He’s arguably one of the best metal vocalists in the game he doesn’t have to “try.” “Trying” to be something is what a poser does. Sometimes you get to choose your path but sometimes your path chooses you.
I moved to RVA in August of 1998 and quickly found out about them, some of those BTP shows were insane and I'm so glad I can say I've been there since the early days before LoG. Even better is to see Randy clean, sober and seemingly in a great place in life these days.
Texan here. Lived in the Hampton Roads/VA Beach area for a while. Spent a lot of time at the Norva and a bit at the National. Great scene. Some of the bands I listen to most are out of Richmond like Municipal Waste and Windhand.
Being in a DIY band for almost a decade I can assure you money always plays into releasing music. Especially if you all have families and jobs. It’s definitely a labor of love and sacrifice.
For Randy to even mention the guy Mikey who helped him out is truly incredible. And it really shows just how great of a person Randy is. He never forgot where he came from and he NEVER took anything for granted. The band the claw was an amazing band. And it was very devastating losing the guy. Especially in the way it happened
i love that Randy Blythe and Alexi Laiho both started out as punks. I know so many metal dudes that hate on punk rock, and im like "DUDE! So much metal stems from PUNK!!"
The metal and punk rock scene in the late 90s and early 2000s was nothing short of amazing growing up in the 757 and 804. I would relive those days over and over again if I could. The support in that area between bands and from fans was IMMENSE. To this day it is like one big family. Every few years when I fly home from Cali it’s like I never left. There is so much love there that never leaves. Lamb of God, Gwar, Municipal Waste, Arsis and many others have remained true to their roots and approachable. There truly is no place like home. Much love VA! I miss you dearly.
Ah, Gwar, Lamb of God, Municple Waste | Iron Reagan.....was on rotation for me. I heard amazing music and only had to travel 30 minutes. I am so grateful to have been a small part of it.
My Randy Blythe moment was going to the former Richmond Festival Best Friends Day which is by a man made lake. In a beachside tent in the middle of the afternoon as 3 stages are raging close by, Randy is sitting there sipping a beer and reading a book with the thickest glasses I've ever seen. We talked southern gothic literature for 15 mins and I let him be. Will be eternally grateful for that and all the good he's done for Richmond and our scene.
Honestly I haven’t even heard the last couple albums. However I vividly remember years ago I had dinner with my brother for his birthday. We went to our local Best Buy and looked around afterwards. On a whim I bought the Sacrament album. I had been hearing about the band for a couple of years. About 30 seconds into “Walk with me in Hell” I had an epiphany. “This is the most violent thing I’ve heard since Pantera Far beyond Driven”. Warm fuzzy memories of chilling with my little brother and discovering some damn violent music. 😀
Hell yah. I have a lifelong friend of 10+ years now, a friendship based entirely on playing guitar and loving lamb of god. No better foundation for being buddies
I’ll never forget hearing Ashes for the first time and I also had an epiphany! I was already a big fan of rock & some metal but I had never heard anything like it and by the time the final track was over Remorse is for the Dead….my mind exploded! Been a fan ever since…
Good interview. Brings back memories. I remember putting out our first 7”, submitting it to Maximum Rock n Roll, review was “Sounds like Jawbreaker, but not nearly as good”. Touring in an old beat up van listening to Avail constantly. Good times.
L.O.G is my all time favorite band. Hell even my 2 1/2 yr old Son loves them. He jams out and head bangs to other stuff. But not like he does to Lamb Of God. He digs the killadelphia DVD alot too. Seriously he gets pissed off if you interrupt his Killadelphia time.🤘🏼💀
So cool that Randy comes from the skater punk world. I think that’s part of why LOG always had respect and intrigue in the hardcore and punk atmosphere. Damn. Now I’m reminiscing and missing being a kid on a skateboard haha
Growing up, Metallica and Pantera was life. First heard Metallica from my neighbor who lent me the "One" vhs tape after hearing him blast it from his truck. KNAC was the station that taught me everything metal and eventually Headbangers Ball. To me, no one would ever knock them off my mantle. Then heard LoG New American Gospel and since then no one has come close to knocking them off the hill. When i first heard Burn the Priest while researching lamb of god, i actually got scared a little of what i heard. It resonated with me though and over the years, to see the growth of this band album after album, i feel truly blessed by the Metal Gods to have grown up with them being the soundtrack of my life.
