Why Heavy Metal Legends Lamb of God Aren't Afraid to Be a 'Pissed-Off' Band

On a Wednesday afternoon in early September, John Campbell, the bassist of Richmond, Virginia-based heavy metal band Lamb of God, prepares to head out on tour.

It's to be the first headlining tour the band has undertaken in quite some time, straddling the release of their new studio album, Omens, which was released on October 7. The show, which will come to downtown Phoenix's Arizona Financial Theatre on Friday, October 14, includes supporting acts Killswitch Engage, Animals as Leaders, and Fit for an Autopsy.

Vocalist Randy Blythe has described Omens as "extremely pissed off," and Campbell agrees, despite his kind and laid-back tone during the interview.

“Well, I could certainly find plenty of reasons to be incredibly pissed off, as I think anyone who is looking around could as well," Campbell says. "It’s really great to be able to express that in music in a band and go perform and play and kind of deal with these difficulties, the struggles that we all share in this life."

While the band have been working with producer Josh Wilbur on upward of six studio albums now, they made some changes in the way they recorded Omens, Campbell says: Instead of “[going] off in their corner and [recording] their tracks separately” like they used to, they recorded this album “live” in the sense that they all performed in the same room during their sessions. In this way, he adds, the band are able to make the special connections usually only happen during a live performance.

Lamb of God are known for confronting social issues in much of their music, and Omens continues in that tradition.

Some of the subjects that the band tackle include war, religion, ignorance, lack of accountability, and even environmentalism, a topic that increasingly shows up in modern metal. (Blythe is outspoken on the topic and has even made a short documentary about his work in Ecuador.)

According to Campbell, it’s a subject worth getting pissed off about, and while he doesn’t consider himself an activist per se, it is something that he and the band are cognizant of and find worth putting across in their music.

Metalheads, he says, are some of the “most well-adjusted … kind people … all about working toward a better future.”

Lamb of God's founding drummer, Chris Adler, left the band in mid-2019, and this tour includes their current drummer, Art Cruz, formerly of Winds of Plague. According to Campbell, though Adler has been a perfect fit for the band, in no small part because in his development as a musician he’d always been inspired by the band’s music, he's not a carbon copy of his predecessor, bringing his own style to Lamb of God's sound.

The band are rapidly approaching their 30th birthday and have long since cemented their status as staples and icons of modern metal. Omens is the band’s ninth studio album, not including work they’ve done under their first name, Burn the Priest. They’re well known as exemplars of the new wave of American heavy metal alongside Killswitch Engage, with whom they’ll be touring, and have performed with such legendary acts as Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthrax.

Campbell says the band's early tour documentaries helped their rise to prominence, remarking that making the films allowed "people felt like they knew us as people more than just these dudes on stage."

So Campbell feels lucky to have been an influence in the history of heavy metal, and is committed to staying humble.

They're “still the same five ding-dongs” they were at the start, he says.

Lamb of God. With Killswitch Engage, Animals as Leaders, and Fit for an Autopsy. 6 p.m. Friday, October 14. Arizona Financial Theatre, 400 West Washington Street. Tickets are $49.50 to $59.50. Visit the Live Nation website.