College Times

Media Credit: Chapman Baehler

Atreyu is blowin’ up. They’re perhaps the most broadly-appealing “metalcore” band in the world, having had three of their four full-length albums chart on the Billboard 200, including 2007’s number one Billboard Hard Rock album Lead Sails Paper Anchor.

Now the band is on Linkin Park’s biggest Projekt Revolution Tour yet, featuring the likes of Chris Cornell and The Bravery. Atreyu guitarist Dan Jacobs recently spoke with College Times about the tour, the politics of mosh pits and the “hater” backlash.

College Times: What’s it like playing on such a mixed bill?

Dan Jacobs: It’s cool, you know, it brings out a totally different crowd than we typically play. I guess we got a little bit of a taste of it last year on the Tour, it’s kind of similar. But they have Busta Rhymes on tour, and they’ve got Chris Cornell. And bands like Armor for Sleep and Hawthorne Heights. There’s so many different types of bands, and so many different types of people. And more people. It’s fun, it’s a lot of energy, lots of people moshing and jumping up and down and having a good time.

Last month, there was a clash between moshers and police at the Hartford tour stop, and a big group of people were pepper-sprayed, unfortunately. Mosh pits obviously go down at all of your shows, but do you think there’s a big difference of opinion about them between the metal community and those on the outside?

I think to myself, when I was younger, that sort of energy is what sold me to this music. It’s not for everyone, obviously, but my first time I saw moshing, the first time I saw stage diving and all that stuff, I was just like, “Holy shit.” It’s something that scares me, but at the same time, it excited the hell out of me. I was like, alright, I want to do that, it looks like such a rush. The fact that a band could play their music and get people to want to do that. We’re hoping that our live performance will be like a gate, an opening into this style of music.

Is that how you gauge how supportive a crowd is, how wild it gets in the crowd?

Oh, 100 percent, yeah. It’s crazy how similar [crowds] are, and at the same time, how different they can be. There could be one day where everyone is singing along, and having a great time, but there’s not really a mood for moshing, everyone is just standing around. But they love you and they know the words to every song. Sometimes you get the vice-versa, where there’s not as many people singing along, but people are just going crazy, jumping all over the place.

Was there any one act on the tour that made you say, “Wow, I’m really excited to share the stage with them.”

Yeah, [Linkin Park is] one of the few bands out there that we’ve clearly wanted to tour with but haven’t gotten the chance to. We were almost going to do it last year, but it didn’t work out, we ended up doing Family Values. But this year, we got the call. And it’s cool, they hand-picked all the bands on the tour. They want to make sure that it’s a package that they’re personally happy with. For them to pick us to headline the Revolution Stage, it’s quite an honor.

What has mainstream success been like from your end? It seems like haters always come out of the woodwork whenever their favorite band charts, as you guys have, especially metal fans.

We’ve been a band for almost 10 years, and we’ve always tried really hard not to sound like anybody else. We can only do so much, as far as there’s tons of other bands out there that want to do a similar kind of sound, but we try to stay – even as far as our influences – away from what other people might be influenced by. I don’t know, we try not to try too hard at going along with what’s going on at the time.

Projekt Revolution Tour, featuring Linkin Park w/Chris Cornell, Ashes Divide, The Bravery, Atreyu, 10 Years, Hawthorne Heights, Armor for Sleep, Street Drum Corps, Cricket Wireless Pavilion, Thursday, August 7, 2 p.m., $27-$77

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