Trivium Bassist Paolo Gregoletto Discusses David Draiman’s Impact on New Album

Trivium bassist Paolo Gregoletto has shed a little light on the band's upcoming album, which follows 2011's 'In Waves' and is the band's fifth album for longtime label Roadrunner. It is reportedly titled 'Vengeance Falls' and was produced by David Draiman, who is best known for his roles as the frontman of Disturbed and Device.

Gregoletto revealed in an interview with the group's label that the band had to figure out its next move after touring for nearly two years in support of 'In Waves.' Trivium spent much of their time on the road writing and wanted to line up all their metal ducks in a row.

"Even before we’d gotten with David and started to plan with him, we were trying to get a really concise and clear vision of how we wanted the album to look and how we wanted it to sound, everything," he said. "And I think after touring with 'In Waves' and really gelling as a band once again, now with [drummer] Nick [Augusto] in the band, we were having fun writing again. And we wrote on tour -- every tour we did for 'In Waves,' we were writing and writing, and the closer we got to finishing the record cycle, we just kept writing more."

When it came time to call on Draiman, they sent over demos on which the producer commented, to help formulate the songs. "He kind of gave us some general notes that he’d send for each song, whether he was feeling it, what he liked about a certain song, what could be better, and we kept going back and forth for maybe a month or so," Gregoletto recalled, pointing out that the process was concentrated. "Once we got to the studio with him, we really dug into the song structures, vocals, lyrics, everything, and that was definitely intense. Ten, 12-hour days of working on the music, writing, something that was -- I don’t think we’d ever experienced pre-production that intense before. But it really helped us. We learned a lot from ourselves and from David, being so close together and working that long."

He also confirmed that Draiman was intricately involved in the album on every level. Gregoletto said, "Where we recorded was this sort of loft above his house, and that’s where we did a lot of the recording, a lot of the pre-production," the bassist continued. "He was really hands-on with everything. It was definitely very meticulous, very well-organized how he went through attacking every part of a song, whether it was the drums or the guitar parts, bass parts, and finally the vocals, making sure it all fit together really well. I mean, the lyrics and the vocals, that was the biggest thing we had never really had before, was working in pre-production with finished vocal ideas."

Music aside, Gregoletto also participated in something else that was seriously intense: A 160-mile bike ride from London to the countryside where the annual Download Festival is held in the U.K., labeling the experience "pretty difficult."

He had been riding beforehand in Florida, which has nothing on the hills and moody weather of the U.K. "It was one of those things where if you’ve never really experienced the hills and the weather … you can’t really train for something like that unless you’re already in those kinds of conditions," he said. "And Florida is absolutely nothing like England in terms of terrain or weather, so while I guess riding my bike 40 or 50 miles down here was definitely good -- I was in better shape than had I not done it -- but after the first day, I was definitely like, this is pretty brutal."