you think music has the power to change the world? If so, on what level?
Randy: “I don’t know if a song can do it on its own: ‘I wrote this song and it’s gonna bring about world peace.’ But music can certainly help. Music as a form of speaking out against injustice, as a form of lifting up the oppressed, has a very long history, from the times of slavery to the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war.
“If you want to create something with teeth, and I do, I think you should engage with the issues of the day. And I certainly have not shied away from that. I’m sure some people are bent out of shape by that, but whatever. I have always been very clear what I’m about. I have been writing about this stuff for 30 fucking years. If you haven’t figured it out by now, then you’re a little late to the party.”
Jesse: What is your go-to album or artist when you are feeling low or out of sorts?
Randy: “If you’re down at the bottom and you’re feeling like you can’t make it through the day, there’s only one band you can turn to. And that band is Hatebreed. [Their 2002 album] Perseverance, dude. Jamey Jasta is a master of lifting people up. I have seen him take the stage in very testing times and bring people together.”
Neil Fallon (Clutch)
Neil: I have it on good authority that Rice-A-Roni with asparagus is a seasonal feature on the Blythe household menu. Sounds delicious! This leads me to ask two important questions. First, what flavour of Rice-A-Roni is best for this pairing? And second, have you ever seen a UFO?
Randy: “Ha ha ha! So, Rice-A-Roni is a boxed instant rice and pasta that comes in different flavours. It’s very cheap, and because we didn’t have much money growing up, my mother – who was not a good cook, though I love her very much – would dice some chicken, fry it in the pan and then put the chicken with the Rice-A-Roni. It was my favourite meal and it reminds me of my mother.
“Now, the reason Neil asked this is because he is a fantastic lyricist and he’s very clever with his puns. There’s a Clutch song called The Mob Goes Wild, and the lyrics are: ‘Condoleezza Rice is nice, but I prefer A-Roni.’ Every now and then, I’ll make chicken and Rice-A-Roni with a little sautéed asparagus – and it has to be chicken-flavoured Rice-A-Roni – and every time I cook it, I hear that song in my head. So this strange meal reminds me of my mother and Clutch.”
Metal Hammer: And what about the UFO thing?
Randy: “Yes, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen one, by the house I rented down on Oak Island, North Carolina. It was a block from the ocean. I was sitting on the front porch there with my friend, T-Roy from Sourvein, and his girlfriend. All of a sudden we saw these two sets of four lights in a kind of square pattern over the ocean, very bright. They went horizontal very quickly, one this way and one that way, then they went up and then down, and then they both shot into the sky at an incredible speed. We just all looked at each other: ‘Did you see that?’ We were honestly freaked out.
“I’m quite aware of our military take-off vehicles, and they can’t go that fast. They weren’t drones. I am not obsessed with aliens or weird conspiracy stuff like some of my friends, but I think it’s improbable that we’re the only intelligent thing in the universe. And I definitely saw an unidentified flying object that night.”
Ice-T (Body Count)
Ice-T: How do you jump that high in the air, lifting your knees up, and how long do you think you’re gonna be able to continue to do it?
Randy: “Ice! My man! How do I do that? I was a skateboarder. Since I was a young kid, I’ve been jumping off tall things with wheels beneath me. So my ability to do that comes from skateboarding. I’ve jumped from on top of stacked speaker cabinets, I’ve cleared some pretty large distances from the stage to the audience. I don’t do that so much now, though, ’cos it hurts too much for days afterwards.
“How long can I do it? Currently I’m grounded. My back has not been behaving. I’ve been doing physical therapy and isometric exercises. It’s not like I can’t do it, but I need to take care of myself.”
Ice-T: What made you decide to cut your hair?
Randy: “Pain. We played the Milwaukee Metal Fest a couple of summers ago, and after the show I couldn’t move my neck. My hair was well past my butt. I love my hair, but I thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ I went to the bathroom, cut it off myself, and immediately my neck felt better, and it has ever since.
“And also long hair gets in your way when you’re surfing. You’re on your stomach paddling and you have to pop up, and my hair would get caught under my hands, and suddenly you’re eating shit: ‘OK, I’m eating shit and I hurt. This is getting in the way.’ Have I kept the dreadlocks? Oh yes.”
Brann Dailor (Mastodon)
Brann: When did you really start using your platform for the benefit of your fellow man, and how did it tie in with growing up in the punk and hardcore scene? And what are some of the foundations you are involved in?
Randy: “Through that scene, before I was ever in a band, there was an organisation called Food Not Bombs. They’d cook at my house and go feed people in the park. It was that feeling of fighting helplessness in the face of negativity.
“Recently I’ve been working with the Living The Dream Foundation. They bring fans with life-threatening or terminal illnesses backstage to meet and hang out with their favourite bands. I’ve met three or four people through that. I’ll hang out with them all day long, just talk to them, and I’ve found commonalities with every one. That’s something beautiful for me, because it means something to them.
“I sometimes feel like, ‘What are you doing with your life, dude? You’re the singer in a heavy metal band. You’re not a doctor curing cancer. You don’t even have a college degree.’ And then I realise when I meet people, or I’m able to do charitable things for people, what I do can make a difference. It can help people. I get a lot of gratification out of that.”
Brann: Can you go over the reason we refer to each other as ‘Papa’?
Randy: “[Launching into Italian accent] ‘Papa no! Papa why?!’ We were in Milan, us and Mastodon, and we were all drinking backstage in one of the dressing rooms. For some reason, Brann started saying, ‘Papa Milano! Papa no! Papa why?!’ And it spread through us like a virus.
“So we’re all in this dressing room going, ‘Papa! Papa Milano!’ And this big Italian security guard thinks we’re making fun of Italian people, and he’s like, [angrily] ‘Shut up! Stop!’ And he slams the door. And we’re like, ‘Papa no! Papa why?!’ And ever since then, me and the Mastodon guys all call each other ‘Papa’.”
Scott Ian (Anthrax)
Scott: On tour a few years ago you were so kind to help [Scott’s son] Revel with his math homework. Have you ever thought of taking a side gig as a math tutor?
Randy: “No. Because Revel’s math was very simple. I am not good at math, so it made me feel very smart that I could help him with basic addition and multiplication. And by the way, Revel’s new band, X-Comm, are fucking sick. A ripping punk rock band. Everybody needs to check ’em out.”
Scott: You’re walking down a sketchy alley late at night. Suddenly, you’re grabbed around the throat from behind and the cold iron of a .38 is pressed against your temple. Time burns slowly as you feel your assailant’s lips brush against your ear. And then he whispers, “Bad Brains or Minor Threat?”
Randy: “Bad Brains all day. I fucking love Minor Threat, but I have to go with Bad Brains. I think [ex-Minor Threat singer] Ian MacKaye would probably say Bad Brains as well!”
Into Oblivion is out now via Nuclear Blast. Lamb Of God play Sonic Temple in May and Bloodstock in August.
