In a recent chat with Metal Hammer, Matt Heafy opened up about the bullying Trivium faced from American fans during their early years.
“It was f*cking crazy – sometimes festivals just nail that moment in time. We had to pay $30,000 to have that 9am slot, by the way. And get bullied by the Ozzfest people after defending Iron Maiden,” the musician said, talking about the clash between Maiden and Sharon Osbourne at the Ozzfest 2005.
Trivium and Bullet faced backlash. People saw them as newcomers who hadn’t earned their place. Heafy added, “Bands would laugh at us because of the way we looked. We were doing well in the UK, then we’d go back to the US and not do so well, and they’d take the piss out of us.”
“We played San Francisco supporting Children Of Bodom and Amon Amarth, and we were spat on and booed at the entire time. So we would have to go into everything fighting,” the guitarist further recalled.
Last year, Heafy shared that the Ozzfest crew asked Trivium to throw eggs at Iron Maiden during the 2005 festival because of tension between the Osbournes and Bruce Dickinson. Heafy explained to Metal Hammer, “Some days we were opening at 9 in the morning, but I remember on the last Iron Maiden day, the tour was going to continue but we were asked by some of the Ozzfest crew, ‘Hey, do you want to egg Iron Maiden?’ It was like, ‘Why the hell would we do that?'”
Trivium turned down the offer and showed support for Iron Maiden by wearing their t-shirts and covering ‘The Trooper’ in their shows. This angered the Ozzfest crew. Matt added, “We got bullied by the Ozzfest crew; they’d drive their golf carts right up to our faces, shoot dirt at us. Paolo [Gregoletto] almost got arrested at one of the shows. It was a strange time; we paid $30,000 to get bullied like we were in high school!”
Trivium will co-headline the 2025 ‘The Poisoned Ascendancy’ world tour with Bullet For My Valentine. The tour will mark the 20th anniversary of Trivium’s ‘Ascendancy’ and Bullet For My Valentine’s ‘The Poison.’ The tour starts on March 30 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and wraps up on May 18 in Raleigh, North Carolina.
