Heavy metal band Trivium explain why thinking “more gain, equals a heftier guitar tone is a misconception”

For 25 years, American heavy metal band Trivium has consistently pushed the boundaries of their sound, crafting a sonic tapestry that seamlessly blends intricate arrangements with crushing heaviness. 

Throughout their career, a constant in their sonic arsenal has been Celestion speakers, most notably Vintage 30s (and Celestion built Marshall Vintages), Creambacks, Greenbacks, and various other models. 

Vocalist and guitarist Matt Heafy and guitarist Corey Beaulieu reflect on the heavy metal music that shaped their sound, explain why guitarists don't need excessive gain to achieve heaviness, and why they’ve been rocking with Celestion from day one.

How did your musical journeys begin? What were some of your early influences?

Beaulieu: My musical journey started with my parents and siblings always having music on in the house. The first band that really got me excited about music was Guns N’ Roses, it was the Use Your Illusion II album. When I was eight, I got my first guitar, and the more I played, the more I became drawn to playing music. Discovering more cool metal bands added fuel to the fire and here we are today.

Heafy: When I was around 11, I unsuccessfully tried out for a pop-punk band. After that experience, I gave up on music, but then a friend lent me The Black Album by Metallica. One listen, and I knew that was the kind of music I needed to make. I locked myself in my room for hours learning every riff and trying to emulate those sounds. 

Then for my eighth-grade talent show, I covered No Leaf Clover by Metallica and afterward, I was asked to audition to be the lead guitarist of a two-week-old high-school band called Trivium. This group of 16- and 17-year-olds were skeptical when they saw a middle-schooler walk in, but I launched into For Whom the Bell Tolls, played it perfectly, and I’ve been in the band ever since!

Those were your musical influences, how about your tonal influences as a guitar player?

Heafy: Obviously, The Black Album was huge for me, and in my opinion, has some of the greatest metal tones of all time. Sonically, that album made me realise you don't need excessive gain to achieve heaviness. 

Metallica led me to Pantera and Megadeth, but what really got me deep into tone was a series of records produced by Andy Sneap. I was obsessed with Jeff Loomis’ guitar sound on Nevermore’s Dead Heart in a Dead World album. 

I loved the lead and melody guitar sounds of Arch Enemy’s Wages of Sin and I really liked his work with Testament. Those influences ultimately led us to work with Andy on our album Ascendancy.

When did you first discover Celestion speakers and what role do they play in shaping your signature sound?

Heafy: We've used Celestion from the very beginning. When we first started playing live, I was living the dream, playing through big Marshall cabinets on stage, I think 1960Bs. One day I looked in the back and saw the name Celestion. That was how I first came to respect the brand.

Not long after, Jason Suecof introduced us to the Celestion BVs (the Celestion-built Marshall Vintage speaker loaded into the Marshall 1960BV cab) during pre-production for our Ember to Inferno album. 

He explained that they break up more and have more natural distortion and compression. We were obsessed once we played through them. And when we worked with Andy Sneap on Ascendancy, he used Mesa Boogie oversized Rectifier cabs with the same speakers. To this day, the Trivium tone generally consists of a Peavey 5150 series head and a cab loaded with Celestion BVs or Vintage 30s. Any cab we've ever received that didn't already have Celestions, had Celestion put in soon after.

Beaulieu: I didn't know much about speakers when I first joined the band. In 2005, we were playing a show at a venue in Buffalo, New York. All the acts on the bill were planning to rock their own 4x12 cabs, but the stage was too small. To save space, the headliner decided we'd all share their backline cabs and just swap out our amp heads. 

They were using Mesa Boogie cabinets with Celestion Vintage 30s. Even though we both used the same Peavey amp model, I was blown away by the difference in tone. They sounded so much heavier and cooler than what we were using! That night in Buffalo was an eye-opener. Once I played through a 5150 amp, paired with a Mesa cabinet loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s, I knew why I started seeing so many people playing them on tour. It became the go-to combo for metal at the time.

Tell us about your current live rig and how it differs from your studio setup?

Beaulieu: Live, we use EVH Stealth heads and cabs loaded with the special Eddie Van Halen Celestion speakers. We don’t have a set studio rig. Peavey EVH amps are generally the foundation of everything we do, but we’re in our new studio now mixing and matching different heads, cabs, and Celestion speakers to explore the sounds we can get.

Today we have Vintage 30s in an EVH cab, BVs in a Mesa Cab, and Vintage 30s in a Marshall cab. You’ll get different sounds from cab to cab, even if they have the same Celestion speaker, so it’s all about finding which combination works the best for what we're doing in any particular session.

Heafy: We’re also playing with a ton of amps at THE HANGAR, including older Peaveys, a JSX, a Triple X, a 6534 Plus, Block Letters, a 5150 II, a 5150 III, and a Soldano. We’ve found that the older 5150s need something before the head, and are using a Maxon Red overdrive into an ISP Technologies Decimator to help us get the most out of them. 

I’m playing my Gibson Les Paul Standard with custom Fishman pickups.Corey brought most of the amps and cabinets into the studio. We’re finding some of the best combos we’ve ever played through. I’m having so much fun, it’s taking me back to feeling like a kid.

How are Celestion speakers factoring into your new studio?

Heafy: We mentioned that we’re matching speakers, cabinets and heads and we have a huge Celestion library to do it with. We’ve got Vintage 30s, G12M-65 and G12H-75 Creambacks, G12M Greenbacks, G12H Anniversaries, plus all the older models we've accumulated over the years. Mark has been doing surgery, swapping speakers in and out of cabs. He even put four different Celestions in a single cabinet for testing in our isolation booth.

Beaulieu: We use a variety of different makes of cabinets with our Celestions: Mesa Boogie, Marshall, and EVH. That’s because the differences in the types or thickness of wood, the way they’re constructed, the air volume in the cabinet, can bring out different characteristics from the speaker. The same Vintage 30 in a Marshall sounds different in a Mesa cab.

Heafy: Right now, our mission in THE HANGAR, is to get ideas of what we dig and those will be the launchpad where we’ll start when we begin tracking. We’ll have given all our speakers and cabinets the run-through, and we’ll know which combo will bring that extra magic to the tone that’s needed.

Any little variable in tone can be inspiring and that's the big thing. I don't want people to think that we’re just collecting gear to collect gear. It’s not that at all. Every little thing can drastically change how you're performing, feeling, and playing when you're making music and that's all anyone is looking for. 

That's what this quest of tone is. This obsession with gear has always been to find something new to inspire you to come up with new ideas, and you never know where it can lead you.

You have complex arrangements in your music, how do you balance heaviness versus clarity in your tone?

Heafy: Younger guitar players tend to think that more gain equals a heftier guitar tone, but it's really a misconception. You won’t hear what you want by having all the dials set at 10 and getting blasted with distortion. 

Ironically, I used to do that as a kid, but I’ve learned that less gain actually equals a tighter tone. If you look at the Peaveys we’re playing right now, our pre-gain is set around six and our post-gain is around one or two. It's about finding the right balance of gain and volume where you still hear your hands come through. 

Beaulieu: When people first get into recording, it’s common to crank the gain or the low end to get that full sound. But the reality is on the records where the guitar tone is great, if you really listen there isn’t an oversaturated, crazy amount of gain. 

That’s because when you're recording, you’re layering multiple rhythm tracks and everything builds up. Once you start stacking guitar parts on top of each other, if everything is high gain, you’ll end up with this mess of a guitar sound. But if you keep the gain levels moderate on your layered tracks, you get this powerful wall of guitar sound.