Lamb Of God - Pure American Metal Page 2
by Martin Popoff

Which all ties in with this concept of "pure American metal" if you think about it. You listen to New American Gospel and there's something strangely universal, definitely genre-straddling and special in a stadium rock way about it, even if it sounds like a nasty vortex of death metal, Pantera, Brutal Truth and well, even bands like Overkill and Testament. It is this bridging and fusing of metal's history that is perhaps the force behind this record's rave reviews and indeed, even the high regard for Burn The Priest, a name that had to go, says Chris, for obvious reasons.

"Yes, we kind of flipped the coin to the direct opposite there (laughs). There are two things that went on around that. Almost the exact same time we released the Burn The Priest album, we let go one of our guitarists. We were going in different directions musically and with our career, and we really wanted to take the band to the next level. When we did that, the new guy we brought in happens to be my younger brother and I had been playing music with him for probably 10 years before that. So it's great having him in the band. When he stepped in, I think the potential and the momentum within the band really took off. We were able to take that next step musically and professionally. And we wanted to symbolize that with a new name, and I think we had a new focus. It was a real rebirth for the band. And everybody brings really varied musical backgrounds to the table and that's what really, in my mind, makes us unique or honest in a way. When we get together, magical stuff happens. Another reason we did it was because of the name itself. We really got pigeonholed into this Satanic metal thing that really had absolutely nothing to do with what we were going after; it was not how we wanted to be perceived. For all the energy and the blood, sweat and tears we put into it, to get that negative connotation... We definitely worked that name for a long time and kicked a lot of ass doing stuff and it works for a lot of reasons but it kind of started to turn on us."

So what does this new name, Lamb Of God, mean to you?

"To us, it means exactly the same thing. It was never a religious thing. For us Burn The Priest was our way of saying 'f**k the system', don't always believe what you see and hear. Within the lyrics and within both names of the band, what we're really trying to get across is: don't always take things at surface level. There are things underneath that people choose to ignore and it's often a lot easier to do so. But lyrically and musically, I think this band is bringing a few of those things to the surface."

Lamb Of God - Pure American Metal Page 3