Burn The Priest was founded in 1994 and was joined by vocalist Randy Blythe in 1995. After guitarist Abe Spear was replaced by Willie Adler in 1999, the band changed their name to Lamb Of God and the rest is history. Now in a new story in the current issue of Decibel, Blythe talks about the early days of the band and how they got together into the lineup you know today.
Blythe says the early days of his old band prior to Burn The Priest were a complete train wreck.
"The drummer wanted to be in Smashing Pumpkins, the bass player wanted to be Charles Mingus, Abe wanted to be Jimi Hendrix and I wanted to be in Bad Brains. It was awful. I was not a good vocalist at all."
However, one night Spear invited Blythe to go see his new band Burn The Priest, who at the time were instrumental and also had guitarist Mark Morton, drummer Chris Adler and bassist John Campbell. At that moment, Blythe knew damn well that he had to get into this band somehow.
"I walked in and the band was just ripping," Blythe recalls. "They were a three-piece at that time. It was Abe, John and Chris. Mark had gone to Chicago to get his master's degree in political science or something. I was like, ‘Holy shit! These guys are great!' And they were loud as fuck. The cops came. I remember the cops were shining this light in through the windows of the garage and saying, ‘Stop the music!' But those guys didn't stop playing. They just hunkered down as if the cops wouldn't see them. They literally got lower beneath the beams of the cops' lights and just kept playing."
"That is punk as fuck," Blythe said to his then-girlfriend. "That's the band I'm going to sing for."
"Whatever, Randy," she replied.
Undaunted, he wrote lyrics to a boombox practice tape Spear provided. A week later, Blythe was belting out "Duane" with the band.
Burn The Priest will release their covers album Legion: XX on May 18, which sees the band covering the likes of Cro-Mags, Quicksand, Ministry, Bad Brains, Melvins, S.O.D., and way more!
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