A return can often be somewhat of a nerve wracking instance, marking their comeback with the release of their brand new album Long Live last September, Atreyu are very much back in the game. Performing at this year’s Download Festival we saw the band bring out the big guns in the form of old material and new bangers at their set. Fortunately we were able to catch up with long time member and guitarist extraordinaire Travis Miguel after the band’s set to speak to the man about Long Live, the band’s return and what the future might hold now.

Listen to the full unedited interview or read the unedited transcript of our chat below.

I have here with me Travis from Atreyu!

Yes!

How are you?

Doing very well!

How was the set?

It was pretty awesome. Very very cool, we were the third band on the stage and there were already thousands and thousands of people out there waiting. So far definite highlight of our tour.

Fantastic! The sound was really spot on! Let’s talk about Long Live, it came out September last year. As I think Alex said why the creative title of Long Live?

Hahaha, I dunno I think we took the better part of four years off and we came back it was just saying granted we did leave but we aren’t going anywhere so Long Live Atreyu, simple as that really!

Is that similar to, well the album artwork has coffins on it is that meant to be a resurrection sort of thing?

Basically, yeah! We took about four years off at that time we definitely needed it because prior to that time we were just writing recording touring. You know wash, rinse repeat and if you do that enough it’s going to get a little old and stale after a while. We all have homes that we never even lived in because we’re always out on the road, so it was just a good time to take a break and live life like everybody else for a while and we came back when we thought the time was right! Definitely helped we have a new appreciation and respect for being in this band, towards each other and towards the audiences we feel extremely blessed to be able to do this and to do it for as long as we have!

Awesome! Do you think that break with outside influences helped the band reignite the fire so to speak?

Yeah I mean it’s kind of like you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Throughout those four years, we’ll definitely for me there were times when I was definitely missing it. That alone sparked the fire again for us.

Was it daunting going back in and actually writing another record after being away for such a long time or was it organic?

Not really I mean it was business as usual for us. We all know each other, other than our immediate families we know each other the best. Actually, I would even say better than our immediate families because we are around each other so much. We kind of just picked up where we left off, there wasn’t any huge game plan so to speak. Let’s get. Together write and see what happens write for ourselves. We didn’t have a label at the time or management so we were just kind of and the end result is the album.

Did you want to have a bit more experimentation? Tracks like “Do You Know Who You Are” and things like that was that premeditated or did it just happen?

It kind of just happened I mean we write in a certain way where it’s not like ok we have X amount of heavy songs, we have to have the single and then the quote inquote power ballad. We just write music that we like, we are all fans of music in general all across the board. It makes it more interesting for us that way and more interesting for the listener too. We’re not one of the band’s that can crank out the same thing and do it really well, I mean there are band’s that can do that and do it really well but for us personally we’re just not that band.

Do you think that being from California, has that influenced maybe your outlook. I know there is this kind of California living vibe. Has that influenced your outlook on how you would play music?

I wouldn’t necessarily just because of the fact that we are from California. I mean us as human beings, we all go through the same shit, ups and downs like anybody. We do take a lot of pride that we are from California, I mean we have pretty much perfect weather all year around.

Unlike here!

This isn’t too bad!

For now…

For now, for now, I heard that yesterday was a nightmare haha! I don’t know if there is a direct visible or audible California connection with us we definitely take pride in being from California.

You’re doing a ten year anniversary of A Deathgrip On Yesterday. What prompted the reason, obviously its the tenth anniversary but what made you decide to actually commemorate it as a record?

That record I mean we are all very proud of. We’re proud of each record and we had never really done any kind of anniversary thing before so we figured that we would try it. It took a little while to dust off some cobwebs because we either haven’t played those songs in ten years or we have never played them live at all. We had a lot of homework to do but it was cool, it was really, really cool! It surprised me, I thought that some of the deeper cuts on that record nobody would really be into but there were a lot of people singing along!

Did it just happen because obviously you have the touring cycle with Long Live as well, are you guys going to bring that back to Europe maybe?

As of right now I have no idea. We’re kind of nearing the end of our touring cycle so we’re pretty much busy up until October and then we will see what happens after that maybe another tour before the end of the year or we might start writing right after that. It’s all kind of up in the air but hopefully sooner than later we will be back!

So what are you going to do for the rest of the summer then?

After we get back from this we have a couple of weeks off and then we head out on the Warped Tour in the states for about two weeks, three weeks and then after that we will be heading down to Australia in October which will be awesome and then after that who knows.

What about you as a musician where do you lie with influences?

Well for me, like I said we are all fans of music across the board we all love like everything from Hot Water Music, Alkaline Trio to Killswitch Engage, Hatebreed, In Flames, Rancid. Me personally I love people like Tom Waits, I love The Smiths, Joe Pass who is a Jazz guitar player. Its weird because when you grow up as a music fan, you kind of revolve your life around music but you never really think that you would do it for a living. Still fourteen, fifteen years later I’m like “Fuck! I’m in England right now playing music, this is awesome!”

Did you ever think about becoming a musician? How did that happen?

I never got that far because I never thought that it would happen. So there was no point in, you know, expecting this whole being a musician for a living thing to happen. I was a realist even at a young age, I was like that’s never going to happen and then it did! Thats why we know that we are very, very lucky to be in the position that we are in. Extremely lucky to be doing this for a living and like I said for as long as we have been doing it. We definitely don’t take it for granted.

What about the name Atreyu, I’m sure you have been asked this ten thousand times.

Ten thousand and one now haha!

Its from a character I think isn’t it?

Yeah, its the main character in The Neverending Story. There’s no real rhyme or reason behind it.

Do you think that you’ve kind of grown into it now though?

I hate the name.

Yeah? Specifically because of idiots like me who ask about it?

No, no you say “I play in a band” then they say “Oh what band?” then you say “Atreyu!” You have to pronounce it for them, then you have spell it for them and you have to go through this whole long process, you know. Whereas if its like Black Sabbath you could just say Black Sabbath. You know exactly what that is but yeah Atreyu is a little weird. I could think of worse names to have but its just kind of an inconvenience.

I think you guys have grown into the name personally! Obviously you would. Was it ever an idea that you wanted to have a commemorative album for actually returning, was that going to be the lyrical idea from the start?

Not necessarily right off the bat. It kind of just turned into that, thats moreso Alex, our singer, his department. I think on the flip side I think it would be kind of weird if we didn’t touch on that lyrically so either way we ended up with an awesome album.

Finally, what has been a record that you have been listening six months to a year something that has really grabbed your attention.

Lets see recently, the new Thrice album was amazing they’re also from Orange County where we are from. They’re one of those bands that whatever they put out I will listen to automatically, they’ve got that status in my book anyway so yeah if anything it would be Thrice.

Atreyu’s new album Long Live is out now via Spinefarm.