Lamb Of God Won't Talk Smack

Lamb Of God have been spreading their brand of "pure American metal" all over the world for the past decade. We got guitarist Mark Morton to share his thoughts on everything from 1999's Burn The Priest album all the way to recording this year's Wrath, plus some stuff in between.

CHARTattack: What do you think of the Burn The Priest album when you listen to it today?
Mark Morton: There's a lot I like about it. I really like some of the doomy, sludgy riffs we were doing at the time. I think we've gotten away from some of that and gotten more technical. But there's definitely an energy to that early stuff that I really enjoy. I honestly don't spend a lot of time listening to it, but when I do, it definitely takes me back to that time.

I think we touched on some of that stuff and referenced some of the Burn The Priest style stuff on Wrath, particularly in the song "Contractor." There's a part in the middle of that song that really reminds me of that early Burn The Priest stuff. So I think there are still elements of that phase of the band in our music today, but we've definitely gone to different places as well.

In support of 2000's New American Gospel, you went out on tour with Cannibal Corpse and a couple of then up-and-coming bands in Dimmu Borgir and The Haunted.
I remember that show. We played The Opera House [in Toronto]. I remember a lot about the tour because there's a couple of early tours like that that stand out to me because that was really early in our touring career in terms of playing bigger venues like The Opera House — bigger, more professional venues.

Up until shortly before then, we were playing clubs and bars and private places like warehouses. Then we started getting on national tours like the one you mentioned and we were playing legit theatres and venues, so some of those early tours do stand out in my mind because it was a new world for us.

It was interesting back then. It's kind of funny to look back at it now because we learned a lot of lessons back then. We learned a lot about how not to treat people because, coming up, we didn't have a whole lot of status at that point, and I don't think a lot of people took us very seriously. So we came across a lot of attitude and a lot of resistance on some of those early tours.

From the other bands?
In some cases, yeah. We definitely had a real underdog mentality, and that's kind of stuck with us. I'm not going to get specific and call any people out or anything like that, but there were definitely some people that slighted us a little bit on the way up when they didn't have to, and it's interesting to come across some of that stuff because the tables have turned a little bit.

I'm not trying to hold any grudges on anybody and, again, I'm not trying to insinuate anybody on the tour you mentioned or anything like that, but I'm just saying on those early tours it was interesting to see how some of these bands saw themselves as Led Zeppelin or something and then now it's put into perspective. I'm on the verge of talking shit here. I don't want to get too far into it.

You're the guy in the band that'll bring in the songs with a different feel like "Vigil." Was there something of that same style that was left off Wrath?
Yeah, I get a lot of credit for writing songs like "Descending" and "Vigil," but I'm kind of dual-sided because I'll bring in some of the hookier stuff too, like "Walk With Me In Hell," "Redneck" and "Now You've Got Something To Die For" and songs that are more immediate.

There's a song I thought was like the little brother of "Descending" — the song is called "We Die Alone" — and it wound up being one of the bonus tracks. And that was one that I brought into these sessions that we figured it didn't do what we wanted to in the flow of the record like "Descending" did on [2006's] Sacrament. So we did make it a bonus track because the song turned out very cool and it was a different flavour and definitely worth listening to.

Sometimes when I bring in those ones that have a different character, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. So for this record, it didn't quite fit like it needed to in the sequence of things. But then I'll bring in a song like "Set To Fail" which is very hooky and very groovy. There's nothing really oddball about that at all. If anything, it's one of the more immediate songs on the record. I think for me, I'm either bringing in a weird one or a really hooky one.

On the Making Of Sacrament DVD, you said that you wished singer Randy Blythe was more involved in the early stages of the record. Was it like that this time, or did he join you guys later on like he usually does?
No, Randy was definitely very invested from the beginning. It's challenging for him because he doesn't play an instrument, so it can be a little tedious sitting there watching us arguing back and forth about three seconds of music, so I can understand why that might not be the most fun for someone.

But this time, he was a lot more involved and I think he felt just by being there and lending himself to some of those song arrangements early, he felt a lot more invested in each and every song long before we were writing lyrics for them. He kind of knew how the song was going and where it was pointing, and I think that was a big plus in these sessions was that Randy made himself available much earlier in the process and I think he enjoyed it as well in the end.