Richmond VA is my hometown. I don't live there anymore (I still live in Virginia) but this video gave me a bit of pride. I loved going to shows at The Metro & The Flood Zone back in the day.
Been listening to LOG since the Burn The Priest days, i was very stoned and strolled into HMV ... they used to have listening stations and I happened to come across this album... my god...i stood there for an hour listening to it.. saved up money and bought the cd the following week.
Almost every band's origin is extremely hard. Nowadays internet helps a lot but yet growing up is still difficult because there's too much to compete with out there
The internet is the greatest gift for music, but also the greatest curse. It opens doors for young bands to get them self out there. But it also turns talented musicians, into a dime a dozen. You can spend 5 minutes online, and discover 10 new bands, that you really like. But you won't remember any band names, you wont buy a cd, you wont buy a shirt. You will just add a few songs to a play list, that you will randomly come across on shuffle.
Remember seeing a video of him after a show arguing with the guitarist or somebody, they start fighting and bearded dude knocks him clean out. Camera runs up on Blythe while he's on the ground and yup, eyes shut out cold. I suspect everyone was thoroughly inebriated, that never helps.
Randy was literally a hobo, no shame in that though because hobos work and fend for themselves. There has been a resurgence of people hopping trains since CV19. I’m from Altoona PA and we are proud to be the biggest locomotive manufacturer on the entire planet.
DUDE!I hung out at The Caboose back in the day! I saw some awesome metal shows there in the 90's. The place got shut down and became a lawnmower repair shop. Thanks for the memories!
Awesome to see Steve Austin get his due respect! Been a TITD fan since high school, remember when Lamb of God and Mastodon came out, and both likely would not exist without him. Not to mention he has earned the respect of everyone from Kittie to Wrest of Leviathan, who has worked with them. If you do not know Today is the Day, take an afternoon off, no distractions, put on Sadness Will Prevail after consuming whatever is necessary, and experience something completely unique, unreal, and visceral. You won't be the same, if you make it through almost three hours of losing your freaking mind!
Randys cool as Hell. I wish I could have ran across him when I use to go and stay weeks at a time in VA. I've heard him talk about Franklin VA., and that's where a lot of my family are from and they are Blythe's and Harrison's. Who knows, I might be kin to Randy somewhere down the line. I even have the Blythe Family Cookbook, somewhere in my mess of a house. I live in Eastern NC, but shit, that's only 2 hours away from Franklin. He's right about the back roads in VA too, I wish I could remember the interview where he's talking about it, but the back roads in Franklin are unmarked, narrow, and curves like crazy. That's where I learned to drive. If you can drive them old roads, you shouldn't have a problem driving anywhere else. And working in VA, is the only time I've been ate up by Red Bugs. Anyone from the sticks probably know about Red Bugs. I'm gonna quit rambling on now, LOG helped get me through some tough times, and those bands that help us, we will always love and appreciate. Peace
A friend and I, and like 13 other people, were at The Caboose show. One of the best shows I've seen there. BtP totally murdered the whole time. Randy was drunk af and kept forgetting his lines. Legendary stuff.
In the early 90s in RVA, in a club called Twisters, I was young teen and my band, Accursed, opened for BTP. I remember watching their singer and thinking “wow”.
I saw LOG supporting Slayer in July 2002 at London Astoria. They completely blew me away - I've been a fan ever since. I've seen them a bunch of times over the years (including with Slayer at Brixton Academy and years later in Newcastle).
Twisters, The Flood Zone, The Factory...I spent a bit of time in the Richmond music scene back in the mid-90s and miss it. Mostly punk at the time, got into LoG in the late 2000s and, despite knowing of GWAR, didn't become a Bohab until early 2002. My crowning moment was getting kicked out of a GWAR New Year's show at the Canal Zone in 2005/2006... 😬
Not a metal dude outside of some late 80's early 90's thrash fests in Portland OR. Have really enjoyed the couple of videos I've watched! Love the perspective and the commitment and especially the love of music shown. Cheers!
