Coronavirus has stymied a lot of plans, but Massachusetts metallers Let Us Prey refuse be held back. They’ll be releasing their debut full-length Virtues of the Vicious on July 24th through M-Theory Audio, and they’ve got another album slated to begin recording this fall.
Alternative Control had a virtual chat with vocalist Marc Lopes this week about the process behind Virtues of the Vicious. Fans of Nevermore, Fear Factory, and Soilwork, be sure to check out this album!
Alternative Control: Tell us about the writing process of the album. Is there a uniting theme, or does each song exist on its own?
Marc Lopes: This record deals with a lot of different aspects of artificial Intelligence and different aspects of the human animal — it’s not conceptual, but the songs definitely have a common thread. Next record will be a concept record for sure lol.
AC: What is the band’s writing process like?
ML: Jon (Morency) sends me a bunch of riffs in a file and I rip ’em apart, arrange, write all the drums, keys, vocals, programming… And we just build from there sending back and forth until its ready for the studio.
AC: Your Facebook bio talks about being a “two man metal machine alongside an always stellar live line up” — is that still accurate, or would you consider Let Us Prey to have more of a permanent lineup now?
ML: It’s definitely a two-man creative team at the moment and foreseeable future. However, we have a killer live line up at all times.
AC: How did you guys go about wrassling up such a cool roster of guest musicians?? [including Jon Donais (Anthrax, Shadows Fall), “Metal” Mike Chlasciak (Halford, Testament), Jimi Bell (House of Lords, Autograph), Yanni Sofianos, and the late Oli Herbert (All That Remains)]
ML: Ha, all personal friends of mine that I ask if they would like to jam out some shred in studio with us…… Great times, good friends!
AC: How has the coronavirus pandemic affected the band’s plans? How are you adjusting?
ML: Aside from the obvious downer of not being able to tour this new record or play at all together live really, Jon and I did write 16 new tunes for the next record — on top of the already back catalog we had waiting for “Record #2.” We will start recording the next record in late Sept/Oct…. No time to waste!
AC: What would your dream tour be like once the world gets back to normal? Who would you play with and where would you go?
ML: That’s easy for me, it would be with be Iron Maiden and all over the world!
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