Trivium Bassist Recalls Hiring David Draiman as Producer & How He Treated the Band

"It taught us a lot about our writing style, what really is core to Trivium," Paolo Gregoletto says.

Posted 2 days ago

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During a conversation with MS, Trivium bassist Paolo Gregoletto talked about 2013's "Vengeance Falls," which saw the band hiring Disturbed frontman David Draiman in the role of producer.

The musician said (transcribed by UG):

"The way that kind of came about was - we were doing Mayhem 2011 or 2012, David loved 'In Waves,' he loved the song 'In Waves,' he offered to maybe work with us on something in the future.

"Disturbed was going on their hiatus, so this was, like, I think for him, he wanted to branch out, maybe try some stuff that he had never done before, maybe working with bands.

"I think the one thing that has really been interesting for us is - we've been very into just trying stuff and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But we're never really afraid to go out and try things, and I think a lot of bands wouldn't.

"Going, like, 'Oh, let's do this follow-up to 'In Waves' with David Draiman, we're going to change up the way we do writing for this album.'

"Honestly, if I could combine this album and the next, 'Silence in the Snow,' I kind of feel like we were just trying to experiment with making a record, and we really changed some of the formulae of how we went about that.

"I think if anything, it taught us a lot about our writing style, what really is core to Trivium, what works and doesn't work with our band."

Was he more, like, since he is a singer, was he more, like, working with Matt [Heafy] on vocal harmonies?

"I think every producer we've worked with has always had input on, 'Hey, maybe try this song structure,' not as much, 'Hey, write the riff this way.' It was more of, like, the macro view of a song.

"I think if anything, when you're working with a producer, even on this last record, like, Josh is in there with Matt, they're discussing harmonies, melodies, stuff like that, or if I gave Matt, like, an idea working on that.

"But I think that thing that's kind of weird that I never thought of until after we did it is that David is such a recognizable singer that has a certain style and certain note choices.

"When I hear the record, I think of his vocal choices because what makes him such an iconic recognizable singer is that the note choices aren't where I would go with