It’s been 30 years since Lamb of God formed, as Burn the Priest, in Richmond, Va. And the extreme metal band has been on fire ever since. The quintet has released 11 albums under its two monikers, including 2022’s “Omens.
” This year, however, finds the group looking back a bit; its current tour celebrates the 20th anniversary of its most successful album, “Ashes of the Wake,” while tour mate Mastodon commemorates the same for its 2004 release “Leviathan.” On top of that, guitarist Mark Morton published a revealing autobiography, “Desolation: A Heavy Metal Memoir,” that deals with everything from the music to his drug addictions and the death of his daughter just after she was born in 2009. We caught up with Morton, 51, at home in Virginia, to talk about all of that and more.
.. • Morton says marking the 20th anniversary of “Ashes.
..” was a no brainer for Lamb of God, which was the group’s first gold album.
“It was without question a really pivotal record for the band. That’s where we really started to gain traction and momentum within what I would call a more mainstream metal landscape. So that will always be the record where we catapulted a couple of levels above where we’ had been before.
In the long term I’m grateful to still be here and still have an audience that wants to hear any of my songs or any of my records from 20 years ago or two years ago. That is not something I take for granted, so this 20-year retrospective is just a reminde.