genre rock

On the heels of his first book, Dark Days: A Memoir, in 2015, Lamb of God frontman Randall Blythe did not want to follow it up with another non-fiction book. But he was counseled otherwise.
“I was like, ‘Oh, I never want to write non-fiction ever again,’” Blythe tells Billboard via Zoom from his home in Richmond, Va. “But my literary agent was like, ‘No, you need to write another non-fiction book to prove to publishers that you’re not just a one-trick pony, contingent on this very kind of bizarre and unfortunate story.’ And I was like, ‘OK, he’s the literary agent, so I’m gonna follow his advice.’ But I didn’t really know what I wanted to write about. This book was more difficult to write than my first one.”

Dark Days focused on Blythe’s legal battles in the Czech Republic, where he was arrested in 2012 and hit with manslaughter charges over the death of a fan at a 2010 Lamb of God show in Prague; he was acquitted in 2013. “(Dark Days) had a classic three-act narrative structure provided by that unfortunate even in my life. This one it was more, ‘Here’s an idea. Let’s see what happens.’ So it was a different experience.”

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In Just Beyond the Light: Making Peace With the Wars Inside Our Head (Grand Central) — which published Tuesday (Feb. 18) – Blythe offers a series of essays about what Blythe calls “perspective” on mortality, sobriety, creativity, mental health, the environment and other issues. “I knew I wanted to write about death. I knew I wanted to write about surfing — that’s another thing that has broadened my perspective in life and really made my life better,” Blythe says. “So death and surfing, which I thought would be a good book title. And I just kinda went from there.”

Just Beyond the Light begins with a chapter devoted to Blythe’s relationship with Wayne Ford, a Lamb of God fan dealing with terminal leukemia who passed away at 33.

“The ultimate fear of every human is our mortality, really,” Blythe explains. “I befriended (Ford) during the last month or two of his life, and the way he handed his mortality was extremely…I hate to use the word inspiring, but it was. I had this honest, open sort of relationship with him when we were talking, and to see this young man handle it with such grace and dignity, it really altered my perspective.

“I’m almost 54 years old now. Mortality is staring me more and more in the face, and it’s something I think about a lot. And it doesn’t freak me out; I view it as something not to be afraid of because it’s going to happen to us all inevitably. But I knew I wanted to write about that.”

Mortality provides a thread throughout the Just Beyond the Light, as does discourses on sobriety, which Blythe achieved more than a decade ago. “I wouldn’t have these perspectives if I wasn’t sober now,” he notes. “I wouldn’t have any perspective, period, because I think I’d be dead by now — to bring it back to mortality. My drinking, it got in the way of everything because I bought into the sort of cultural mythos of the hard drinking, hard drugging, hard partying artist for awhile.

“I didn’t become an author until I got sober. I talked about being a writer. I did all the things that (Charles) Bukowski and (Ernest) Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson did. I drank and partied and womanized, got in a few fights. I did all the things those great writers did — except writing. I was practicing to be a writer I suppose, but when I got sober I was able to become the writer I’m supposed to be.”

In other parts of Just Beyond the Light, Blythe uses a stay at the Chelsea Hotel in New York to ruminate on songwriting and other forms of creativity, while the chapter before laments the epidemic of school shootings in the United States and the lack of effective measures to prevent them. There are plenty of viewpoints in the book that may butt up against social and political sensibilities that have surfaced in the country during the past month, but Blythe (acknowledging that “I’m strapped in, it’s going to be a bumpy ride”) is ready to have those conversations when he begins a 15-date speaking tour to promote the book.

“I’m very much interested in conversations,” he says. “I think that is a problem within our culture now, that lack of dialogue. And for me, I think that dialogue can only effectively occur in a face-to-face setting, because I think that within the confines of the Internet there’s a tendency towards tribalization…and to view others almost as less than human. It’s us and them, and our common humanity is lost and people are just typing slogans at each other — from both the left and the right, as far as I can tell. There’s no discourse, and that’s extremely distressing to me.”

Those appearances will be anything but rote, Blythe promises.

“I’m not gonna be reading; they could just stay home and do that,” he says. “I’m gonna get up there and tell stories from outside the book. I want all the stories to service the main theme of the book, which is perspective. I’ve never done it before, so it’s gonna be an interesting experiment for me. We’ll see what happens.”

Beyond the book, Blythe says Lamb of God — marking its 30th year since he joined the band, then known as Burn the Priest, and independently released its first demo tape — is headed for a “light” year after heavy touring in the wake of 2022’s Omens album. Guitarist Mark Morton also wrote a memoir, Desolation: A Heavy Metal Memoir, for which Blythe provided assistance as well as a cover photo. (“His book is more of a Lamb of God retrospective,” Blythe says, “which I think is cool ’cause I don’t want to write that. I’m glad he did the heavy lifting.”) Blythe also made guest appearances on recent albums by P.O.D. and Lacuna Coil.

The band, meanwhile, will be playing festivals — Inkcarceration in Ohio and Louder Than Life in Kentucky — but Blythe and company are most excited about being on the bill for the Back To The Beginning on July 5 in Birmingham, England, where Ozzy Osbourne and the original lineup of Black Sabbath will play its final show supported by a who’s who of heavy metal and hard rock acts.

“It’s an incredible honor to be asked to do this,” says Blythe, adding that Lamb of God will be performing one of its own songs and one Black Sabbath song, which is already chosen, though he won’t reveal what it is. “Black Sabbath was the first metal band, and we are going to their home town, which is the birthplace of heavy metal, to give them the best send-off we can. And it’s awesome it’s going to charity. I think all the bands are pretty emotional about it. All of us have Black Sabbath’s DNA in our music. They are the tree from which we have all fallen. And this is the last one; Ozzy has Parkinson’s, so it’s not like the endless Kiss farewell tour. This is it. So we want to go and give them the best send-off as possible and just show respect and thank them.”

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The dates for Blythe’s book tour supporting Just Beyond the Light include:Feb. 19 – Philadelphia, Pa, Underground ArtsFeb. 21 – Harrisonburg, Va., The Golden PonyFeb. 23 – Somerville, Mass., Arts at the ArmoryFeb. 25 – Montreal, Quebec, Théâtre FairmountFeb. 26 – Toronto, Ontario, Red Room at The Concert HallFeb. 28 – Lansing, Mich., Grewal Hall at 224March 01 – Joliet, Ill., The ForgeMarch 03 – Nashville, Tenn., The Basement EastMarch 04 – Dallas, Texas Granada TheaterMarch 05 – Austin, Texas, ParishMarch 07 – Denver, Colo., Meow WolfMarch 09 – Seattle, Wash., El CorazonMarch 12 – San Francisco, Calif., The IndependentMarch 13 – Los Angeles, Calif., El Rey TheatreMarch 14 – San Diego, Calif., House of Blues