Ex-Atreyu Vocalist Alex Varkatzas Takes Back ‘Metalcore’ Claim: “I Say Stupid Sh** Sometimes”
Sometimes in our lives, we gotta eat some crow. We say some stupid shit, people call us out on it and after doubling down for a while, we eventually (hopefully) admit we said some out of pocket shit and move on. Such a situation happened for ex-Atreyu and current Dead Icarus vocalist Alex Varkatzas, who recently admitted a highly meme’d claim he made back in 2018 was a bit much.
You see, back in 2018 he was still a member of Atreyu and during an interview with Rock Sound, he said something that’s followed him and his former band since:
“This is going to sound a little cocky but I’m a singer in a band. I don’t think we fit into any genre. I think we are hard to pin down. When we first started it was a little easier.”This is going to sound a little cocky but I’m a singer in a band. I don’t think we fit into any genre. I think we are hard to pin down. When we first started it was a little easier.
“We were a metallic hardcore band with singing parts. There wasn’t any else like that when we were doing it. People get confused and say ‘you’re a metalcore band’, but we invented metalcore. That may sound cocky but I don’t care.
“We pre-date Poison The Well and Killswitch Engage and all those bands. I’ve been doing this since I was literally 12 years old.”
The bold type there is our emphasis, because that’s the line. That’s a wild claim, considering there are plenty of bigger bands in that genre that were older than Atreyu when he made that claim.
And ultimately, that’s the claim he’s lived with for the last five years or so. So it was an interesting turn of events when he walked it back during a recent episode of the Talk Toomey Podcast.
“I say stupid shit sometimes. Like I said I invented metalcore once. You can call me out on that if you want, it’s fine.
“My thoughts on it are like, we rode on the backs of other bands that we liked at the same time. There were bands that were coming up doing the same thing. And at that time, I think that screaming and singing together was like kinda that bridge that made it a little different. But no, I mean, I didn’t invent anything. I also didn’t invent chopping the water when you have a new record coming out.
“Like most people I think who know me, know that me saying that ‘I invented metalcore’ is fucking ridiculous. Because I don’t care. Metalcore wasn’t even a coined term when bands like Lamb Of God and all that… They were calling it like the ‘new wave of American heavy metal ‘— ’cause that sounds way cooler, right?
“I’m chopping the water, trying to make business for… You know at the time Atreyu wasn’t exactly killing it. So, you got a new record coming out, you gotta get a little resourceful.”
Now that last part I certainly get. I’m sure plenty of people in bands have said some shit to get headlines and attention in the media. Happens all the time. Now that we’re several years removed from it at this point, Varkatzas said he’s used the backlash and ridicule that came from the statement as a learning situation.
“I learned from that to not try to play the heel, to not be disgenuine to myself, and that’s the major lesson. I kinda deserve whatever lumps or anything anybody wanted to say about it, because it was like a callous thing. But at the same time I think that people that know me, know that that was bullshit. And people who don’t know me are more than happy to throw stones anyway.
“So it’s kinda like it is what it is. I gave some people some ammo for years to come in the bottom of messageboards and stuff. What’s life without a little chopping the water, you know what I mean? I learned from it.”
Aside from his self-reflection, there’s a lot of extra bits of info to find in the full episode, so be sure to check it out down below.
