The Grammy-nominated metal band Lamb of God [ tickets ] is giving its fans the opportunity to remix its entire "Sacrament" CD. On the deluxe edition of the album, all of the studio audio tracks (including guitar, vocals, drums and bass) have been isolated, separated and prepared for use by music fans using a Mac or PC.

"We took all the tracks and separated them out so people can dump them on to their computers and use them for whatever they want to use them for," said bassist John Campbell. "They can make a new song, make loops, put their own tracks in with ours. They can mix the record as they see fit."

Campbell explained the idea was pushed by drummer Chris Adler, a multi-instrumentalist who also plays saxophone, bass, acoustic guitar and piano. Adler and Campbell are joined in Lamb of God by guitarist Willie Adler (Chris' brother), guitarist Mark Morton and singer Randy Blythe.

Campbell, in the midst of a co-headlining tour with Killswitch Engage, talked about the success of the original "Sacrament" CD, attending the Grammys and bringing the band members' wives on tour.

LiveDaily: How does the co-headlining tour with Killswitch Engage work? Do you alternate headlining spots?

John Campbell: It depends on the market. There are a couple dates where we'll headline twice and Killswitch will headline twice. But it's more or less flip-flopping. You get to close, and then some nights you get to finish up before the show's over and have a good time.

The original version of "Sacrament" debuted at No. 8. Was that a surprise to you?

Yes. I think we were really hoping to do well. After the first day of sales, they've got formulas they run on what your first-day sales figures are, to guess what your position will be at the end of the week. So we had kind of a heads up that we were going to be doing really well after the first day. It was amazing to hit No. 8. It's a pretty crazy for a heavy metal band to pull that off.

There's been very few metal bands that have debuted this year in the Top 10. What was it about "Sacrament" that attracted so many fans?

I think it's easier because record sales are so low. It's not necessarily as much of a measure of how well the artist is getting out there. I think it's more of a measure of how committed the fans are to the specific style of music.


You were nominated in 2006 for a Grammy Award for "Best Metal Performance" for the song "Redneck" from "Sacrament." Was that important to you?

That was pretty bizarre. It's definitely not our thing. It's a completely different world from anything we're used to. It was really cool to be able to take our wives out there and let them dress up and go out and do the crazy Hollywood thing. The event itself was a little on the boring side. We hung out with Mastodon until we found out Slayer took [the award]. Then we went to the after parties and had too much to drink.

It must be nice to be able to include your wives in an event like that. Do they tour with you?

Any time we can include the ladies, we do. The most difficult thing about our job is spending time away from them. Sometimes they come out from three days to a week with us at a time. We try and spread it out so they're not all out there at once. So the bus doesn't get too terribly crowded. But absolutely, absolutely we have wives come out.


What are you going to do when the tour's over?

We're going to go home and take a little time to ourselves. And then we'll start writing and rehearsing and preparing for a new record. Later on next year, we'll be going into the studio and hopefully have the record finished and ready to rock by early 2009.

Have you started writing yet?

There's a few ideas that our main riff writers have been working on, but it's nothing that, as a band, we've really spent any time on. When we're on the road, it's not really a time for us to write. Once we get home, we'll change gears and get into the writing mode.

How would you describe your music? Some have called it an amalgamation between prog rock and heavy metal.

I just call it heavy metal, to be honest. There's definitely all kinds of subcategories we could fall into for different reasons. We can incorporate any style of metal or music into what we do. As long as it's heavy and it's metal, it works.

Tell me about the "wall of death." I hear you no longer endorse it.

Wall of death is an old punk rock thing from back in the days of slam dancing, before moshing was really around. It was a way for a frontman to interact for the crowd and split the crowd and have them run full force at each other. At a small venue, when you don't have thousands of people involved in it, it can be a pretty cool thing. Once you reach a certain size though, it gets to be a little more dangerous. We stopped directing people to do it just because we didn't want to be responsible for someone hurting themselves. But fans who have seen it before, they recreate it themselves.

Congratulations on your DVD "Killadelphia" going platinum, reaching sales of 100,000. Why do you think it was such a success?

It's an honest look into our lives. We live lives that people would love to live. But sitting here on the other side of the fence, the grass is not necessarily greener. The humor that we have going on, I don't think it hurt. There's a segment in which our guitar player beat the crap out of our singer until he's laying unconscious on the sidewalk.

That's been on different sites throughout the Internet. Does that bother you?

No, not at all. I think, on the artist side of things, the more people that are exposed to what we do, the better for us.

Do you feel the same way about illegal downloading?

It definitely changed how someone who is trying to make a living doing what I’m doing can do. But I didn't come into this making millions and then all of a sudden had to trim back. Our job is to make the music, to make the art. It's the record company's job to sell it. The piracy really affects them at this point more than it does us.

When fans see you perform, what do you hope they get out of the show?

I hope they pick their jaw up off the ground--it's so open in amazement at how brutal and tight and heavy we put forth.