Shazamers' Blog

The Sword are an American heavy metal band from Austin, Texas who are currently on an epic world tour to support their third released album ‘Warp Riders’. Just before their tour began The Sword supported Metallica for a string of seven dates on the ‘World Magnetic Tour’ in September 2010. Shazam caught up with bassist Bryan Richie to chat about touring, being bad ass and the ultimate metal playlist!

How long have you been a band, and how did you meet?

The Sword began in 2003. I joined the band in 2004.  I’ve known JD since 2002 when our previous bands would share bills together, but I didn’t meet Kyle or Trivett until day one of rehearsal.

What inspired you to start the band?

JD was itching to do really heavy tunes.. thus he began crafting the riffs that would eventually become The Sword’s first batch of songs.

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Hazel Savage Interviews metal, Metallica, The Sword, Tours

Max Cavalera is best known for his enigmatic performance and creative influence in one of thrash and metal’s most successful acts, Sepultura. He currently fronts and writes the material for Soulfly; just one of his ongoing projects and a hugely successful band in their own right.

Meeting Max Cavalera was an honour and an experience, from his wild brown eyes to the tattoo on his knuckles declaring ‘Zyon’ he is a calming and intelligent man, who Shazam spoke to on everything from his choice of films to touring, and the release of his latest album with Soulfly, Omen.

So you are currently on tour, how is that going?

Good, it’s the second UK show so far. We played Southampton last night and it was really great; it was packed. Looking forward to tonight, the London show is always exciting.

Do you like playing London?

Yeah, it’s exciting playing the UK in general . We are coming back for Sonisphere later in the year so it should be a good year for us.

Do you like touring, especially the long tours you seem to do?

Nah, its cool. I like it – I love the shows. The crowd to me is like a drug, I need that drug. So when I’m home for like ten days and I don’t have that drug I feel like I need it! I need my crowd fix.

What about the waiting to play?

That’s the hard part. It’s good to have interviews. It makes the time go faster , otherwise we are just watching movies. Which I do a lot anyway – those are my movies there (gestures to an enormous CD binder); there is about 200 in there.

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Hazel Savage Interviews interview, max cavalera, metal, sepultura, sonisphere, soulfly, thrash