Trivett Wingo - The Sword

July 07 2010

While in Paris promoting their new album “Warp Riders” due to be released in August, 28th, I took the opportunity to interview Trivett Wingo, the drummer of this great band from Austin, Texas. In spite of taking place just after his brief afternoon nap, this interview was informative about this band who, may I remind it, opened for Metallica last year for most of the Death Magnetic tour. As their third album sounds more mature than ever, we dug into its creative process. We also talked about how the dream came true because of a certain Lars Ulrich… They will play on November, 24th at “La Fléche D’Or” in Paris.

Fab: Welcome to Paris. How would you define musically your new album?
Trivett Wingo(Drums): How would I define it? It is our most refined work today, our most sophisticated songs, probably more mature songs, the best playing we've ever captured. And sonically, it's the, kind of cleanest sounding record we've ever done. We actually succeeded in making something that, in terms of like the content, musicianship, and the sounds and the presentation, all was vastly beyond everything we've done before. So, it's amazing.

Fab: How was the songwriting process? Was it different from the two previous albums?
Trivett Wingo: Oh, you know, the process this time was a little bit more collaborative than it has been in the past. Like I think I made more contributions than I ever have. We all kinda came together a little more on the songs, the arrangements, all the finishing touches, rather than the songs like, showing up at practice, finished, and here's the song we play, we kind of…

The songs came less finished, and we worked out the details together. It's more I guess, like the bass player and myself, actually kinda put little touches on things that we haven't put on previous records. And it's a little more of a…there's more finesse on this record than we've been capable of in the past. We were able to add things to the songs that we couldn't even do a few years ago. But now, we can do those things and we were able to put them in.

Fab: What do you think about those who label you as "Retro metal"?
Trivett Wingo: Retro Metal? Euh, thanks! Thanks a lot, that's great, I love Retro metal. If that means we sound like all the great heavy metal bands, the classics, then I have to take that as a compliment. So that's fine. I mean, I don't necessarily… I think we're doing some new things, and you can hear some older influences, but, I mean the reason, I think we're more strongly influenced by classic metal is that…that just happens to be the period in time when they were making things that we like. And none of us really listen to or like any modern metal. So, we're not, we don't want to imitate it, because it's not, it's just not our style. There's nothing wrong with it, we just don't, it's not our thing really.

Fab: You said it was a concept album centered around original sci-fi narrative. Could you develop?
Trivett Wingo: Hum, I can tell you a little bit about it. It's actually fairly complex, there's a lot of characters and planets and storylines, parallel things that are happening. But largely, it has to do with a planet that is locked into an orbit where it is always day on one side, and always night on the other, due to some kind of cataclysm that's happened. And there's a character in the story that is trying to seize control of time. There are people who are trying to like control and manipulate time, to use it to take control of the universe for evil, or to reverse things, to take back the world in the past, to prevent disaster.

Fab : Is it the end of the Norse Mythology as an inspiration?
Trivett Wingo: Hum, not necessarily. It's hard to say what the future holds, but it was definitely time for a change because I think, people were beginning to get the idea that we were a Norse Mythology type of band, and that was just one thing. And there's many faces to THE SWORD and as with the universal legends, they're told in every culture through different characters, but they're really archetypes, and you can tell the same stories. The same universal themes can be explained through Norse mythology or Greek mythology, or characters that you invent today, like Starwars, for that matter, you know, so. Yeah, we did want to avoid continuing on with that much longer, but these things may reemerge at some point. We just want to break the cycle.

Fab: Who are the Warp Riders?
Trivett Wingo: (laughter). The "Warp Riders" are characters in the story. There's a song about them, they're time travelers. And then, in a very loose sense like, THE SWORD maybe are the "Warp Riders", like … in our minds, in our imagination. Maybe that's who we identify with in the story. But, I'll leave it at that.

Fab: I really love the cover artwork, which reminds me of an early sketch for a Starwars movie. Who's behind it?
Trivett Wingo: Thank you. There's an artist, his name is Dan McPharlin, he's from Australia. We had actually sort of canvassed the internet and done research and found eight or nine different artists that we kind of sifted through and we chose this guy, because we thought his art kind of best fit what we imagined the world of the album to look like. He's just this guy in Australia that does these drawings that we are very fond of. We almost wanted the album cover to look like a dime store, like science-fiction paperback, or an Atari game or something (laughter). Yeah, that kind of has some instant feelings that it evokes for people, to see something classic like that, so. We're happy with it.

Fab: It has some vibe from Roger Dean.
Trivett Wingo: Well, he was on our list of artists that we're looking into. And I don't know if he wasn't available, or what exactly was the deal with that, but also, I think, we didn't want to have a record cover that look like a YES record, you know. So, it was probably really a good thing. We love his work, but it's far better to do something different and new, yeah.

