Ahead of Bullet For My Valentine and Trivium’s joint tour in January, Matt Tuck and Matt Heafy sat down for a new chat with Louder. Heafy replied to a question asking who ‘the next Metallica’ is by telling the magazine, “Bullet and Trivium!”
He then continued, “Nah, it’s hard to say who the next Metallica is. But if you’re talking the bands who are the successors to what’s come before, and keeping the flag flying high on what metal is, and what modern metal can be, the bands encouraging kids to pick up guitars and create new styles, that is Bullet For My Valentine and Trivium. That’s why this tour is happening.”
Heafy, who joined Trivium during its formation, talked about being the next Metallica in past interviews, as well. He recalled getting backlash over the description during a 2016 chat with Talk Toomey as follows: “The quote on the front was from me because I was a confident 18-year-old, and had been in the band for six years at that point.”
The singer explained, “The quote was something along the lines of ‘Trivium: The next Metallica’ and at that moment it really worked out for our band in the UK. But other bands started seeing that and saying ‘Who the hell is this young band calling themselves the next Metallica?’ That’s when we started seeing a little bit of difficulty, things that we didn’t expect. We didn’t expect other bands to not be ready for this young band that had a boatload of determination for what they wanted to do.”
Trivium indeed achieved big success in the U.K. with their sophomore album, ‘Ascendancy,’ which topped the U.K. Rock & Metal Albums chart and went Gold in the country.
The band is now getting ready to take the album on tour again to celebrate its 25th anniversary, along with Bullet For My Valentine’s ‘The Poison,’ released the same year. The tour will begin in the U.K. in late January 2025. After several dates in Europe, it will move to North America.