My band Crowskull was entirely DIY like Randy was saying out here in Seattle in a scene that was dwindling and dying and after 3 years we crumbled, never got a chance to really take our music anywhere other then the local bar/club scene and it was pretty devastating, it’s incredibly hard to be a struggling musician no doubt
Did the same thing out here in Seattle/Tacoma for 4 years to like you said a dwindling and dying scene. Sucked watching club/bar after club/bar that would have metal bands shut down. Now there is nothing out here it seems like!
@@dogknot13 it was fading out big time when we were active between 2015-2018 and there was no camaraderie amongst bands everyone was down to cut each other’s throats for attention, and then covid killed the scene completely, probably for good
Forgive me for gushing over one of my favorite metal vocalist but, oh my god Randy is one of the greatest extreme vocalist in metal ever!! His tambre his tone his delivery, the unbelievable amount of time he can hold a scream he's phenomenal!! If Revolver does a episode about Jens Kidman they will have covered 2 of the best extreme vocalists of the last 20 years.
So im watching bad brains at riot fest back in 2018. Now a days H.R. just stands there and snaps his fingers while he sings. Near the end of the set, Randy jumps out on stage and goes off doing lead vocals for the last three songs. What a guy!
Unreal…🤘🏽..as a huge LOG ..fan from the beginning..I did discover Burn the Priest…☝🏾.. Which..as Randy said in this video.. has such a punk..hardcore sound.. and attitude..Which undeniably..is the backbone of burn the priest.. I totally treat these bands as separate entities..Burn the Priest.. is so fukin..rad ..🤘🏽 And should never be put on the shelf..! And ..Thanks Randy for explaining how the band got together..!
God DAMN I love Randy. Yeah, man, that's exactly it. You grind and grind and grind outta your own pocket, because it beats the shit outta everybody else's hobby. And maybe someday something comes from it.
I'll never forget the first time I heard 11th hour. It was circa 2001. And I was perusing a car audio store. You know the ones with like 40 "decks" mounted to the wall and like 100 speakers? Well for some reason this tune came over the stereo and I was hooked.
2:04 - OMG I have and love that shirt! I never see it anywhere. I bought it for 5-10 bucks off a street vendor from a cardboard box on the sidewalk in New York City when I was filming me RNC convention protests (videos on my channel).
I like that burning priest produced by Steve. I know they have remastered this album with Colin Richardson, but I kind a like that raw/low-fi sound Steve gave to Burn the Piest.
I use to be into the music scene in VA (Williamsburg / Richmond), playing in bands, until I realized that I’m not a musician, I don’t really like musician “types”, & my passion was strictly about songwriting (writing the catchiest punk songs that I could possibly dream up, almost Sam Cooke inspired melodies). Also, the business side completely turned me off, I wasn’t willing to do all of the BS required to make the band into a brand / business. Bands today don’t even have to tour to promote themselves, they have so much more opportunity than we ever did. Now I’m bored & old, I never dreamed I’d live to see 40, old people are the absolute WORST.
Been listening since palaces...seen LOG first time at a 500 person club in San Diego at canes Pacific beach. Got launched off an aircraft carrier just for the show. Slayer was the next night at 4th and B.
Came up in the same Richmond music scene at the same time, and can corroborate everything he said. Was in a band called Kicked in Ribs and opened a show or two for Burn the Priest downtown in the mid- to late-1990s. We thought then they would go on to bigger and better things, and we were right.
These guys seem to be working so hard! Hopefully one day their work gets recognized & they make it big! Maybe with a little more media friendly name they would kill it in the newer metal era! 🤘🏼
I love Randy because he reminds me of a ton of people I've met in the scene who are real as fuck and would be perfectly fine going back to bumming on a train if the shit ever fizzled out.
actually found the BTP album in a smoke shop in Springfield Missouri back in like 2006. It ended up being one of the few cds from bands early days I liked just as much as the new music. BTP definitely had its own thing and it was brutal as fuck.
