Randy Blythe has done a lot to promote his upcoming book lately via his Dark Days blog. In his latest post, Randy talks about how he managed to get a book deal and how it’s not so simple. It’s a long but thought-provoking read that metalheads and aspiring writers alike might want to look into. And while his announcement of his Tumblr page about the book promised “process. Production. Publication,” there might as well have been another P for “procrastination,” as the post says that it took him a while to come to terms with the fact that he was going to write about his trial, which was still very cresh in his mind. We’ve included an excerpt below where Randy talks about his thoughts when heading back on tour with Lamb of God after his trial:
For me, being on tour is no place for such deep introspection. My head is busy maintaining the brutally myopic state of mind it takes for me to get up there and entertain people by going nuts night after night. Especially after this last year, on tour I had to stay focused on the job at hand, or I would fall apart at the seams on stage. On tour, I don’t have time for “feelings”. Lamb of god fans don’t care about “feelings” after they’ve paid good money to see us do our thing. They expect us to get up there and kick ass, and rightfully so. They dropped cash to see a metal show, not a bunch of grumpy bearded middle aged men who look like they don’t care about what they are doing and would rather be somewhere else. Everyone in every band has a bad gig from time to time (it’s unavoidable- we are only human), but if you call yourself a true professional (and you better believe I do), 99.99999% of the time you better just rub some dirt on it and do work, son. I have no patience for cry babies on tour. Go hard, or home.
After I was acquitted in March of last year, the very last thing I wanted to do was go back out on the road with lamb of god. There was still a forthcoming appeal hearing for the verdict of my case, requested by a very unhappy prosecuting attorney. I still wasn’t quite out of the woods, but the whole trial had been very costly, and the bills were continuing to pile up. My band needed to refill our coffers if we were going to remain fiscally solvent as a business entity, so we went back to work. This was good for me not only financially, but I believe it was beneficial (to a degree) for my psyche. I needed to work to keep the appeal out of my mind as much as possible (since I could do nothing to prepare for it- this was strictly a lawyer’s game). I had to get back on the horse sooner or later, and my band needed to finish the tour cycle we had begun so long ago. So we went back to work, and finished what we started, like real professionals do.
There’s something to be said here about not only Randy’s honesty about being on the road again, but also he understanding and dedication to his fans. Going back to what you do for a living after such a harrowing experience cannot be an easy task. You can read the rest of the post here. Dark Days will be out later this year.