Fab: J.D. Cronise (Guitar/Vocals) produced your two first albums, but this one is produced by Matt BAYLES. Was it to bring a fresh state of mind, a more objective view?
Trivett Wingo: Yeah, it was to bring more objective criticism of our playing into the studio. Because previously, we were playing the parts and then, listening to everything and we were judging our own worth, our own musicianship, and it was really like two jobs. And so we thought, wouldn't it be great if we just play the music? And then someone else who knows what they're doing, could say, instead of me, going in and listening to the takes and say "no, do that one again", you know? We were able to get a lot more work done, and we actually ended up putting maybe twice as much time into the playing on this record, as we did on previous albums.

The first two albums, we just went in and did them quickly, did a few takes and we would record two or three takes of the song and then we'll go "oh, this one is pretty good", or "that's good enough". But this time, you know, we had Matt saying like "I know how this part is supposed to sound like, and you haven't played it yet. Keep trying". And he kind of made us play our song right. So, it was good.

Fab: I saw you twice live supporting Metallica in April 2009. Could you share some souvenirs from these two shows?
Trivett Wingo: At Bercy! Yeah!! Actually, those shows were two of the best shows…We did a whole world tour with METALLICA and those were like the best audience that we had, which was very surprising because we've never been to Paris, and both nights were great. We thought "oh, we need to come back to Paris!" because this went very well for us. Lars (Ulrich) joined us onstage and played in THE SWORD, I mean, that was pretty magical you know. It was amazing, really incredible. We' re really looking forward to coming back here in November (ndlr: 27/11/2010 à la Flèche D'or) and play our own show. We'll see if anyone from the METALLICA concerts shows up (laughter) and hopefully, a few people will come.

Fab: Speaking about Lars, is that correct that he came to you while you were playing at the Slim's in San Francisco?
Trivett Wingo: Yeah, he came to our show. He just showed up, unannounced. I looked over while I was playing and I saw him, he was standing over there watching the show. That's pretty cool (laughter). The after the show, he introduces himself and told us that he was a big fan of our band and that he would like to take us on tour. And we thought…Ok! Then he did! We did go on tour, so, he's a man of his word. But it was really funny, that's how it happened, he just came and said "hi!". (He) Came to the show, introduced himself and told us we were going on tour with METALLICA.

Fab: Your song "Freya" was used on Guitar Hero II, and "The Black River" on Guitar Hero Metallica. Do you think this kind of medium is now a necessity, especially for the metal genre, which is not very popular among the mainstream media?
Trivett Wingo: Yes, it is. Doing those things like Guitar Hero, I mean, it's good for any level of bands, you know? For a band like METALLICA, it's a way to make an extra fifty million dollars or something, and for a small band like THE SWORD, it's a way to make thousands of fans. Because so many more people buy Guitar Hero, then know about THE SWORD. You know, THE SWORD might sell…put out a record and sell fifty thousand records, but Guitar Hero comes out, a million people buy it, and then, a million people hear a SWORD's song.

So, it's almost as big as like getting on the radio or something like that, where it goes to millions of people. It really helped us, which we didn't even think about that when we agreed to do it. We just thought it was cool because we love Guitar Hero. But later we realized that people started to know the song "Freya" everywhere we went. And we were like "Hey, they've been playing this video game"…And they learned the song off that and found at about our records. So, yeah, Guitar Hero is great for any size band. There's something there for anyone.

Fab: How is your relationship with Kemado Records?
Trivett Wingo: It's great! We've done all three of our albums with them so far. And, we have a very good relationship with them, since the very start. They always treated us very well, they allow us to be artists. They don't ever really expect us to compromise art for business reasons. They've been very flexible, letting us do what we do best. They just helping us do that stuff. They're great! I really have nothing bad to say, they're a great record label, and they're very unusual, because I don't think there are many record labels of their size that do the things they do for their bands, you know? They're fantastic.

Fab: Are you more into the Dallas Cowboys or the Houston Texans?
Trivett Wingo: Dallas Cowboys! Even if they don't win shit (laughter).

Fab: In your bio, you said that you were looking for the ultimate blade. What is this mystical object?
Trivett Wingo: What is the perfect blade? Oh, I don't know if it's even a mystical object. It may, in a sense, someday be the perfect riff, or the perfect song or something. That's really...I think that's what that is.

Fab: Will the quest end with your best album?
Trivett Wingo: We will never know when we've made the best album. I don't know. Is there any real beginning or end to anything? I would say we're definitely making progress on our quest. Maybe it's like the quest for the Holy Grail. This newest album… We're not sure this is the Grail, but it's the closest looking thing to it so far. This could be it. But there may be a better album, we may find out. This is not the authentic Grail. We're gonna keep on going, and we hope always that every new record is better than the one before. Because if the new record is not as good as the one before, then, what's the point? You're getting worse. Maybe then, it is time to stop.

Fab: Thank you for your time. A last word?
Trivett Wingo: A record comes out on the 24th of august. It's amazing, it's unlike any THE SWORD record that we've made before. And we'll be through here in November to play these new songs, and as a band, we're better and stronger. We're really at the height of our powers right now. So there's kind of no better time to see THE SWORD, because we've never been more awesome than we are right now, which is good. It's a way to be (laughter).