Lords of the Trident

Lords of the Trident (U.S.)
Speaking of Lords for the Trident (Wisconsin), Cannibal Corpse posted on Twitter, “Thy music shall destroy our ears! The crown is thine, Lords!”
The Lords’ next-door neighbor, Manowar, has repeatedly complained to the local authorities, “This band just won’t stop playing that loud metal music at night, when we are trying to rest! It’s too much! This much metal is just ridiculous.”
Judas Priest has declared, “These blokes really ought to stop being so metal. This is just giving everyone else a bad reputation for being less metal, isn’t it?”
Dream Evil left them a message: “Stop it!! You’re too much for the Book of Heavy Metal.”
Suffocation said on Facebook: “Too metal for us.”

Microphone annihilator and leather pants wearer Fang Von Wrathenstein took a break from riding his dragon and thusly he spake to the minions’ questions. www.lordsofthetrident.com
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What is your assessment of your two recorded crusades (“Death or Sandwich” and “Chains on Fire”) of sword and axe-swinging metal? What about live demonstrations of your skills in the Middle Kingdom of Wisconsin?
I’d be tempted to say “so far, so good”, but we know that there will ALWAYS be more battles to fight and unworthy mortals to slay! We feel our albums have been getting better and better as time goes on...”Death or Sandwich” was like an earthquake, “Chains on Fire” was like an atomic bomb...I’m fairly sure the next album we’re working on (with the current working title of “Unite”) will be akin to a global thermonuclear war. We’ve set ourselves a limit of the number of tracks on the album - 10 - although we have MUCH more material than that. So this album will only be filled with the best of the best. And so far, all of the songs that have gotten the green light for this album are catchy as hell. They call songs that get stuck in your head “earworms”. Well, this album will be like some sort of horrible worm colony, where the worms have added lasers to their bodies to infiltrate even the most well-fortified ear.
In terms of our battles in and around Wisconsin, it’s obvious at this point that we are the unchallenged rulers of metal in the Midwest (just as the prophesy foretold). Tales of our battles have traveled far and wide, as have we! Our last gold-plated touring RV broke down after a missile attack, so we’re currently searching for a new means of conveyance, and in the meantime we’re focusing mostly on completing songs for this upcoming album. But we’ve been able to generate quite the horde of minions in and around lower Wisconsin. Madison is so well-fortified by our knights, other metal bands keep quite a wide breadth on their way through. Unless, of course, they’re invited to do battle with us!

Is your legendary anthem “Legions of Hypocrisy” about the “metalcore” scene? How will the Lords execute the emo core breakdown renegades: guillotine, impalement or high-cholesterol hamburgers?
No, unfortunately, but I do like that interpretation! I can’t tell you the number of terrible metalcore bands we’ve had to slay (in front of their own “fans”, even!). And believe it or not, we’ve used all of the execution methods you’ve already outlined, and more! I find the best way to take care of a metalcore band is to rig the stage with a spike pit beforehand. Eventually the crab-core jumping during the breakdowns will loosen the already loose stage floor, and they will fall to their deaths, a la “Mortal Kombat”.

In your aural attack known as “Face of the Enemy” you speak of being persecuted. Then, later on, you composed another tune about “The Enforcer” who lays down the law. Please tell the stories of these two songs and how paranoia is a warrior’s best friend.
The lyrics and story behind “Face of the Enemy” is an interesting one. We were sitting in our practice space, jamming on this new song (which would become “Face of the Enemy”), and Asian Metal liked it SO MUCH, he said “QUICK! Fang! Grab something and read it for the lyrics!” We’ll normally do this when we’re SO excited about a song that we don’t take the time to write out lyrics - we just grab whatever’s available. So I reached over to my computer desk and grabbed the instruction booklet for the 1995 PC game “Angel Devoid: Face of the Enemy” and started reading/singing. I had picked up the game at a goodwill store for $0.15. Now, for you younger readers, back in the day, instruction booklets for video games were HUGE, and normally came with a little mini-novella of the story’s back plot. This one was no exception. The thing I was reading fit SO well, that I decided to ready the whole thing and turn it into lyrics. And thus, Face of the Enemy was born. Go check it out on YouTube!
In terms of The Enforcer, that song is about the slow crawl of souls from purgatory up into heaven. We always envisioned that any souls we sent to the afterlife would have to win one final battle with an enforcer, if you will, before entering in the afterlife. To show their worthiness and all that. So the song was built behind that idea. We’ll test the souls in this life...the ones who aren’t able to stand up to our sonic face melting will have to face THE ENFORCER!

Is the restaurant Medieval Times a place that you frequent in your crusades of pillaging in the Middle Kingdom of Wisconsin and the Frozen Realm of Illinois?
MY GOD that place gives me nostalgia. Reminds me of the good old days when men were men, and horses were cars, and women were also quite manly for some reason. Eating with your hands, watching bloodshed (even if it’s staged)...ah, that brings me back! If I had my way, every chain restaurant would be like that. Imagine Chuck E. Cheese with tiny sets of armor for the kids! And tiny deadly weapons for them to learn the essential skills of combat. I hate to use the word...but...HOW CUTE!

