Atreyu Headlines 'Bound & Gagged' Tour With Peavey 5150® Amps

Peavey

Posted 2003-08-23

Orange County, Calif., is best known in indie music circles as a breeding ground for cheery pop punk and not much else. That's why the O.C.-bred hardcore metal band Atreyu seems like such an anomaly. "The poppy thing is kind of phasing out a bit, slowly, I hope," joked guitarist Daniel Jacobs. "It's molded into this new form of hardcore, with the screaming/singing thing. It's kind of like the best of both worlds."

Atreyu is at the forefront of this melodic hardcore movement, but the band is already planning its exit from that genre's status quo. When Jacobs, co-guitarist Travis Miguel and their bandmates enter the studio in January to follow up their well-received Victory Records debut, Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses, they'll combine their old-school metal riffs and guitar harmonies with "a lot more catchy choruses and hooks and stuff," said Jacobs. "Everybody's trying to do this thing right now, this whole screaming thing, and we have to figure out a way to do it somewhat different. Otherwise, we're just going to blend in with everyone else."

The band is debuting some of this new material on the "Bitter, Broken, Bound & Gagged Tour," which rolls through mid-September and features God Forbid, Darkest Hour and Underoath in support slots. To properly introduce new fans to Atreyu's textured metal crunch, Jacobs, a new 5150 devotee, and Miguel, a longtime abuser, are pushing their Peavey amplifiers beyond established thresholds for gain and volume.

"The distortion on the 5150 just does it for me," said Jacobs. "It's more 'gain-y,' and I can't get that out of other amps like I can out of a Peavey. And being an Eddie Van Halen fan, too, it's definitely my thing."

Considering the dark moods and adrenalized riffs that frame Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses, hardcore fans shouldn't underestimate Atreyu's allegiance to metal and guitar heroes like Van Halen, with whom Peavey designed its 5150 Series guitar amps and EVH® Wolfgang® guitars. "None of us are really big hardcore fans," said Jacobs. "We listen more to straight-up metal, if anything heavy at all."

While Atreyu will surely challenge some fans with its evolving musical direction, crowd reaction to the new songs has been positive. "We have about six songs in the works, one of which we've been playing the past couple of nights," said Jacobs. "It's been going over really well, so we hope the rest of the new material does, too.

"The kind of music we listen to is changing," he added." We're trying to push forward. More than anything, the challenge is trying to figure out how we can (still) sound like us!"

Peavey Electronics Corporation is one of the largest manufacturers of musical instruments and professional sound equipment in the world. Peavey holds more than 130 patents and produces more than 2,000 products, which are distributed throughout the United States and to 136 other countries. To find out more about Peavey Electronics and its artists, visit www.peavey.com.

Atreyu Headlines 'Bound & Gagged' Tour With Peavey 5150® Amps

Peavey

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