We recently found that Atreyu further distanced themselves from their metalcore roots with new album In Our Wake, but what does that matter if you believe you invented that entire subgenre of heavy music?
That's precisely the claim that Atreyu vocalist Alex Varkatzas made in a recent interview with Rock Sound, upon being asked where the band fit in heavy music today.
"This is going to sound a little cocky, but I'm a singer in a band. I don't think we fit into any genre. I think we are hard to pin down," Varkatzas explained. "When we first started it was a little easier. We were a metallic hardcore band with singing parts. There wasn't any else like that when we were doing it."
He continued, "People get confused and say 'you're a metalcore band,' but we invented metalcore. That may sound cocky, but I don't care. We pre-date Poison the Well and Killswitch Engage and all those bands. I've been doing this since I was literally 12 years old. So throughout that I still don't know where we fit, and I think our fans know that."
While the claim of invention could be up for debate, Atreyu's prominence in modern metalcore is not. After their 2004 sophomore LP The Curse debuted at No. 36 on the Billboard 200 chart, 2006's A Death-Grip On Yesterday and 2007's Lead Sails Paper Anchor debuted at No. 9 and No. 8, respectively.
In Our Wake is out now through Spinefarm.
That's precisely the claim that Atreyu vocalist Alex Varkatzas made in a recent interview with Rock Sound, upon being asked where the band fit in heavy music today.
"This is going to sound a little cocky, but I'm a singer in a band. I don't think we fit into any genre. I think we are hard to pin down," Varkatzas explained. "When we first started it was a little easier. We were a metallic hardcore band with singing parts. There wasn't any else like that when we were doing it."
He continued, "People get confused and say 'you're a metalcore band,' but we invented metalcore. That may sound cocky, but I don't care. We pre-date Poison the Well and Killswitch Engage and all those bands. I've been doing this since I was literally 12 years old. So throughout that I still don't know where we fit, and I think our fans know that."
While the claim of invention could be up for debate, Atreyu's prominence in modern metalcore is not. After their 2004 sophomore LP The Curse debuted at No. 36 on the Billboard 200 chart, 2006's A Death-Grip On Yesterday and 2007's Lead Sails Paper Anchor debuted at No. 9 and No. 8, respectively.
In Our Wake is out now through Spinefarm.