On YouTube there are videos of Lords of the Trident, but in these videos there is not nearly enough fire. Why is no one’s guitar on fire? Shouldn’t a warrior’s microphone be on fire the whole time he conquers the audience?
We can’t give ALL of our surprises away in our videos! Of COURSE we have guitars and microphones that light on fire in our live shows. But hey, if we showed that off ALL the time, there’d be no element of danger to our shows! People would come all slicked up with fire-retardant gel from head to toe, and there’d be no accidental lighting of people on fire. Now how fun would that be? You’ll have to come out to one of our shows to see the real thing. And don’t ruin it by wearing wet towels. We want you nice and dry for our burnin...erm...show. Yeah, that’s it....show....
Also, I’ll have you know, we DO have a video that has fire in EVERY SINGLE SHOT - the music video for “Chains on Fire”. We shot it in an active volcano, so we couldn’t avoid getting fire in there. Lost a lot of good cameramen during that shoot.

In a way three-way fight between Zeus, Satan and Fang Von Wrathenstein, who would be wearing the most leather? Who has the most powerful chariots? Whose horses would fly the fastest across the sky?
Zeus: Nice guy, really into that “electricity” thing. Has a nice fast chariot, but tends to ride it with one hand on the e-brake, so what I’m saying is he’s kind of flinchy, and I wouldn’t want to be his passenger even on a good day of driving. No leather on that guy, just a toga, and TRUST ME - you don’t want to catch him in a gust of wind. Ewww. Zeus, we don’t need to see that again.
Satan: THAT guy knows how to throw a party. Doesn’t really have a chariot, and honestly, usually just wears a nice business suit rather than leather, so I’d go with me winning each of those categories. Two things Satan has me beat on - lawyers, and wine and cheese tastings. You wouldn’t think so, but the devil is a wine SNOB! Makes a lot of sense if you really think about it.
So I’d say I’d probably win on the leather and chariots...possibly even the flying fastest across the sky thing. But I prefer to do it on ground, in a nice Jaguar with spikes and chainsaws on the side. Now THAT’S riding in style.

In the Middle Kingdom of Wisconsin there have been marches by teachers, students and workers fighting for justice. Don’t you think it is time Lords of the Trident joined forces with those masses and show them how to get medieval on the usurpers in the government? What say you, oh Lords?! To the fight!! Raise your swords!!
Every good king knows that his kingdom is built upon the backs of his peasants. You have to be NICE to the people before you slay them - it’s just common sense. But overall, we tend to stay out of the politics of the day. I let my sword do the talking. But I will tell you than many of our strongest knights are affiliated with higher education (after all, a knight has to has brains AND brawn), and are none-too-happy with our current situation. And hey, if they use their precisely-honed battle skills to cause a revolt, well, good on them!

You have lyrics about battles, and other epic things. However, it would be truly epic to write lyrics about brushing your teeth or doing the laundry. There is so much room for fantasy and myth in such topics! The ladies love powerful songs about bodily cleanliness and good personal hygiene!
As anyone in the band will tell you, I am probably the cleanest barbarian you’ll ever meet. If I don’t get a shower after a show, it’s bad news. And I will say that most of my best lyric and song ideas come to me while I’m in the nirvana of a nice, hot, shower. Perhaps I’ll be writing a nice contemplative song about that some day. Or maybe “The Ballad of Folding a Fitted Sheet”. That’s almost harder that facing an ogre in hand-to-hand combat!

Is it true that your next album will be titled: “The Knights Who Say Ni”?! Tell the stories of the holy hand grenade of Antioch!
Actually, the original title was “Knights who say ecky-ecky-ecky-patung-zupow-zwaaaza”, but apparently that’s far too long of a title for iTunes tagging. And who can accurately put that into google? Imagine the misspellings.

By the way, Lords, what does your future hold in this year of 2012? How can the peasants and serfs of Washington State, where I reside, experience your aural attacks of metal unbound? Must we travel to the Middle Kingdom of Wisconsin to witness the metal?
Well, by the end of the year (or hopefully, by the end of the summer) we should be done with our new album, and we’ll be planning our release tour! I understand that many people out there have an issue making the long and arduous journey all the way to the Middle Kingdom, so in the meantime, they may enjoy the metal (through their most stalwart speakers, of course) by going to the most METAL domain on the planet: www.LordsOfTheTrident.com.
Our albums are available through iTunes and Amazon.com, and you can even listen to the whole album for free on our bandcamp site! If you enjoy your metal in the visual format, you can check out our MANY videos on youtube.com, along with our official music videos. We also sell a full-length concert DVD on our main site if you’d rather see the full experience. Just make sure you fortify your computer before visiting these sites...we’ve heard of weaker monitors melting during playback. THE END.