Matt Heafy had to delete all the guitars on Trivium’s most iconic album because of one error: “The producer had his head in his hands”
Is there anything more painful than finalising a track and then realising something isn’t quite right, and you need to do the whole thing again? The answer is yes, and it would be finishing an entire record before realising you made an error audible on every song. This is exactly what happened to Trivium’s Matt Heafy.
The album in question is the landmark Ascendancy, which was released in 2005. The band are soon to head out on the road for its 20th anniversary alongside Bullet For My Valentine, who are also celebrating the same milestone for their debut album, The Poison.
READ MORE: This is why Matt Heafy uses a double guitar strap
So, what on earth could have caused Heafy to do a complete do-over of the record? Well, a problem occurred with the guitar’s tuning, and everything sounded off. In a new interview for the print edition of Metal Hammer, Heafy recalls, “We recorded and finished the entire record in drop D flat tuning. I remember coming to the studio and [producer Jason Suecof] just had his head in his hands and he was like, ‘Oh no, no, no!’
“The whole record was slightly out of tune because that guitar wasn’t holding its pitch. So, we actually deleted everything, tuned the guitar up half a step, and redid the whole album again,” he shares.
As gruelling as it may have been, it clearly paid off. The album went on to receive widespread critical acclaim, and peaked in the top position on the UK Rock and Metal album chart following its release. It is also certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry.
Also in the same interview, Heafy shared his thoughts on the band’s upcoming tour with BFMV: “For [BFMV frontman Matt Tuck] and I, these records in 2005 changed our lives. But we were only really able to see the impact 10, 15, 20 years later. A lot of the coolest metal bands that I love these days, I’ll talk to them and they’ll, say, ‘Trivium was my first live band I ever saw’. Or they’ll say Ascendancy or The Poison was their first record. That’s so cool.”
The Poisoned Ascendancy tour with Trivium and Bullet For My Valentine kicks off in Cardiff on 26 January. Tickets are still available.
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